Saint Laurence was burnt alive on a metal rack, so he’s usually shown carrying it.
Story goes that, while being cooked, he turned to his torturers and said,
“I’m done on this side, flip me over!”
Hi, I’m Ed, part of the Learning team here at the National Gallery. In this series,
we're going to explore some of the symbols that you can find in the
paintings in our Collection. Now, many artists knew the people who saw
their paintings would recognize the symbols they carefully placed in them.
Some of these paintings are over 700 years old!
They might not planned on that. Meanings get lost or forgotten over time, so these
videos are here to help you make sense of some of the secrets hidden in the Gallery.
Today we're going to help you learn how to spot your saints.
As the National Gallery's got a lot of Christian devotional paintings you'll
find a lot of saints. Whether the paintings were meant to hang in a church
in a home or be clasped tightly in someone's hands, they connect believers
with someone who had made it to heaven. Here was someone you could pray to if
your problems were too great to bear or perhaps too trivial to bother God with.
Perhaps your town had a patron saint or you were named after a saint. Connections
to saints could be very personal so it was important the worshippers knew who
they were looking at in the painting. So how do you spot them?
Well, saints are usually associated with attributes: objects or clothing which
represent their deeds or what they became known for.
Even if painting fashions and styles change, if you look for the attributes
you should still be able to recognise them. For example, Saint George.
The 'Golden Legend', the medieval text on the saints that the artists often drew their
inspiration from, said Saint George defeated a dragon. So he often appears as
a knight in shining armour charging the dragon with his spear, whether that
dragon had spotted wings in 1470, has crawled out of a lake with its webbed
feet in 1555, or suddenly develops a beak in about 1890.
So let's take a whistle-stop tour of the saints.
Saint Michael led God's army against Lucifer's
rebels, so he's often shown wearing armour defeating the devil. The battle only
appears in a short section in the 'Book of Revelations' but
it really caught the medieval imagination so there are lots of
paintings of Saint Michael defeating the devil. Also it presents that difficult
problem for artists: how do you show the devil? Well, an imaginative hodgepodge of
terrifying creatures is how. Saint Jerome has a load of attributes, but two of the
most common are a cave because he retreated to the desert to atone for his
sins often beating his breast with a stone
and a lion because he pulled a thorm out of its paw, and befriended it. Actually
the original story is about someone else but the 'Golden Legend' says it was Jerome
so it now gets given to him. Saint Francis of Assisi appears with the
stigmata the same wounds as Christ's on hands feet and side, because they were
said to have appeared on Francis's body towards the end of his life.
Saint Veronica carries the veil she used to wipe the sweat off Christ's face as he
carried his cross to Calvary. This one doesn't have Christ's face on it.
Saint John the Evangelist often appears young, clean shaven, and dressed in red. The cup
and snake allude to the poison he drank to prove his faith. Saint Genevieve, the
patron saint of Paris, holds the candle that miraculously relit after the devil
blew it out. The woman next to her, Saint Apollonia brings us to the martyrs.
Martyrs died for their faith, so their attributes usually gruesome reminders of
how they suffered. She holds a pair of pincers and a tooth - she had her teeth
pulled out. Saint Peter Martyr has a sword or cleaver in his head, sometimes his
chest. He was killed by assassins hired by vengeful Venetian Nobles who had fallen
foul of Saint Peter's relentless persecution of heretics. He also holds
the common attribute of all martyrs the palm leaf of victory. It's what Greek or
Roman athletes would be given when they won sporting contests. Martyrs are
victorious in death, reborn in Heaven, Spot a palm leaf, spot a martyr.
Here's another Saint Peter holding the keys to heaven and hell. You can also see
him wearing blue and gold. Saint Dorothy was mocked on the way to her execution
by a man who said, "bring me back flowers from Paradise". Miraculously, they were
delivered to him, and put in his place, he converted to Christianity. So Saint
Dorothy appears with flowers. Saint Catherine appears with a wheel or part
of one. It was the breaking wheel she was meant to be tortured on - I won't explain
how that works, it was horrible - but the wheel was destroyed by a bolt of divine
lightning. Then, she had a head cut off so she often appears with a sword. Saint
Lucy's name means light, so she often appears with an oil lamp, or, eyes on a
plate. A later legend says that she plucked her own eyes out to silence an
admirer who wouldn't stop praising her beauty. She's the patron saint of eye
afflictions. Saint John the Baptist can sometimes be seen holding a lamb. This is
the sacrificial lamb which is a sign of Christ's sacrifice for all mankind. John
can also appear unkempt because he lived in the desert, and holding a staff with a
crucifix on top. You'll find him elsewhere in the gallery not looking too
well. So, if you see a saint in a painting, have a look for what they're holding or
wearing, and you might find the hints you need to identify them. If you'd like to
learn more about our paintings, click here or here. For a full list of all the
paintings we've shown in this video, have a look at the description below. If
you've enjoyed these sort of videos, why not subscribe or leave us a comment down
below. Thanks for watching.