I will develop this essay outline for the Nature chapter, under Gardens, or in Chapter Four's Culture and Society . Some of the information is at
this blog post from February 2013 in Reclaiming Beauty.
The Trie Garden in the Cloisters
Discussed in: Garden Guide: New York City pp. 33-37
Cloisters Flowers
[Photo by Kidist P. Asrat, August 2012]
The Cloisters show the us the New World's medieval, European historical and cultural inheritance. Yet, although the Cloisters seem to take us that far back in time, the Hudson River below, and the George Washington Bridge in the distance soon brings us to the present, to New York and to the New World. In New York, we have a New World city that has a historical link going further back than medieval Europe to ancient Greece and Rome, as medieval Europe inherited its culture and history from ancient Greece and Rome. Thus, the history of New York, like the history of America, is tied to Antiquity, which is the root of Western civilization. Historians and anthropologists have tried to expand America's cultural and historical inheritance to cover the breadth of the world. "America," they tell us "is multicultural." By that they mean that since contemporary America appears to accommodate every race and culture of the world, then America is an amalgam of the world's histories and cultures: Chinese, Indian, African, Southern European, South American.
By virtue of having landed on her shores, anyone can become an American, bringing with him a piece of himself which becomes ingrained in this multicultural fabric. But nothing could be further than the truth.
The earliest arrivals, admittedly are the non-Europeans Indians, who crossed the span of the country securing some kind of territorial possession. Yet, we cannot allocate land to anyone who put up a post (and often temporary), and lived in dispersed and often warring communities. The Indians did not form a cohesive society or culture that could have built up the vast land the occupied in clumps of tribes, leaving vast spaces empty, uninhabited and uncultivated. That was the accomplishment of the later arrivals, the Europeans. The Bible tells us, and we should dutifully listen, that God rewards those who bring back more than they were give.
14 "For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them.
15 And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey.
16 Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and made another five talents.
17 And likewise he who had received two gained two more also.
18 But he who had received one went and dug in the ground, and hid his lord’s money.
19 After a long time the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them.
20 "So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, 'Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more talents besides them.'
21 His lord said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.'
22 He also who had received two talents came and said, 'Lord, you delivered to me two talents; look, I have gained two more talents besides them.'
23 His lord said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.'
24 "Then he who had received the one talent came and said, 'Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed.
25 And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.'
26 "But his lord answered and said to him, 'You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed.
27 So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest.
28 Therefore take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents.
29 'For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.
30 And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'[Matthew 25: 14-30]
And how do we tackle the multiculturalists, who insist that America is for everyone? It is time that Western, European Americans claim their culture. John D. Rockefeller and George Grey Barnard brought back bricks from ancient castles in France to build the American Cloisters. They traveled to Europe to accumulated the treasures that fill up the museum.
Much of the sculpture at The Cloisters was acquired by George Grey Barnard (1863–1938), a prominent American sculptor and an avid collector of medieval art. Barnard opened his original cloisters on Fort Washington Avenue to the public in 1914; through the generosity of philanthropist and collector John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874–1960), the Museum acquired the cloisters and all of their contents in 1925. By 1927, it was clear that a new, larger building would be needed to display the collection in a more scholarly fashion. In addition to financing the conversion of 66.5 acres of land just north of Barnard’s museum into a public park, which would house the new museum, Rockefeller donated 700 additional acres across the Hudson River to the state of New Jersey to ensure that no developments on the property would spoil the view from The Cloisters. In addition to providing the grounds and building to house the Barnard collection, Rockefeller contributed works of art from his own collection—including the celebrated Unicorn Tapestries—and established an endowment for operations and future acquisitions [source: The Cloisters Museum and Gardens].
They made a concerted effort to make the American link an European one, and not Indian (native or continental), Chinese, African or South American. The non-Western's interest in America is not to build this American culture, but to try and leave his own cultural mark. But, that isn't working, since where-ever that happens, the result is destruction. There is no Chinese haute cuisine; there are no Indian cathedrals; there is no African classical art; there is no Mexican architecture. And these multiculturalists know this, since once at the shores of America, they immediately start delineating their boundaries: this is my Indian food, these are my Chinese children, here is my African holiday. Yet, they cannot ignore the beauty and the sophistication of the European culture, and in fact that is why they made the journies across oceans: to bask in the good life of handsome homes, abundant food, erudite teachers, and safe and civilized neighborhoods, many of the things they couldn't get (or get at a price) in the countries they left behind. And still, they insist on maintaining their old beliefs. Mostly because they wouldn't know what to do with the culture that awaits them, but also because their own cultures are like an old sweater which comfort them amidst all this alienness. Material comfort only goes so far. There are also spiritual and psychological comforts to appease.
Their existence is like the last servant in the parable who said: "And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground," and incurred the wrath of God. Their talent may work in their own lands, and they may indeed double it, but in this continent, they don't know what to do with it, and they let it waste. Their lack of productivity, over time, becomes destructive. Nothing new gets built, and what they live off is what came before them, which diminishes with time. That is where the anger of God came from, not just the wastefulness and laziness of the last servant, but also his lack of imagination and daring in creating less than what he was given.
As I was looking through my files and notes on the Cloisters, mainly to find an appropriate image for the
front cover of my proposed book, I found the above photo I took of the garden. I was struck by a tiny flower, the periwinkle (also known as the myrtle).
