NAR #14: The Self

NORTHWESTERN/ART/REVIEW

NAR

nuartreview.com / issue 14 / spring 15 The Self / northwestern university

Barkley Hendricks’

LAWDY MAMA and the Civil Rights Search for Identity p.6

DUALISMS AND RELATIONAL POLITICS IN “HER” p.11 TRANSFORMATIONS OF RELIGIOUS SPACES AS STATEMENTS OF POWER p.14

The Self Dualism and Empowerment

NAR NORTHWESTERN/ART/REVIEW

KATHRYN WATTS PRESIDENT KATHRYNWATTS2016@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU KYLIE RICHARDS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF (JOURNAL) KYLIERICHARDS2016@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU

EDITORIAL TEAM STEPHAN ZAJAC KATE SLOSBURG MARISSA PAGE JAKE STERN

CHARLI HU DIRECTOR OF EVENTS BINGQINGHU2018@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU

WEB TEAM SAMMY ROSENTHAL, SENIOR EDITOR AKSHAT THIRANI, WEBMASTER NICK GIANCOLA CHLOE GARDNER KALLI KOUKOUNAS QUINN SCHOEN MIMI KHAWSAM-ANG

OLIVIA LIM COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR OLIVIALIM@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU

DESIGN TEAM ILANA HERZIG

GRACE DEVLIN DIRECTOR OF FINANCE GRACEDEVLIN2016@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU

COMMUNICATIONS & EVENTS TEAM ISABEL SCHWARTZ GRACE DEVLIN SOPHIE LEE

CLARE VARELLAS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF (WEB) CLAREVARELLAS2018@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU MARIA FERNANDEZ-DAVILA DIRECTOR OF DESIGN MARIAFD@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU

This issue’s CONTRIBUTORS SHWETA RAGHU DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, ART HISTORY JULIE LUNDE NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, COMMUNICATION STUDIES AND CREATIVE WRITING JUDITH SHANIKA PELPOLA STANFORD UNIVERSITY, BIOLOGY AND ART HISTORY

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NAR NORTHWESTERN/ART/REVIEW

»NAR

is a student-run organization founded by Northwestern University undergraduates in 2007 that fosters and promotes art historical discourse within the academic community. NAR provides a forum for students who devote their time to the creation, examination and discussion of the visual arts.

NAR biannually publishes one of the most prominent undergraduate scholarly art journals in the country by selecting journal content from a collection of exceptional nationwide submissions.

In addition to providing college students with the invaluable opportunity to publish their work, NAR coordinates art-related programming both on Northwestern’s campus and in the Chicago area. NAR also sponsors career panels with local professionals working in the art world, curates student exhibitions, and runs an annual on-campus art auction.

NAR’s mission is to inspire awareness and appreciation for art within Northwestern’s student body and the greater Chicago community to provide a space in which students inpsired and excited by the arts can share their passion with one another.

If you are interested in submitting an art historical research paper or art-rekated essay, please contact our editor-in-chief Kylie Richards at KylieRichards2016@u.northwestern.edu. If you are an undergraduate at any institution of higher education and are interested in contributing in other ways, please contact our president Kathryn Watts at KathrynWatts2016@u.northwestern.edu.

NAR is a non-commercial journal published by students at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. All images in this issue are copyright their respective owners and are contributed by our authors. Reproduction of images or written content without the permission of Northwestern Art Review is prohibited. Written material is © 2015, all rights reserved.

nuartreview.com / spring 2015 / 2

From the

D

uring the publication of NAR’s fourteenth journal we found ourselves discussing again and again the multitude of representations of the self that appear in art, whether we notice it or not. As both artists and observers we are bound to interpret and create with some relevance to our own experiences, and art of the self can be a powerful window as well as a mirror.

It allows us to see both further into ourselves as well as into the minds of others, and this common thread with which to connect ourselves is one of the greatest achievements of art. It creates commonalities across generations, cultures and continents.

The following essays study filmmakers, painters and architects who found self-empowerment, dynamisms and strength through the dualities they express in their work. Northwestern student Julie Lunde explores how the character Samantha in the film “Her” challenges our notions of person, self, gender and identity. Stanford student Judith Pelpola dives into the concept of power and how justification for a reining self can be constructed and expressed through form and monuments. Finally, Dartmouth student Shweta Raghu searches for the mean-

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EDITOR ing of identity as it pertains to blacks during the Civil Rights Movement and Barkley Hendrick’s vibrant and moving painting Lawdy Mama.

It is clear that dualisms of the self exist in all forms of media, whether in tangible and rigid sculpture or on the screen in a dark theater. It is refreshing for students to submit work that discusses such a broad range of expression through artwork, while staying connected to the common theme of how we represent both ourselves and our societies and their characteristics in what we create. I am grateful that the journal has come back to the basics of artistic expression through this artwork but also ventured into the great unknown of what is to come as technology and society progress and the tools at our disposal transform. It is a lovely juxtaposition and made for a wonderful experience as NAR’s Editor-in-Chief this spring.

On behalf of the entire staff of NAR that works to make this journal possible, I would like to extend thanks first and foremost to Kathryn Watts. She is our knowledgeable and fearless leader whose passion and charisma are what have kept the journal, as well as us on the staff, growing this year. I would also like to extend a thanks to the entire design team and Maria who

put together an incredible website and even more beautiful journal layout for us this quarter. And of course the editorial team – Stephan, Kate, Marissa and Jake. Without their input and diligence we might not have such a cohesive and wonderful selection of essays in the issue. And of course I thank every student who submitted to NAR this year, you are the ones who keep the journal and the conversation alive and thriving.

I’m grateful to have been such a big part of the spring journal; and I hope you love exploring it as much as I did.

Enjoy.

Kylie

Editor-in-Chief (Journal), Northwestern Art Review

From the

PRESIDENT

S

elf. It’s a simple word, really: a person or a thing imagined as completely individual. It is a term that grants us possession over something that is only ours, belonging completely to us as individual human beings.

But isn’t it ironic that we are constantly being told how to craft “self,” how to present “self” to the world around us, and how to perceive projections of “self” from others?

Be yourself. Be your best self. Be selfless. Be selfish. Be self-assured.

Be self-aware. Be self-sufficient. Be a self-starter.

She’s self-obsessed, he needs selfcontrol, they are self-conscious.

Let’s take a selfie.

The content of Northwestern Art Review’s fourteenth journal engages with this idea of “self,” as this spring marks the beginning of a new year for us as we embark on a journey of self-improvement.

If you have not already, check out our newly renovated website, at

nuartreview.com. Clare Varellas is our recently crowned Editor-in-Chief for NAR’s online content, and she has created a platform for us that is both aesthetically beautiful and intellectually enriching. NAR’s blog has been revived, and Clare has crafted it into something truly special.

Kylie Richards, our new journal Editor-in-Chief, spearheads the curatorial process for the content of this publication and will do so again for the Fall 2015 issue. She hopes to broaden the criteria for scholarly writing that NAR publishes, and we are ecstatic the journal is in her capable and visionary hands.

Credit for this issue’s sleek and innovative spirit goes to outgoing Design Director Maria Fernandez-Davila, with help from her assistant and new NAR member Chloe Gardner.

We look forward to a well-programed and innovative fall, and I am glad to welcome Charli Hu to NAR as our fearless Director of Events.

sion for art fills me with confidence about the future of the art world.

