On the ‘virtus’ of images: medieval practices, contemporary theories, in Dynamis of the Image. Moving Images in a Global World, ed. Emmanuel Alloa et Chiara Cappelletto, Berlin, De Gruyter (Global Art), 2020, p. 15-35. (original) (raw)

A woman and a man come by car to the middle of misty countryside. An elegant citydweller, quite out of place in this environment, the woman rushes through the fields. She tells the man about an extraordinary picture, saying that she cried the first time she saw it (but did she, really?). She enters a small church, quiet and dark, lit only by burning white candles. Not a sound is heard except for the murmur of women in black, praying. She walks up to a wall where she has spotted a niche behind hundreds of lit candles. There lies the object of her desire: Piero della Francesca's fresco of the Madonna of Parturition, the 'Madonna of childbirth', the masterpiece of masterpieces. No sooner has she feasted her eyes on the fresco than a voice from behind her asks her whether she wants to have a child or not. "I am just here to look," she answers, troubled. The sacristan, 'a simple man', tells her that is a pity for she can ask anything she wants, though on one condition: she must kneel before the image. The beautiful woman in heels tries but cannot manage it. Unlike the 'others', she is not a believer. The sacristan detains her, for an interesting scene is about to unfold. A statue of the Virgin, probably Baroque, dressed-up, ornate, and surrounded by candles, is borne by a procession up to the Madonna of Parturition. There, a young woman kneels in front of it and prays for a child. She stretches her arm out towards the belly of the statue. Miracolo! Dozens of tiny birds fly out from Mary's womb (fig. 1). 1 This is the masterful opening sequence of Andrei Tarkovsky's Nostalghia (1983). The Madonna of Parturition is alternately a devotional image and a work of art. It all depends on how one looks at it. The woman says she cried at the sight of the image, yet cannot kneel before it. The question would then be: is the aesthetic relationship to the work of art as intense as the devotional relationship to the image? Can a work of art make us kneel, cry, or accomplish miracles? In short, does it possess a power? Does it inspire worship? Hegel answered this question in the negative: no work of art in a museum could make us kneel, as the elegant woman does in Nostalghia, even if we tried. 2 An entire historiographical tradition, dating back at least to Kant, imbues the work of art with the sole power of sparking a 'disinterested pleasure', in contrast