Periwinkles in the Cloisters
Discussed in Garden Guide: New York City pp. 33-37
Periwinkle Label:
Common Periwinkle, Myrtle
Vinca minor
[Photo by Kidist P. Asrat, August 2012]
The periwinkle, which grows in the gardens of the New York, New World, Cloisters, originated in Europe, and was
brought over to North America in the 1700s.
The Trie Cloister Garden is home to a collection of plants native to the meadows, woodlands, and stream banks of Europe. Planted as a single filed of herbs and flowers, the garden evokes the verdant grounds of medieval millefleurs tapestries, in which a myriad species are shown blooming simultaneously. Many of the plants gorwing in the garden can be found in the tapestries on display in the galleries, but they bloom here in their proper season.
The European flora is dominated by spring-blooming plants, and the garden is bright with blossoms in early spring, when hellebores, snowdrops, periwinkles, narcissus, violets, wild pansies and English daisies abound, followed by bluebells, columbine, dame's rocket, and iris in May. Foxglove, clary, meadowsweet and ox-eye daisies bloom well into summer. In July the flowering begins to subside, and the Trie becomes a green garden, in which plants chosen for their form and foliage predominate. Acanthus, royal fern, and flag provide a foil for the lesser number of summer-blooming flowers.
Small shrubs like myrtle and sweet gale give structure to the garden, and are repeated throughout to create a pleasing symmetry. In late summer, the cloister becomes a cool refuge, where the air is perfumed by the pots of poet's jasmine that line the parapets. Water splashes from the fountain at the center, and small birds come to drink from the spouts. [Notes from the information booklet]
In ancient Rome, Pliny wrote in
The Natural History of Pliny:
Sprigs of myrtle, if carried by a person when travelling on foot, are found to be very refreshing, on a long journey.
- The information plaque by the periwinkle bed in the Cloisters describes the flower as a medieval cancer treatment:
Annual periwinkles have been used for centuries for folk medicine, especially for treating diabetes, and are the source of several cancer drugs.
- And from
this site, on the meaning of the flower's name:
The Latin name of periwinkle's genus, Vinca, is derived from a word meaning "to overcome."
- In
Christian symbolism, the periwinkle represents Gentiles converted to Christ.
Such a small flower, with such a sturdy name! And it embodies the spirit of the Western civilization in America: overcoming the odds to arrive on the continent from a distant Europe, and to survive and flourish in America; containing healing and life-prolonging properties; maintaining the spiritual and religious link; and whose presence and benefits are known since Antiquity.
This tiny flower is also featured in art, which the American inheritors have transplanted to their New World shores, in order to link them with their European heritage.
Window with Grisaille Decoration
Date: ca. 1325
Geography: Made in Rouen, France Culture: French
Medium: Pot metal glass, colorless glass, silver stain, and vitreous paint
Dimensions: Overall: 28 1/4 x 23 1/2 in.
The Cloisters Collection
In this fourteenth-century panel, the vibrant color and robust lines of thirteenth-century stained glass were jettisoned in favor of colorless glass painted with leafy vines growing on a trellis. The three foliate designs, each of which is remarkable for its delicacy and refinement, are identifiable not only by their botanical species but also as patterns known to have originated at Saint-Ouen. The two lower panels display the periwinkle flower; the third panel represents the leaf of the strawberry plant; and the top two depict geranium foliage. The colored borders incorporate buttercup leaves with red and green quarries, and the center bosses are composed of whorls of artemisia leaves entwined with knotted ribbons of color. [Notes from theMetropolitan Museum of Art]
The plant forms in this detail are too highly stylized to be botanically identified, with the exception of the grisaille flowering vine with silver stain blossoms. This may be tentatively identified as a species of periwinkle, either Vinca major or V. minor, but it is not a botanically accurate representation. Periwinkle flowers are blue, not yellow or gold, but form is more important in the identification of plants in medieval art than color. Even botanically recognizable plants are represented in color forms other than those found in nature. [Notes from theMetropolitan Museum of Art]
Detail of the top square panel of the grisaille window, with stylized yellow periwinkles, from
stained glass window in the Cloisters' Gothic Hall
The five panels of this lancet window once decorated three different windows in the radiating chapels of the abbey church of Saint-Ouen at Rouen, in Normandy. As reassembled here, the lancet is only one-third its original height. Grisaille glass, which is colorless and translucent, was a popular glazing device in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It not only allows more light into the interior than color-saturated pot-metal glass, grisaille also functions as an unobtrusive background for ornamental motifs painted with fine brush lines. Our glass panels are decorated with stylized yet recognizable plants such as periwinkle, strawberry, and artemisia, forming an elegant network of foliate motifs. The central bosses of the panels are richly colored with deep blue, red, yellow, and green. The bosses would have echoed the brilliantly hued horizontal bands once located at the windows' midpoints, which contained scenes from the life of the saint to whom the chapel was dedicated.
The Early Gothic Hall, Closters
The Early Gothic Hall houses works from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The three thirteenth-century limestone windows overlooking the Hudson River are filled with Gothic stained-glass panels from the cathedrals of Canterbury, Rouen, Soissons, and other sites. Also on view are French, Spanish, and Italian sculptures of the period, as well as an altarpiece depicting the Adoration of the Shepherds painted by the Sienese artist Bartolo di Fredi about 1374. [Notes from the Metropolitan Museum of Art]
This surprising flower is an apt symbol for perseverance and persistence.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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