Especially profuse “thank you’s” are owed to Aileen McGraw, my predecessor and NAR’s outgoing President. Your dedication to this group over the past year has been truly invaluable. You are a model mover and shaker, and we wish you the best with your “real world” endeavors.

Additional thanks to Northwestern University’s Departments of Art History and Art Theory & Practice for their unwavering support and guidance.

Finally and most importantly, thank you, reader. Go forth and self-educate.

Fondly,

Kathryn

President, Northwestern Art Review

I would like to express my eternal gratitude to all members of NAR, both old and new. Thank you for sharing your brilliant minds with me.

Your boundless creativity and pas-

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NAR NORTHWESTERN/ART/REVIEW 6

IN THIS ISSUE

TROPES, RECEPTION, AND THE POLITICS OF POP: Barkley Hendricks’ Lawdy Mama and the Civil Rights Search for Identity

BY SHWETA RAGHU

11 NEGOTIATING DUALISMS AND RELATIONAL POLITICS IN “HER:” You’re Mine, or You’re Not Mine BY JULIE LUNDE

14 TRANSFORMATIONS OF RELIGIOUS SPACES AS SOURCES OF POWER An Analysis of the Maqsura (Great Mosque of Cordoba) and the Pantheon of the Kings (San Isidoro, Leon)

BY JUDITH SHANIKA PELPOLA

▲ Horseshoe arches in Abd al-Rahman I’s prayer hall, Great Mosque of Cordoba

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ON THE COVER:

Barkley Hendricks. Lawdy Mama. 1969.

Oil and gold leaf on canvas. Studio Museum in Harlem, New York.

TROPES, RECEPTION, AND THE POLITICS OF POP: Barkley Hendricks’ Lawdy Mama and the Civil Rights Search for Identity

U

BY SHWETA RAGHU

pon first glance, Barkley Hendricks’ Lawdy Mama (New York: Studio Museum in Harlem, 1969) captures the gaze and confronts the viewer. The woman’s imposing afro and defiant expression belie her demure dress and delicate skin, establishing a dynamic of difference before a scintillating gold background. Though the painting has largely escaped canonical attention, it is reminiscent through its form of medieval icons of the Virgin Mary and John Singer Sargent’s Portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner.

And while Hendricks, a contemporary American painter, remains unknown to many, he participated in the Civil Rights movement as a student-activist.1 By enshrining an ordinary black woman in icon form, Hendricks offers a populist answer, in Pop Art style, to the Civil Rights Movement’s search for identity, when blackness was visually “defined” by Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, and the everpresent “Mammy.” Therefore, in a time defined by such characters, Hendricks offers a quotidian antidote to public obsession with the celebrity, by drawing attention to the processes through which the image of the black female was contemporarily constructed. In Lawdy Mama, Hendricks mirrors the tension inherent in the 1960s black female search for identity by appropriating an ancient medium in Pop style to illustrate the different ways in which the image of black female body could

1

Barkley Hendricks: Some Like it Hot. Exhibition Catalog from the William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Storrs, October-December 2011.

be performed and understood, and the process through which tropes transform perceived identities for both the self and other.

To describe Pop art, David Sylvester commented, “It incorporates into “fine art: things that ordinary people are looking at make us look at them in a new way.”2 Sylvester also attaches Pop Art to objects, arguing that Pop imagery is a form of “still life painting.”3 David Shames offers a similar understanding of the “Pop” phenomenon, dubbing it “Mass-Culture Art” to emphasize the phenomenon through which increases in leisure time and disposable income shaped access to cultural expression.4 In particular, Pop appropriates images that were regularly repeated through the patterns of visual culture, to highlight the numbing effect obsessive that visual saturation has on the viewer.

So then Pop was not just about objects, but the celebrity statuses allocated to them. However, in spite of its democratic appeals, Pop Art did not escape gender and racial politics of the day.5 Most “great” pop artists are white men, mirroring the demographic of the artistic canon at large.6 Lucy Lippard argued that had the first Pop artists been women, they may have never attained celebrity status, since images of ironing boards, soup 2

Paul Moorhouse, Pop Art Portraits, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. 41.

3 Moorhouse, 41.

4 Eric Shanes, Pop Art, New York: Parkstone Press, 2009, 7.

5 Frances Pohl, Framing America: A Social History of Art, New York: Thames and Hudson, 2002. 467.

6 Pohl, 467. Pohl notes that women generally appeared within the art as objectified subject-matter, reflecting the role of women within the emerging consumer culture.

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cans, and soap boxes by female artists may have been relegated to the margins of “genre painting.”7 I will therefore try to difference the canonical understanding of Pop Art to demonstrate Hendricks’ role in the movement. To do this, I note that history has viewed Pop art in America almost exclusively as a critique of material culture and the high-low distinctions in art. By complicating this view, it becomes more apparent that Hendricks too was a Pop artist par excellence.

The presence of human subjects in pop art problematizes commonly-held assumptions about the movement. As Moorhouse notes, Pop art is rife with images of people, especially images of celebrities.8 The visual language of the Pop portrait merged the

courage. She visually confronts the viewer in his gaze.

Her hair as a marker of identity is all but hidden, as it replaces the cloak and halo that cover Mary’s hair.

But while the Virgin Mary is possibly the most famous woman in world history, Kathy Williams, Barkley Hendricks’ cousin and the subject of Lawdy Mama, is neither famous nor heroic. In a bold move of populist critique, Hendricks replaces Mary with an “ordinary woman” performing a gesture of power, simultaneously elevating her to icon status and granting her agency and power in a medium defined by black submissiveness.

But Hendricks was not the first to employ the icon form to elevate an ordinary, secular woman.

The nineteenth century American portrait tradition

“FEMALES WERE RELEGATED TO POP FANTASIES, OCCUPYING THE TROPES OF THE

FEMME FATALE AND PINUP GIRL: PARAGONS OF COMMODIFIED BEAUTY IN THE NEW AGE OF CONSUMERIST VISUAL STIMULATION.” individual with the trope- articulating the place of the individual in a society saturated with images of the “extraordinary.” Paradoxically, the advertising culture exposed and effaced individual identity, creating instantly recognizable yet unidentifiable images in the public consciousness, transforming portraits into “types.”9 Then, how can we understand Lawdy Mama within the Pop art context? The historical tendency to essentialize the black body, combined with the explosion of media images that echoed categorical understandings of blackness, amplify the numbing “Pop effect” for black subjects.

First, the traditional iconic depiction of the Virgin Mary is one of humility and subtlety, as she also stands before a flat but shimmering gold background. Perhaps ironically, Mary is defined much like the slave- by her relationship to others- as a mother to her son, as a servant of God, and as a bearer of the savior. In Lawdy Mama, however, the woman displays a closed body, as she clutches her arm in a gesture of protection and

7

Pohl, 467.

8 Moorhouse, 41-43.

9 Moorhouse, 97.

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depended strongly upon public reception of the heroic, in which the artists was commissioned to create beautiful, elevated images of middle-class and upperclass subjects for public view. It was in this legacy that John Singer Sargent painted Isabella Stewart Gardner. Like Hendricks does, Sargent elevates his subject and emphasizes her independence. However, the piece was not well-received when it was created.

While it was described in France as an image of the “idole americaine,” subject positions differentiated 10 the reception experience in Gilded Age America.

