IVTHE IRIS
Theonly rival to thelilium candidumas the lily of the Virgin is the iris. Strictly speaking, it is not a lily at all, for theIridaceaand theLiliaceaare distinct botanical orders. But in Germany it is known as the sword-lily, from its sword-shaped leaves; in France it has always been identified with the ‘fleur-de-lys’; in Spain it is a ‘lirio’—a lily—and Shakespeare writes:
‘... And lilies of all kindsThe Flower-de-luce being one.’
‘... And lilies of all kindsThe Flower-de-luce being one.’
‘... And lilies of all kindsThe Flower-de-luce being one.’
‘... And lilies of all kinds
The Flower-de-luce being one.’
Its first appearance as a religious symbol is in the work of the early Flemish masters, where it both accompanies and replaces the white lily as the flower of the Virgin. Roger van der Weyden35paints both flowers in a vase before the Virgin, and the iris alone in another picture36of Mary with the Holy Child. In his ‘Annunciation’37the vaseholds only white lilies. There is iris growing among the roses in Jan van Eyck’s ‘Virgin of the Fountain,’38but in his Annunciations there is only the white lily. Memling, however, places an iris half hidden below the lilies in one Annunciation,39while in a ‘Madonna with the Child’40there is also a single iris, though in this case the iris rises above the lilies.
The Master of Flémalle in his fine ‘Saint Barbara’41places an iris in a vase beside the saint, where the white lily of a virgin martyr might have been expected.
The symbolism of the iris and the lily at first sight appears to be identical, and the substitution of the iris for theliliumseems to be the result of some confusion between ‘lys’ and ‘fleur-de-lys,’ accentuated by the likeness between the iris and the lilies of the French royal standard with which the people of the Netherlands were familiar, since they were emblazoned on the shield of the Dukes of Burgundy.
In the mosaics of Ravenna, where the lily is used to indicate the delights of Heaven, it isdrawn in silhouette, showing three petals, and very closely resembles the ‘fleur-de-lys’ of heraldry. The same convention born of the extreme difficulty of giving modelled form in utter whiteness, particularly in a medium unfitted to express fine gradations of shade, is found in woven work, tooled leather, and embroidery, and the common likeness of the imperfectly-renderedlilium candidumand the iris to the sacred lily of the French and English royal standards, is sufficient to account for any indecision as to which was precisely the Virgin’s lily. It is conceivable, too, that the artists of the Netherlands, when they painted a Madonna for their churches, set her in the midst of the iris which grew so thickly round their doors rather than limit her patronage to the white lily, which was still exotic and confined to some few convent gardens. For the iris made their Lady more entirely their own—and so she would appeal more strongly to the emotions of the simple.
But in the Netherlands, in the fifteenth century, symbolism was usually very precise, and there does seem to be a slight difference in the use of the two lilies. Thelilium candidumisused exclusively as the symbol of virginal purity, more particularly in relation to the fact that the Virgin Mary was a mother, but the iris, the royal lily, appears to be the emblem or attribute of the incarnate Godhead. Though Saint Bernard of Clairvaux had attributed the metaphor, ‘I am ... the lily of the valleys,’ to the Virgin, Origen, the older and, in the North, weightier authority, held Christ to be the lily. In the ‘Adoration of the Shepherds’42of Hugo van der Goes, where the symbolism all refers to the Child, there is no white lily, but the orange lily and the purple and white iris. In the Annunciation of Memling, the single iris below the lilies may be the emblem of the Prince of David’s house who was to be born of virginal innocence—and it may have the same meaning where it rises above the lilies in the picture where the royal Child sits upon His mother’s knee. It may also indicate royal birth in the ‘Saint Barbara’ of the Prado. She was the daughter of a King, but in this painting has no crown or other attribute of royalty. It is noticeable, too, that had there been a white lily in the vase it would have been difficult to distinguishthis Saint Barbara from a figure of the Virgin.
