Saint Peter and Saint Paul with the Veil of Saint Veronica (Vera Icon)
Martin Schaffner
Description
The two Apostles present one of the most important relics held in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome: the cloth that, according to legend, Veronica handed to Christ on his way to Calvary and on which his face left an imprint. What the artist shows here, however, is not an imprint. In its physicality and with its rich detail, untouched by the drapery of the textile, Christ’s suffering face could hardly be more real. In this way, Schaffner’s panel is an impressive testimony to the late medieval veneration of the so-called vera icon, the “true image” of Christ.
Of Media and Mediators
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A media-historical approach to this work can begin at several points. Not only does the painting depict a mediator, it is one itself.
A Game with Reality and Image
First of all, the technique: the panel of pinewood is a mixed media artwork, painted with oil and tempera. This painting with its opaque, glazed, translucent layers, enabled Martin Schaffner to get especially close to the appearance of things — a game with reality and its image: consider, for example, the pupils of Christ’s eyes in his face covered in blood and sweat, which reflect the mullion and transom cross of a window.
Image of a Mediator
Moreover, in this work, the concept of media is particularly strongly interwoven with the content. It depicts a relic on display. The apostles Peter and Paul are venerating the Veil of Saint Veronica and at the same time appear as witnesses to its authenticity. At the same time, like hardly any other object, the relic itself plays with the concept of media; that is, with the conditionalities and functions of a mediator. According to the legend, the Vera Icon, the True Image, came into being when Veronica handed Christ, carrying his cross on the way to Calvary, her veil so that he could wipe his face. Thenceforth the veil carried the image of his face. Thus the veil is quite literally a means of transportation. However, we do not see the “real” piece of textile, but an image of the image.
Veracity of the Present
The matter is made even more complicated by Schaffner’s mode of representation. For the image does not show an imprint, but a real face — the head has substance and casts a shadow on the cloth behind it! Certainly, the belief in the real presence of Christ, as celebrated in the Eucharist of the Catholic Mass, played a role here. After all, the panel was originally in a larger context, being part of an ecclesiastical décor and thus part of a media network in which the visual arts interacted with music, spoken and sung texts, and other elements within a liturgical sequence.
It is astonishing that in medieval understanding, mediation did not diminish efficacy: those who contemplated the face of Christ as an image in prayer could hope for reduction of the punishment of purgatory, the same as they would after contemplating the relic itself, which is preserved in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
Dates and facts
| Title | Saint Peter and Saint Paul with the Veil of Saint Veronica (Vera Icon) |
|---|---|
| Artist | Martin Schaffner |
| Date | 1518 |
| Measurements Painting | H 77.5cm W 177cm |
| Material | Coniferous wood |