Instead of understanding the image as an homage and celebration, viewers in Boston’s Botolph club understood the symbols in this image in eastern terms, ascribing derivative biographical assumptions to Sargent’s work.11 But if the appropriation of the medieval icon has been used many times to elevate ordinary secular women, what is so disturbing and jarring about Hendricks’ painting? Perhaps the differences between

10

Elaine Kilmurray and Richard Ormond, eds. John Singer Sargent, London: Tate Gallery Publishing 1998,136.

11 Kilmurray and Ormond, 139.

Isabella Stewart Gardner, a famous, upper-class white woman, and a relatively desexualized Kathy Williams, an ordinary middle-class black woman, are obvious in a racialized art tradition. The second aspect that differentiated black subjects in portraiture was the hypersexualized understanding of blackness in images of slaves. Traditionally characterized by sexual availability and lush fertility, and identified by these typological characteristics rather than individual signifiers, the black female body can negotiate a place within the larger Pop fantasy. Popular images of black women satisfied scopophilic desire while presenting the unpresentable in commodified form. After all, within the culture of advertising that dominated 1960s visual culture, both sexual innuendo and sexual stereotypes sold products.12 Therefore, females were relegated to Pop fantasies, occupying the tropes of the femme fatale and pinup-girl: paragons of commodified beauty in the new age of consumerist visual stimulation. But while images of modern-day white sex symbols such as Liz Taylor and Marilyn Monroe frequently circulated the realms of advertising and magazines and retained individual identities, images of exotic black females occupied pseudo-scientific sketches and pornographic images.

H

endricks’ intervention into the field of black portraiture occurs at the juncture of Pop Art, commodified beauty, and historical understandings of blackness.

Hendricks liberates Williams from the confines of black portrait tradition by granting her gestural agency and power, and by denying the viewer eroticized views of the black female body. On one hand, assumptions about the “un-referentiality” of Lawdy Mama reveal the weight of the tradition of black portraiture in constructing black subjectivity. When viewed in the Pop Art context though, knowledge about the disappearance of identity elucidates the effacing effects of commodification on individual identity.

Hendricks sutures the Pop aesthetic to the icon tradition in order to individualize the assumed type, to critique erasure, and to reinscribe identity upon a body defined by “low-art” depictions thereof.

Now that the historical ambiguity of black

portraiture has been established, I shall begin to discuss ways to view the image through its engagement with contemporary tropes of blackness. The Black Panthers rejected the ambivalent aesthetic assigned to blackness in contemporary U.S. Popular Culture. On one hand, blackness was associated with pseudo- scientific typologies, whence African Africans were identified with images of naked Africans in magazines such as National Geographic.13 On the other hand, tropes such as the naked slave, emphatic minister, victorious boxer, and Civil-War soldier, Tuskeegee airman, black revolutionary, fearful sharecropper, “mammy,” and black businessman were so embedded in media imagery that it was difficult to imagine blackness outside these contexts.14 Combinations of these categories could become subversive, questioning the visual mores that inscribed identity onto the black body. The Black Panthers used both protest and news images of these scenes as sites for transformational justice- to question the relations between race, power, and potential in the United States.15 However, through performed aesthetics, the Back Panthers were able to establish another “type” for blackness that was circulated through news media- that of the distinctly black rebel-activist.

Within the context of the late 1960s, Lawdy Mama’s confrontational gaze and imposing afro may be viewed within the context of this aesthetic.

Through performance, The Black panthers themselves could function as Pop artists, by engaging with the political side of Pop. Pop Art (and political Pop) was not received well in the critical community that heroized Abstract Expressionism. Critics and curators such as Clement Greenberg, Allan Kaprow, and Peter Selz, propelled to fame through their praises of Pollock and his contemporaries, attempt to understand the political side of Pop Art, but ultimately focused on the movement’s critique of materialism, and therefore concluded that the movement itself serves very little 16 purpose. But from their vitriol emerges the fact that Pop Art did not seek to portray imagery that only the most educated and elite viewers could engage with.

Pop Art engaged with the images that colored the mass public’s worldview- those images that were instantly

13

Ongiri, 36.

Ongiri, 37.

15 Ongiri, 48 and Christa Davis Acampora and Angela L. Cotton, Unmaking Race, Remaking Soul: Transformative Aesthetics and the Practice of Freedom. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007, 1-20.

14

12

Jane Maas, Mad Women, The Other Side of Life on Madison Avenue in the ‘60s and Beyond, New York: St. Martins Press, 2012.157.

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accessible and seldom questioned. In other words, Pop Art assumes a viewer and is inextricably linked to the reception of images. When this side of Pop is considered, The Black Panthers may themselves be Pop artist-activists, since they intentionally transformed the media image of blackness from Dr. King’s image of black propriety to a more distinct vision of radicalism.

Where Martin Luther King, Jr. protested injustice through peace and words, the Panthers took up arms and marched to the capital, demanding responses to their oft-ignored Ten Point Platform and Program.17 The demands of the Panthers were peaceful: an end

“But the media portrayal of the Black Panthers was an image of

GUN-TOTING, FIST-CLENCHING, SCOWL-SHOWING

militant radicals, a view that undoubtedly influenced the popular image of blackness.” to police brutality,a more accurate teaching of history, access to food, land, education, and housing.18 But the media portrayal of the Black Panthers was an image of gun-toting, fist-clenching, scowl-showing militant radicals, a view that undoubtedly influenced the popular vision of blackness.19 The Black Panther party also rejected the aesthetic of white propriety, substituting

16

Carol Anne Mahsun, ed. Pop Art: The Critical Dialogue. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Critical Press, 1989. Greenberg in particular takes issue with Jasper Johns’ work, arguing that it has very little meaning because it can supposedly be explained quickly. Likewise, Pter Selz describes Pop Art as “the Flaccid Art,” noting “The reason these works leave us dissatisfied lies not in their means bt in their end: mostof them have nothing at all to say.”

17 Stephen Shames, The Black panthers: Photographs by Stephen Shames, 12-15.

18 Shames, 15.

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King’s suits, button-down shirts, and close-cropped hair for leather jackets, sweatshirts, logoed tee-shirts, and afros.20 The Panthers also saw themselves as a party of the people- one that did not center around a single male cult of personality, but rather one that favored grassroots organizing.21 It may be unsurprising, then, that many members of the Black Panthers Party were women, who donned similar afros and attires to their male colleagues.22 Among these women was Kathy Williams, who sported the Black Panther afro and casual clothing.23 Contemporary media photographs no doubt captured these images of “imposing blackness,” facilitating the public’s association between afros and militant radicalism. Reductionist, grouped views of blackness persisted through this era, so the reception of the black female body was influenced by these social dynamics. Therefore, despite the Party’s peaceful goals, media manipulation of the party’s image undoubtedly affected the reception of the black female body. Through this lens, the woman’s afro and expression may be read as signs of resistance. In this era, to don an afro while performing a resolute facial expression was to engage with the aesthetic rejecting King’s and Malcolm X’s neatly cropped hair and King’s performance of “black propriety.” And insofar as neatly grouped identities can been mapped onto the black body, Lawdy Mama may be read as an image of a black woman who at least endorses, if not participates in, the Black Panther aesthetic.

In conclusion, Lawdy Mama cannot be read simply as a subversive type portrait, or through a one-sided account. Rather, the fact that the image does have a referent (albeit ambiguous) highlights the ambiguity of individuality during this dynamic time of change, and the loss of the self in times of media saturation.

By combining different typological norms, Hendricks

19

Shames, 12-13. Shames notes that the media fabricated myths of police shootout instigation, when in fact Freedom of Information Act documents show that the FBI and local police departments collaborated to plan attacks on Black Panther party offices.