The idea of royalty in connection with the iris received support from the constant recurrence of the ‘fleur-de-lys,’ accepted as an iris (though some contend that the form, as a symbol of royalty, came originally from Egypt and was founded on the lotus), on royal crowns and sceptres. Memling and his school used such crowns as the symbol of divine majesty, placing them upon the heads of God the Father,43of God the Son,44and also on the head of the Virgin Mary.45
Dante also appears to use the ‘fleur-de-lys’ or ‘fiordaliso’ as a symbol of honour:
‘... Beneath the skySo beautiful, came four-and-twenty elders (signori)By two and two, with flower-de-luces crown’d.’46
‘... Beneath the skySo beautiful, came four-and-twenty elders (signori)By two and two, with flower-de-luces crown’d.’46
‘... Beneath the skySo beautiful, came four-and-twenty elders (signori)By two and two, with flower-de-luces crown’d.’46
‘... Beneath the sky
So beautiful, came four-and-twenty elders (signori)
By two and two, with flower-de-luces crown’d.’46
Some commentators, taking the four-and-twenty personages as the four-and-twenty canonical books of the Old Testament, considerthe crowns of flowers to be symbolical of the purity of the doctrine found within the books, holding a ‘fiordaliso’ to equal the white lily as a symbol, but it is possible that the poet meant the formal fleur-de-lys upon a golden crown or the fresh iris blooms which would also form a crown of honour.
The iris is sometimes used symbolically in Italy, and there is in the Church of S. Spirito in Florence an ‘Annunciation’ now usually ascribed to Pesello. Between Mary and the angel stands a vase from which spring three purple iris. This vase, on either side of which the figures bend, is not merely a variation of the vase of white lilies indicating the virginity of Mary which is seen in so many early Annunciations, but it is the same symbol developed and enriched, till it represents the dogma of the immaculate birth of Christ. The vase, in many cases transparent, typifies Mary, and the upspringing flower is the emblem of the incarnate Godhead.47
Ghirlandaio places the iris, violet and daisy, each growing up strongly and freshly from thebare ground of the stableyard, in his ‘Adoration of the Shepherds,’48and in a picture of the sixteenth century by Palmezzano of Forlì,49the Child, seated on His Mother’s knee, holds a stem of iris as a sceptre; but, on the whole, the iris was little painted in Italy.
In art which is purely German the iris is very rarely used, though Albert Dürer painted a ‘Madonna of the Sword-lily,’50but in Spain it holds an important place. Spanish art is poor in symbolism, though it recognized early and prized highly the white lilies of the Annunciation. Except, perhaps, for the flame-tipped dart of divine love, there seems to be no symbol of truly Spanish origin, and those used by Spanish artists were mostly taken from the art of the Netherlands. Flemish art was profoundly admired in Spain, and the Spanish were well acquainted with it, for there was naturally much intercourse between the two countries in the days before the Netherlands established their independence. Also Jan van Eyck visited Portugal and Spain in the train of his patron,Philip the Good of Burgundy, and from the Hispano-Mauresque types in some of the later work of the Master of Flémalle there is reason to think that he, too, had been in the peninsula.
The symbol of the Flemish painters which particularly appealed to the Spanish was the iris, which grew small and wild upon their own hills, and with a freer, heavier growth in the palace gardens, whose admirable water-works had been planned and executed by the despised Moors. They adopted the iris as the royal lily of the Virgin, the attribute of the Queen of Heaven, as thelilium candidumwas the attribute of the Maid of Nazareth. The iris, therefore, was deemed particularly suitable as a detail in that most favourite Spanish devotional representation of the Virgin, an ‘Immaculate Conception.’ The Virgin, represented as the woman ‘clothed with the sun and the moon beneath her feet,’ is usually attended by child angels who carry roses, lilies, palm and olive. The purple iris is generally added, and sometimes the white lily is omitted and the iris only given. The Spaniards, therefore, attached the same idea of royalty to the iris as did the Flemings,but transferred the attributes from the royal Son to the crowned Mother, for in Spain it is not found as the attribute or the emblem of the Infant Christ.
Later, the whole Catholic Church seems to have accepted both the iris and the lily, and the mosaic altar-frontals of St Peter’s in Rome bear a design in which the rose, the lily and the iris are united.