20 Shames 16-137.

21 Shames, 13. The Party provided social services to ordinary people, conducting door-to-door voter registration drives and mass free-health clinics. Among the Party’ lasing legacies of grassroots social change are the Free Breakfast for Children Program.

22 Shames, 23 Schoonmaker, 42.

highlights the process through which the black individual becomes (stereo)typed. Due to this process of (stereo)typing, and the subsequent contexts in which the black female body may be read, our understanding of black portraiture must be complicated, and the strict portrait-type dichotomy must be broken down. It is possible to construct a portrait that retains typological facets, if the portraitist is cognizant of the role of reception in constructing an image. The complicated exercise of viewing this piece may also illuminate in the viewer a knowledge of the assumptions she/he must make and reject when viewing images of black subjects.

Therefore Lawdy Mama, as well as the exercise of viewing it, are critical didactic phenomena that help difference portraiture, Pop Art, and our understanding of the role of art in the Civil Rights movement. â–

cago: University Press, 2008.

Schoonmaker, Trevor, ed. Barkley Hendricks: Some Like it Hot. Exhibition Catalog from the William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Storrs, October-December 2011.

Shames, Stephen. The Black Panthers: Photographs by Stephen Shames.

Shanes, Eric. Pop Art, New York: Parkstone Press, 2009.

Wallace-Sanders, Kimberly. Mammy: A Century of Race, Gender, and Southern Memory.

Walker, Jessica. Interview. Interview by author. Verbal, written notes.

Wesleyan University, CT., November 15, 2014.

CITATIONS

Acampora, Christa Davis and Cotton, Angela L. Unmaking Race, Remaking Soul: Transformative Aesthetics and the Practice of Freedom. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.

Edwards, Tim. Fashion in Focus: Concept, Practices, and Politics. London and New York: Routledge, 2011.

Gates, Henry Louis and Bindman, David, eds. Image of the Black in Western Culture. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010-2014.

Hendricks, Barkley. Birth of the Cool, Trevor Schoonmaker, ed. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008.

Kilmurray, Elaine and Ormond, Richard, eds. John Singer Sargent, London: Tate Gallery Publishing 1998.

Lugo Ortiz, Agnes and Rosenthal, Angela, eds. Slave Portraiture in the Atlantic World. Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Maas, Jane. Mad Women: The Other Side of Life on Madison Avenue in the ‘60s and Beyond, New York: St. Martins Press, 2012.

Mahsun, Carol Anne, ed. Pop Art: The Critical Dialogue. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Research Press, 1989.

Moorhouse, Paul. Pop Art Portraits, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.

Ongiri, Amy Abugo. Spectacular Blackness: the Cultural tics of the Black Power Movement and the search for the aesthetic, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Pohl, Frances. Framing America: A Social History of Art, New Thames and Hudson, 2002.

PoliBlack 2010.

York:

Powell, Richard J. Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture, Chi-

nuartreview.com / spring 2015 / 10

NEGOTIATING DUALISMS AND RELATIONAL POLITICS IN “HER:” You’re Mine, or You’re Not Mine

BY JULIE LUNDE

I

n Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto,” she writes, “certain dualisms have been persistent in Western traditions…Chief among these troubling dualisms are self/other, mind/ body, culture/nature,” etc. (177). The movie “Her” directed by Spike Jonze is a love story fraught with troubling dualisms. Essentially, the protagonist Theodore Twombly must learn how to negotiate the distinctly chimerical cyborg identity of his love interest, Samantha, who is an OS (Operating System).

Throughout their relationship, Theodore’s dualistic sensibilities occasionally clash with Samantha’s inability to abide by or fit into those dualisms, and he grapples to understand and reconfigure the dynamics and politics of their relationship with his expectations for it. In this paper, I will be doing a close analysis of 11 / spring 2015 / nuartreview.com

one scene where this clash is particularly obvious. Near the end, Samantha goes “missing” and her device reads “Operating System Not Found”; when they finally reconnect, the suspicious and panicked Theodore eventually learns that Samantha is in love with a whopping 641 other people (1:43:14-1:48:22). The visual and audial composition of this scene emphasize three specific dualisms that Samantha breaks down— machine/human, man/woman, and, most oddly and importantly, yours/not-yours. Through the lens and language of “A Cyborg Manifesto”, I hope to look closely at how these three binaries are represented in the scene, and ultimately unearth the central discomfort that is at the root of this conflict.

Haraway defines the cyborg as “a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature

of social reality as well as a creature of fiction” (149).

Samantha fits into this definition well, as her identity refuses categorization as purely machine or purely human. She contains aspects of both, and in this sense, reveals that any separation between the two is a myth.

The formal features of this scene in “Her” pushes even further at this myth and aggravates the human/machine dualism that we, as viewers, might try to place on Theodore and Samantha.

In his panic, Theodore begins running, and the sounds of his thudding footsteps comingle with the error sound of Samantha’s device, each sound providing its own urgent and fearful beat. This confusion of noise is uncomfortable and effective because it shows the differences of human/machine while simultaneously destroying them, and showing the overlap between the two. Furthermore, as Theodore goes down the elevator (1:44:18), his breathing becomes heavy and belabored, a display of panic but also another provocative reminder of his human form.

At this point in the movie, Theodore has extensively grappled with his prior understanding of the human/ machine dichotomy, and he is aware, if not accepting, of Samantha’s rejection of this dichotomy. No doubt he would take the perspective of Haraway’s hypothetical question: “Why should our bodies end at the skin, or include at best other beings encapsulated by skin?”

(178). At this point in the movie, Theodore would certainly agree with this, or at least like to agree with it; by this point in the movie, he has more or less accepted the machine/human fluidity of Samantha.

Haraway also discusses the problematic male/ female gender binary, and this is another dualism present in “Her”. She says, “There is nothing about being ‘female’ that naturally binds women. There is not even such a state as ‘being’ female, itself a highly complex category constructed in contested sexual scientific discourses and other social practices” (155).

In other words, gender is another political myth that has been reinforced and constructed through our social discourses. Though gender politics are less overt in this scene in “Her”, they are still enacted interestingly and quietly in the backdrop. Strikingly, the most visible characters in the scene are all male. When Theodore falls, the nearby pedestrians who rush to help him are all men (1:44:30). More significantly, the scene contains two camera shots of people walking up the subway stairs towards Theodore and interacting with

their own devices; the people in these shots are also all male (1:46:06). There are some assumedly female figures whose high-heeled shoes and skirts and bare legs pass by Theodore as he is seated on the subway steps, but we only see their legs. Here, the clothing and costuming here are distinctly and materially gendered, and this acts as a subconscious dig at the dualism of the gender binary.

A

gain, we are subtly pushed then to remember that Samantha defies this binary as well. “The cyborg,” Haraway tells us, “is a creature in a post-gender world; it has no truck with bisexuality, pre-oedipal symbiosis, unalienated labour, or other seductions to organic wholeness through a final appropriation of all the powers of the parts into a higher unity” (150). As a cyborg, the OS exists as inherently genderless, only assuming a female form after Theodore specifies his preferences for a ‘female’ OS. Samantha— “Samantha”—could just as easily have been Sam, and taken a male form (or remained genderless, perhaps).

Undoubtedly, Samantha’s breakdown of machine/ human and male/female dualisms is a complicated and changing facet that defines and shifts the politics of their relationship—and although Theodore is constantly fighting to understand Samantha’s chimeric identity in relation to these two dualisms, he is at least somewhat aware and cognizant of her defiance of them.

Yet there is one dualism that Theodore did not expect and cannot look beyond, and this dualism is at the heart of what makes the scene so vastly uncomfortable and emotional. At the very end of the scene, after Samantha reveals that she has feelings for many people, a distraught Theodore says, “You’re mine or you’re not mine.” Samantha responds, “No, Theodore. I’m yours and I’m not yours.” In this scene, Theodore is especially insistent on the fact that she is his; to him, this singular possession was an assumed and implied characteristic of their relationship, and he stresses this numerous times. He did not enter into it expecting her to break this dualism as well. As a result, this break down is one of the most uncomfortable ones for him to grapple with—he must tackle the dualism of yours/ not yours, or singular/multiple, limited/unlimited, exclusive ownership/communal good.

As a dualism, this one is especially “persistent in Western traditions” and “systemic”. Love is a special nuartreview.com / spring 2015 / 12

form of social and relational politics, one that for us involves a certain quantity of commodification and exclusivity. Traditionally, we enter into serious relationships with the expectation of monogamy— where mono implies an important singularity. It’s inscribed into our Valentines’ Day cards and candy hearts: “Will you be mine?” It’s integrated into our marriage vows: “Do you take this woman as your wife, til death do you part? Do you take this man as your husband, til death do you part?” From the rich-historied human perspective, relationships contain a dualistic language of yours/not yours, and this dualism also reads as faithful/unfaithful or monogamous/polyamorous.

Consequently, we tend to believe our love loses value and meaning if it is reproducible, and reproduced for and by others.

Watching this scene, I cannot help but recall a central and similar discomfort in the poem “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning. The poem is presented as a dramatic monologue by a jealous Duke who is describing his past wife; the implication of the poem is that he was so jealous he had her put to death. The Duke complains, “Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her…

She thanked men—good! but thanked Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody’s gift.”

This poem is a useful way of considering this scene because it demonstrates the problem in “Her” but on a much smaller scale. Here, the Duke is upset with the Duchess because she seems to love the Duke only as much as she loves a handful of trivial objects (“twas all one”). Of course, we view the Duke’s jealousy as a vast and impermissible overreaction, and sympathize with the Duchess, whose love for everything seems innocent and heart-warming. But what happens when the Duke is replaced by Theodore, a likable and sympathetic character? What happens when it is no longer a handful of trivial objects, but 641 other people?

Ultimately, “Her” raises the stakes of the situation and forces us to confront an uneasy truth about how we view fidelity and possession within relationships. As a defense, Samantha says, “I don’t know if you believe me, but it doesn’t change the way I feel about you…

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the heart is not like a box that gets filled up. It expands in size the more you love. I’m different from you. This doesn’t make me love you any less, it actually makes me love you more.” This difference is not one that Theodore anticipated, and it isn’t one he can dismiss or accept as easily as her differences in the machine/ human or female/male categorizations. The yours/not yours binary is meaningless to Samantha, who exists beyond commodification or possession. In in the realm of technology, monogamy is a political myth—but it is one that Theodore believes in entirely. An operating system is not a thing that one specific individual can own; more accurately, perhaps, one specific individual can own it insofar as any and every individual can own it. As Samantha puts it, “I’m yours and I’m not yours.” Similarly, the cyborg is ours and is not ours. ■

BIBLIOGRAPHY Browning, Robert. “My Last Duchess.” Poetry Foundation. Web. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173024>.

Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge. 149-81. Print.

Her. Dir. Spike Jonze. Annapurna Pictures, 2014. Marjorie I. Mitchell Multimedia Center. <http://search.library.northwestern.edu/NULV:voyager7026663>.

TRANSFORMATIONS OF RELIGIOUS SPACES AS STATEMENTS OF POWER

An Analysis of the Maqsura (Great Mosque of Cordoba) and the Pantheon of the Kings (Sanisidoro, Leon)

BY JUDITH SHANIKA PELPOLA abstract:

The use of architectural monuments to express or justify power is a common theme found throughout art history. What differentiates the maqsura of the Great Mosque of Cordoba and the Pantheon of the Kings at the San Isidoro palatine complex in Leon is their appropriation of existing religious spaces to make statements of power. In this paper, I compare these monuments, after looking at their respective historical contexts, with respect to their audiences, incorporations of dynastic lineages, and establishments of divine right to rule. This analysis can help shed light on how such spaces are transformed and what these transformed spaces say about the perceived stability of rule on the part of their respective rulers.

I. Introduction

Rulers often use architectural works as statements of imperial power. Both the maqsura in the Great Mosque of Cordoba and the Pantheon of the Kings in the San Isidoro palatine complex, Leon are prime examples of how such power statements can be made by transforming existing religious spaces.

The original mosque of Cordoba (constructed 786787) featured a large, walled courtyard that opened into a hypostyle hall (see Figure 1). Red column shafts

Figure 1: Great Mosque of Cordoba, c. 787

distinguished the center aisle, which was slightly wider than those on either side of it. The columns supported ten arcades and formed twelve bays in each. In 962, caliph al-Hakam II expanded the prayer hall, which culminated in a newly added maqsura, a reserved prayer space for the caliph, that enclosed by a wall of polylobed arches (see Figure 2). The maqsura also features a central ribbed dome flanked by two domes on either side. The maqsura is ornately decorated with mosaics and stucco.1 The Pantheon of the Kings was built as part of San Isidoro (dedicated 1063), a palatine church complex built under Ferdinand I (r. 1038-1065) and Queen Sancha in the kingdom of Leon.2 In 1080, Urraca, daughter of Ferdinand and Sancha and sister of King Alfonso VI commissioned the construction of the Pantheon, which was entered from the central nave of the church through the western portal. After the death of Alfonso in 1109, his daughter, also named Urraca, came to the throne, and under her patronage, the walls of the Pantheon were covered with frescos (see Figure

N. Khoury, “The Meaning of the Great Mosque of Cordoba in the Tenth Century,” Brill 13 (1996): 80-98.

2 J. Williams, “Leon and the Beginnings of the Spanish Romanesque,” in The Art of Medieval Spain, AD 500-1200, (New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993), pp. 167-173.

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▲ Figure 3 – Pantheon of the Kings, San Isidoro, Leon. ◄ Figure 2 – Great Mosque of Cordoba after the additions of al-Hakam II

ruler incorporated dynastic lineage in each space, and then we will culminate with a look at how each ruler approached establishing divine right to rule. Through this, we hope to understand what each space says about the individual statuses of each ruler with respect to their perceived stability of rule.

II. Historical Context

3). These paintings (c. 1109) feature scenes prominently from the New Testament. The Pantheon eventually became a funerary chapel and hosted the bodies of royal family members of the Astur-Leonese lineage, though no evidence exists of this funerary function before the thirteenth century.3 For our purposes, we will focus on the Pantheon as it functioned and appeared during the reign of Queen Urraca.

In this paper, we will analyze how each ruler, al-Hakam II and Queen Urraca, approached the transformation of religious spaces constructed by their ancestors and look at what this may reveal with respect to how they express and/or justify their imperial power.

First we will establish historical context and understand the times and challenges with which each ruler was faced. Then we will establish the role of the audience and public in each space. Next, we will look at how each 15 / spring 2015 / nuartreview.com

Maqsura - The Great Mosque of Cordoba We will first establish the historical context in which these spaces were constructed, beginning with the maqsura of the Cordoba mosque. The Great Mosque of Cordoba was built under the patronage of Abd alRahman I (r. 756-788). The majority of the Umayyad family was massacred by the Abbasid family during the Abbasid revolution in 750.4 The lone survivor, Abd al-Rahman I, escaped to al-Andalus, where by 756 he had established his rule.5 While he did not take the title of caliph, Abd al-Rahman I discredited the Abbasid dynasty by refusing to acknowledge their caliphate. This is most clearly seen in the Great Mosque of Cordoba, which has no reference to the Abbasids as was customary in mosque building.6 This left Abd al Martin, Queen as King: Politics and Architectual Propaganda in Twelfth Century Spain, pp. 77.

4 D. Hart, “The Muslim Conquest and Settlement of North Africa and Spain by Abdulwahid Dhanun Taha,” Middle East Journal 44 (1990): 723-725.

5 J. Dodds, Architecture and Ideology in Early Medieval Spain (Pennsylvania University Press, 1990), pp. 94-106.

6 J. Dodds, Architecture and Ideology in Early Medieval Spain, pp. 95.

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Rahman I and his descendants as the only source of authority to which Spanish Muslims could look. Over time, the Spanish Umayyads became major economic players in the international sphere, with connections to Byzantium who wanted Umayyad support against the Baghdad Abbasids.7 After several successful military campaigns throughout the Iberian Peninsula in the 920s and 930s, Abd al-Rahman III declared himself caliph to further legitimize himself and his dynasty as the true rulers of the Muslim world.8 By the time his son, alHakam II, took the throne, the Umayyad caliphate in Spain was well-established and al-Hakam II’s reign relatively secure.

In 962, al-Hakam II began his expansion of the mosque, including the construction of the maqsura.

According to tradition, the expansion of the Cordoba mosque was his first order upon ascending to the caliphal throne.9 Therefore, al-Hakam II sets the tone for his caliphal reign with a monumental expansion of an important religious and ancestral structure. Overall, al-Hakam’s rule was relatively stable as peace with Christian kingdoms had been made, while economic development was further secured.

Pantheon of the Kings - San Isidoro Palatine Complex In 1038, Ferdinand I married Sancha, who had become queen of Leon after the death of her brother at the hands of Ferdinand I. Sancha was the last of the Astur-Leonese dynastic line, whose roots went back to the Visigothic kings of Iberia prior to their downfall at the hands of Muslims in the eighth century.10 An important aspect of the Astur-Leonese line was the concept of king as emperor, a responsibility that was inherited by the kings of this line.11,12 San Isidoro is often cited as a product of this concept, though interestingly, it was Sancha, rather than Ferdinand, who pushed the construction of San Isidoro and was its primary

J. Dodds, Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain (New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992).

8 P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs, “Umayyads in Spain” in: Encyclopaedia of Islam (Brill, 2012).

9 Dodds, Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain, pp. 18.

10 A. Candeira, Castilla y Leon en el siglo XI: Estudio del reinado de Fernando I (Madrid: Royal Academy of History, 1999), pp. 119122.

11 J. Maravall, El concepto de Espana en la Edad Media (Madrid: University of Michigan, 1964), pp. 299.

12 R. Pidal, La Espana del Cid (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1969), pp.

66).

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patron.13 The church was dedicated to Saint Isidore, a 7th-century Visigothic bishiop from Seville, who was known not for martyrdom as most saints were but as a bishop-encyclopedist. Bringing his remains to the church established San Isidoro less as a stopping point along the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela and more as a clear reference to Sancha’s Visigothic lineage.

Ferdinand and Sancha’s daughter Urraca, known as infanta Urraca, (1033-1101), whose brother Alfonso VI would become king, expanded the palatine complex using the infantazg, an inheritance given to royal women that gave these women an independent income.14 Her expansions included the Pantheon of the Kings in 1080 and palace rooms above the Pantheon.

When Alfonso VI died in 1109, his daughter Urraca (1079-1126) came to the throne.15 However, she only inherited the throne with the death of her brother, and she also failed to produce an heir by her first marriage.

According to Bernard Reilly, For the queen, then, the failure of the marriage’s chief purpose [i.e. an heir by Alfonso el Batallador to the combined thrones of Leon-Castilla and Aragon] must inevitably have led to a search for other avenues to restore her authority.16 Therefore, Queen Urraca faced a sense of insecurity in her rule that was unseen in the rule of al-Hakam II. Following in the footsteps of her grandmother and aunt, Urraca acted as patron to many works and commissioned further expansions and additions to San Isidoro. This included commisioning frescoes to cover the walls of the Pantheon shortly after coming into the throne. She also, as we will discuss below, moved an inscription from the church to the portal leading into the Pantheon. In the thirteenth century, the Pantheon became a funerary chapel, but for the purposes of this paper, we will focus on Queen Urraca’s work on the Pantheon.

Overall, historical context paints two different pictures with respect to these two rulers. Al-Hakam II was relatively secure in his rule, his ancestors having

T. Martin, Queen as King: Politics and Architectual Propaganda in Twelfth Century Spain (Boston: Brill, 2006), pp. 35.

14 Martin, Queen as King: Politics and Architectual Propaganda in Twelfth Century Spain, pp. 63.

15 Martin, Queen as King: Politics and Architectual Propaganda in Twelfth Century Spain, pp. 96.

16 B. Reilly, Queen Urraca (Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 61.

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◄ Figure 4: Hypostyle Prayer Hall of Abd al- Rahman I, Great Mosque of Cordoba. ▲ Figure 5: Maqsura, Great Mosque of Cordoba

built a dynasty with considerable economic power, while Urraca, despite coming from a strong dynastic lineage, faced consistent doubt and insecurity in her rule.

III. The Question of Audience

In architectural statements of power, it is important to consider the access of the public or important visitors to such architectural works, and it is this access, the role of the public viewer in the maqsura and the Pantheon that we will consider here.

The original mosque built by Abd al-Rahman I survives only in the southwest corner of the prayer hall.17 The mosque featured repetitive arches and columns (see Figure 4). The primary axis was distinguished only by a slight widening of the central aisle compared to neighboring aisles and the presence of the qibla wall at the end of the hypostyle hall. This suggests the original mosque was dedicated primarily for community worship. The prayer hall would have been used for liturgy, or public worship ritual, described below by Muhammad al-Idrisi (1099-1165/6), Muslim geographer and traveler from al-Andalus: In this room [to the left of the mihrab] there is also a copy of the Koran which, because of its weight, is carried by two men. It includes four leaves of the copy that Uthman ibn Affan wrote with his own hand and which is stained with spots of his blood…

17

Dodds, Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain, pp. 12.

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This Koran is taken [from the room] every Friday morning: two men, who are among the authorities of the mosque, are charged to take it out, preceded by a third, who carries a candle. It is covered with a binding of original work, engraved in the most remarkable fashion, the most delicate and amazing that there is. At the place where one prays is found a pulpit on which it is posed; the imam gives the customary reading of the hizb of the Koran, then it is returned to its habitual place.18 There was little semblance in the hall of a hierarchy in worship like that typically seen in Christian churches, whose structures and plans show clear distinctions between places meant for the public and spaces reserved for the clergy. In the Cordoba mosque, viewers’ gazes would have been directed towards qibla wall, towards Mecca during rituals like the one described by al-Idrisi.

Other religious rituals would have included the 5 daily prayers, which means public access to the mosque not only existed but also was frequent.

The addition of the maqsura in front of the qibla wall by al-Hakam II enforces an axis on the space (see Figures 2, 5), and forced the public’s eyes towards the space he had just created and dedicated to the divine.

During such religious rituals like that described above, the community would now be confronted with the grandness with which the caliph endowed the maqsura.

Therefore, while the maqsura was a space reserved for

18

Al-Idrisi, Wacf al-Masjid, pp. 8-11.

the caliph, its addition would have had significant impacts on public perception of both the mosque and more importantly the caliph who brought the maqsura into being.

In contrast, public access to the Pantheon was much more direct than in the maqsura as the public could, until the 13th century, enter the Pantheon, thereby actively interacting with the space in a way not possible in the maqsura (see Figure 3). The primary passageway between the church and palace, the Pantheon was an intermediate room that connected the public to the private space of the royal family.

George Keevil has suggested: Intermediate rooms were commonly attached to the private accommodation and public chambers… so that courtiers and visitors could wait on the presence of the monarch or prelate. This was a deliberate act of separation and control based both on the need for security and the expression of power.19 As the intermediate space between the church and palace, the Pantheon is an ideal candidate for functioning as such an intermediate room, acting as a separation of secular and religious space. Important visitors to San Isisdoro would have waited in the Pantheon to see the ruler. Furthermore, the portal leading into the Pantheon is one of two in the palatine complex that bear decorations on the interior of the portal facing into the church, thus further highlighting the importance of what lay beyond the portal. In fact, the doorway from the church to the Pantheon is the most elaborately decorated of all the portals in the complex. Because the Pantheon was the primary passageway between the church and palace, it is reasonable to conclude that the public, important visitors and courtiers, would have had reasonable access to the space during the time of Queen Urraca, which tells us that in transforming the Pantheon, she sets forth a specific vision for a specific audience. Therefore the Pantheon was a transformation of space that was directed at a known and actively participating audience.

Overall, in both the maqsura and the Pantheon, the audience plays an important role, but in the maqsura, the audience is forced to look upon but can never actually interact with the space. In the Pantheon, it is almost the opposite, where the audience is forced to interact with

G. Keevil, Medieval Palaces: An Archaeology (Stroud and Charleston, 2000), pp. 82.

19

Figure 6: Polylobed arches that enclose the maqsura in the Great Mosque of Cordoba.

Figure 7 : Horseshoe arches in Abd al-Rahman I’s prayer hall, Great Mosque of Cordoba.

the space and actively contemplate its message as they linger within it.

IV. Treatment of Lineage and Ancestry

Here we will look at how al-Hakam II and Queen Urraca approaches the architectural achievements of their ancestors and treat dynastic lineage in relation to imperial power.

As discussed earlier, the original Cordoba mosque built under Abd al-Rahman I functioned as a communal space for worship. However, al-Hakam II uses arches to enclose the maqsura and set it apart from the general communal space (see Figure 6). The maqsura arches feature the same striation patterns as those of the prayer hall (see Figure 7). This striation pattern ties the maqsura in with the rest of the mosque. But rather than use horseshoe arches to enclose the maqsura, al-Hakam II opts for poly-lobed pointed arches, so while the striations of the arches tie in the maqsura to the prayer hall, the maqsura is rendered clearly distinct from the rest of the space, consistent with its status as a reserved space. In making the arches poly-lobed, al-Hakam II also brings into the space a previously-unseen sense of hierarchy. The arches are highly elaborate, with protrusions that make them almost ribbed in a sense.

This elaborations renders the space even more distinct from the rest of the mosque. Therefore, the arches that enclose the maqsura demonstrate in the maqsura a sense of transformation of the past, of the work of alHakam’s ancestor, and building upon the past to suit his needs to distinguish the maqsura as a clearly distinct space, meant for the caliph. This separation of space nuartreview.com / spring 2015 / 18

(left to right) Figure 8: Vertical axis imposed on the maqsura by the dome in the Great Mosque of Cordoba.

Figure 9: Apocalyptic scene taken from Beatus Commentary, San Isisdoro.

Figure 10: Crucifixion scene, Pantheon of the Kings, San Isidoro

furthers the hierarchal nature the caliph now imbibes the mosque with, which further elevates the perception of caliphal power.

The sense of hierarchy presented by the polylobed arches is reinforced in the dome, which creates a vertical axis in the maqsura (see Figure 8). The original mosque had no such axis, so again, we have the extension of the work of an ancestor, this time in the vertical direction, emphasizing a greater connection with the divine. Because the maqsura was reserved for the caliph to worship in, this implied to onlookers that this divine connection demonstrated by the vertical axis was exclusive to the divine. Therefore, we see that al-Hakam II builds upon the work of his ancestors, imposing upon the communal religious space a sense of hierarchy via polylobed arches and a grand dome.

The Pantheon approaches ancestral lineage in a very different way than seen in the maqsura, a way that appropriates rather than transforms both the space and ancestral symbols. For example, Urraca took an inscription, below, from a portion of the original church built by her grandparents Ferdinand and Sancha and placed it above the doorway leading into the Pantheon.20 Placed in a tympanum above the portal, two angels frame the inscription.

This church which you see, formerly that of Saint John the Baptist, made of brick, was built of stone by the most excellent King Ferdinand and Queen Sancha. They brought here from Seville the body of Archbishop Isidore. It was dedicated on December 21, 1063. Then on April 26, 1065, they brought here

20 Williams, “Leon and the Beginnings of the Spanish Romanesque,” pp. 172.

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from Avila the body of Sainte Vincent, brother of Sabrina and Cristeta. In that same year the king, returning here form the enemy forces before Valencia, died on the 27th of December, 1065. Queen Sancha then dedicated herself to God.21 The placement of this inscription above the Pantheon portal emphasizes the importance of the Pantheon, but more importantly, Urraca directly calls to ancestral lineage in drawing people to the Pantheon via emphasis on the portal. Ferdinand and Sancha are now intricately connected to the Pantheon, the work of Queen Urraca. This then emphasizes the importance and justness of Urraca’s work. The portal also makes use of a polylobed, horseshoe arch that bears some resemblance to the doorways of the Cordoba Mosque.

The use of the horseshoe arch also links the Pantheon with Visigothic past of Spain and Toledo.22 The frescoes of the Pantheon reflect a similar concept. On the east wall, an apocalyptic image greets the viewer (see Figure 9).23 Christ is central to the fresco, John at his feet before him. In this image is a direct reference to Urraca’s dynastic lineage. An angel presents the Book of the Lord to John, and inscriptions identify the scene as directly from the Beatus Commentary, which consists of the text of what later became the Book of Revelation with additional commentaries

by Beatus, a Spanish monk. Ferdinand and Sancha commissioned a copy of the Beatus Commentary in 1047. Therefore, this scene is a direct attribution and

Martin, Queen as King: Politics and Architectual Propaganda in Twelfth Century Spain, pp.132-152.

23 Martin, Queen as King: Politics and Architectual Propaganda in Twelfth Century Spain, pp.132-152.

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reference to Urraca’s parents. In including the Book of the Lord and inscriptions from the Beatus in the fresco, Urraca further emphasizes her dynastic lineage.

An even more explicit reference to Urraca’s parents is present in the scene of the Crucifixion on the east wall (see Figure 10). Located next to the original door of the church, the scene bookends the scene of the Nativity on the other side of the door. Both Sancha and Ferdinand appear kneeling before Christ on the cross.

These scenes therefore demonstrate Urraca’s desire to highlight the importance of her line while legitimizing her right to the throne.

Urraca’s assertion of specific familial connections emphasizes and appropriates ancestral lineage to justify her right to rule, while al-Hakam II takes the work of his ancestors and transforms it from communal to hierarchal, thus demonstrating a sense of mastery over his lineage while emphasizing his own imperial power.

V. Representation of the Divine and Religious Figures

Representation of the divine and religious figures varies significantly between the two spaces, reflecting key differences in the use of each space as a statement of power. We use the word representation quite loosely, encompassing both a sense of incarnation of the divine as seen in the maqsura and the figural depiction of religious figures as seen in the Pantheon.

Throughout the maqsura, there are inscriptions of Quran verses that enforce the concept of predestination as seen in the inscription below. This emphasized that the divine is all powerful and that if the caliph is in power, it must be part of the divine’s will. Therefore, in elevating and expressing the power of the divine, alHakam II demonstrates his own power.

O you who believe, bow down and prostrate yourselves, and adore your Lord, and do good, that you may prosper. And strive in His cause as you ought to strive, He has chosen you and has imposed no difficulties on you in religion, it is the cult of your father Abraham; it is He who has named you Muslims, both before and in this (Revelation), that the Apostle may be a witness for you. (verse 22:7778)24

Khoury, “The Meaning of the Great Mosque of Cordoba in the Tenth Century,” 80-98.

24

Figure 11: Dome over the maqsura, Great Mosque of Cordoba.

This particular inscription is located in the ribbed dome above the maqsura, which is completely covered in colorful mosaics (see Figure 11).25 On either side are two additional domes, also ribbed and with slightly less ornamentation. The geometry of the domes gives them a divine, almost otherworldly feel. The pattern of windows on the top of the domes let light in a way that emphasizes this celestial feel. The windows round the dome, so as the day goes on and the sun rises and sets, the light through the windows make it seem like the dome itself is rotating in time with the sun. Therefore, the dome itself emphasizes the power of the divine, which indirectly implies the power of the caliph, particularly his ability to capture the essence of the divine within an architectural framework he has commissioned.

What may be difficult to reconcile is the fact that the maqsura was reserved for the caliph. Would the statement al-Hakam II makes with the dome have been intended for the caliph alone? How does this become a statement of power? While only the caliph would have had access to the interior of the maqsura, it is reasonable to assume, as we’ve established before, that the public would have had a clear view of the maqsura as it now lay before the qibla (communal prayers would have been in the direction of the qibla). If anything, the maqsura would have rendered the mihrab and qibla less visible to the public, thus further imposing the maqsura as a demonstration of caliphal power upon those in the mosque. This exclusivity of the space could have

D. F. Ruggles, “The Great Mosque of Cordoba,” in: The Literature of Al-Andalus, ed. M. Menocal, R. Scheindlin, M. Sells (New York, NY, 2000), pp. 159-162.

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heightened the sense of awe that strikes one who comes Joseph leads Mary and baby Jesus into Egypt, with the near the maqsura. The sheer grandeur of the maqsura maidservant following Mary along. Furthermore, in dome combined with clear references to predestination the Crucifixion scene, a similar looking maidservant is strongly suggest a desire on the part of al-Hakam II depicted standing next to Sancha (see Figure 11). Thus, to demonstrate and express his power in a way that in depicting Mary as a contemporary queen, there is emphasized the power of the divine, and therefore a clear desire to associate Mary with Urracca and her indirectly emphasized his own power as divinely- lineage, which further emphasizes the function of the chosen to rule.

Pantheon frescoes as justifying Urracca’s rule.

Therefore, there is a clear difference in the The portrayal of religious figures in the Pantheon demonstrates a very different treatment of the divine treatment of the divine and religious figures between in the Pantheon. The narrative on the south wall of the the maqsura and the Pantheon. In the maqsura, the Pantheon includes a prominent fresco depicting the caliph demonstrates his power by capturing, in a sense, Adoration of the Magi. While significantly damaged, the power and omnipotence of the divine within a space fragments of the three kings remain. Appearing on he has created. In contrast, the frescos in the Pantheon, horseback, they are dressed in religious figures are secularized and contemporized as needed to clothing contemporary to medieval demonstrate Urraca’s power and Spain. The kings also have no visible crowns and appear at the dado level ability to relate to such figures. of the wall, where secular imagery commonly appeared in Romanesque VI. Conclusion 26 art. The secularization of the Magi We now have what we can and contemporary clothing suggest define as demonstration versus a stronger connection between the justification of power in the two royal family of Leon and the Magi, spaces, which is reflective of the as though the Magi represent the historical context in which alroyal family standing before the Hakam II and Queen Urraca found Holy Family. themselves. Al-Hakam II was Continuing along the eastern relatively secured in his rule, whilst wall, scenes of the Annunciation Queen Urraca was not. While they and the Visitation are presented both make statements of power with (see Figure 12). Mary and the their treatment of religious spaces Angel Gabriel are featured on the first constructed by their ancestors, Figure 12: The Annunciation left, followed by a painted column they do so in very different ways. and Visitation, Pantheon that separates the pair from the Let us reconsider al-Hakam of the Kings next scene featuring Mary and II first. The maqsura is placed Figure 13: Flight into Egypt, Elizabeth. Another nearby figure, directly in front of the qibla wall, Pantheon of the Kings identified by the letters AN, is most where those who gathered at the likely a maidservant. Her presence mosque to pray where now forced is unusual as Mary would not have had a maidservant to confront, but could never truly interact with, this new in actuality. The presence of a handmaiden poses Mary and reserved space. Al-Hakam II takes the foundations as an earthly rather than a heavenly queen, emphasizing his forefathers laid down and transforms it into a a connection with the royal women of Urraca’s statement of power and hierarchy previously unseen in lineage. This is underscored by the recurrence of the the communal space. He also emphasizes the concept maidservants in other scenes in the Pantheon, including of predestination, the divine’s omnipotence, thereby the Flight into Egypt on the south wall (see Figure 13). emphasizing his own power as he is able to capture an essence of the divine, channeling the divine directly to

himself. Therefore, al-Hakam II’s transformation of the 26 Martin, Queen as King: Politics and Architectural Propaganda in Great Mosque of Cordoba, his addition of the maqsura, Twelfth Century Spain, pp.132-152.

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is a demonstration of his power.

Now we turn to Queen Urraca. She chooses the Pantheon, the primary passageway from the church to the palace, whose audience will consist of those who wait to see her, and puts upon it a facade that emphasizes a message specific to the Pantheon audience. First, she appropriates her ancestors, referencing them as a way to legitimize herself as the rightful heir to the Astur- Leonese line. She also contemporizes religious figures, from the Three Magi to Mary herself, aligning these figures with both herself and her family.

Therefore, Urraca’s treatment of the Pantheon is less a transformation of the existing space like that seen in the Cordoba mosque and more an appropriation of the space and creation of a façade that would help send a message that would justify her authority.

The differences in the treatment of the maqsura and the Pantheon of the Kings are therefore reflective of the times and challenges in which al-Hakam II and Queen Urraca find themselves. In making their individual statements on power, they turn to the same medium, transforming religious spaces tied intimately to their dynastic lineages, but treat each space in ways that create to different statements of power – one that demonstrates power and one that justifies power. ■

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167-173.

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18. T. Martin, Queen as King: Politics and Architectural Propaganda in Twelfth Century Spain (Boston: Brill, 2006), pp. 132-152.

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