Tetsunori Koizumi, Director

One of the by-products of the Protestant Reformation was the secularization of the arts, as exemplified by the transformation of Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) from an artist into an entrepreneur. The individual transformation of Cranach the Elder is actually quite symbolic of the transformation of the Western mind that the Reformation unleashed. In fact, the Reformation marks the rise of the rational mind, of the left-hemisphere mode of inquiry into the world, in the evolution of Western civilization.

When Martin Luther (1483-1546) and other Protestant reformers rose to protest and rebel against the authority of the Church of Rome, they were rejecting the psychological role the church had played in the evolution of Western civilization. From the very beginning, the church had been conceived as a place where the sense of togetherness, the spirit of community, could be experienced. Thus, in the Acts of the Apostles we find the following lines: “And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.” (Acts 2: 44, 45)

A more interesting interpretation of the role of the church appears in Paul’s reference to the church as the bride of Christ: “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself to it.” (Ephesians 5: 23, 24, 25)

The idea of the church as the bride, or the wife, of Christ is mainly significant in its relation to matriarchal psychology. If the Christ the Son of God inherits and, therefore, represents the patriarchal psychology of God the Father, then the church as the bride of the Son of God can be interpreted as representing the matriarchal psychology of the Mother of the Son of God. Although the mother figure was not an integral part of the central doctrine of Christianity in the beginning, the early church adopted Mary as the Mother of the Son of God as a symbol mainly in an effort to convert the people of the Mediterranean and the Near East who had been exposed to the figure of the Great Mother Goddess. In fact, it was the Eastern Church that adopted Virgin Mary as a symbol of the Holy Wisdom, or Sophia. If the Church of Rome decided to incorporate the Virgin Mary as a central symbol, it was an attempt on its part to be in conformity with these traditions.

What is significant in the context of the evolution of the Western mind is the revival of the Virgin worship in the Middle Ages. The Virgin worship surfaced most notably in the form of statues of the Virgin and the Child in the twelfth century, one of the earliest examples being found at the Abbey of St. Denis constructed in 1130. This form of artistic (or religious) expression blossomed in many parts of Europe, becoming an integral part of Gothic churches mostly constructed in the thirteenth century. The sudden revival of the Virgin worship in the history of Christianity around this period appears to be related to the Crusades. The Crusades, which were already in full swing in the eleventh century, brought destruction by perpetuating violence in the name of religious devotion. It would be quite natural, then, if the matriarchal aspect of human psychology was revived as a reaction, rekindling the need for motherly values of compassion and togetherness among the Christian nations. A contact with matriarchal religions of the East during the Crusades may also have contributed to the revival of the Great Mother worship in the Virgin Mary. In fact, St. Sophia in Istanbul, called the Great Church of the Holy Wisdom, was known for its majestic incarnation of the motherly wisdom. This obvious association of the Virgin Mary with matriarchal psychology immediately suggests the vital symbolic role of the Virgin Mary in Christian psychology. To the extent that matriarchal psychology is linked to the unconscious psyche, the Virgin Mary serves as a symbol for the world of unconsciousness for the Christians.

Did the Protestants lose their contact with matriarchal psychology with the rejection of the authority of the Church of Rome? To the extent that the Protestants kept their link to their church and to the extent that they understood the psychological role of their church in promoting the sense of togetherness, the spirit of community, they had access to the same institutional protection and guidance as the Catholics had from their church. However, as the individual interpretation of the Bible became recognized as a valid means of maintaining Christian faith, the Protestant movement naturally led to an increase in the number of Christians who would break away from their church. And those Christians who broke their spiritual ties with their church and decided to deal with the problem of their salvation on their individual interpretation of the Christian dogma had to develop the mind of their own—the Protestant mind, if you will—in order to deal with their psychological problems.

The Protestant mind is characterized by its reliance on the power of reason, which represents the rational mode of dealing with psychological problems and the left-hemisphere mode of comprehending realities in the world. The development of science, although it can be traced back to the humanistic spirit of the early Renaissance, is essentially a Protestant venture in its psychological implications. With its emphasis on the power of reason, the development of the Protestant mind led to the neglect, if not the total suppression, of other psychological functions of human psychology besides reason. In fact, Freudian psychology can be seen as an extension of the Protestant mind. Though not a Protestant, the way Freud treats “id” as a force to be suppressed and controlled by the development of “ego” is in conformity with the Protestant spirit that places emphasis on the rational mode of dealing with human psychology.

As long as the psychological implications of the church and the Virgin Mary and other symbols are properly understood, it does not matter whether the individual Christian is a Catholic or a Protestant. Unfortunately, however, those zealous Protestant reformers did not properly understand these psychological implications in their eagerness to break away from the corruption and moral decay of the Church of Rome. Much as the intention of these reformers to restore Christian faith may be admired, their efforts actually contributed to perpetuate and stimulate dissentions among Christian nations and eventually led to the emergence of the gulf in the Western mind between the Catholic and the Protestant mind. Needless to say, we are not suggesting that these reformers ought to be blamed for their lack of historical insight. Any product of human imagination is destined to lead its own life once it leaves its producer. The Reformation was no exception in this regard. And these reformers could not be held responsible for the fate of the Protestant movement once it was thrust into the stage of history that involved far more complex forces than they could possibly have anticipated.

Tetsunori Koizumi, Director

Coming into this world in the seventeenth-century Holland during the golden age of the Dutch East Asia Company, it is not surprising that this woman from Delft became a world traveler. We are talking about here not a real person but a female figure depicted in Woman Holding a Balance by Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), which he painted around 1664 and is said to be purchased initially by Pierter Clasz Ruijven (1624-1674) in 1674, the principal patron for Vermeer in Delft. Woman Holding a Balance then traveled to Amsterdam in 1696, to Nymphenburg Castle in 1825, to Paris in 1830, and from London to New York to Philadelphia in 1911. Privately owned by Joseph E. Widener of Philadelphia since 1915, Woman Holding a Balance finally found her permanent residence in Washington DC in 1942 as one of the prized possessions of National Gallery of Art at the bequest of the Widener family.

Finding her permanent residence in the US was not the end of travels for the woman in Woman Holding a Balance. As the reputation of Vermeer as a great artist became firmly established among art historians in the twentieth century, as exemplified by the first solo exhibition of his work in Rotterdam in 1935 with an accompanying statement like, “Next to Rembrandt the figure of Vermeer rises above all other artists of the great age of the seventeenth century,”¹ the woman in Woman Holding a Balance has attracted great demand for her presence at exhibitions all over the world. In this capacity as a great attraction at exhibitions, Woman Holding a Balance started travelling again from her home in Washington DC to such cities as Philadelphia, Berlin and London in 1984, the Hague in 1996, Osaka in 2000, New York and London in 2001, Madrid in 2003, Amsterdam in 2009, Munich in 2011, and Detroit in 2012. This year, 2017, she has traveled to Paris and Dublin before returning to her home in Washington DC in October.

Such high demand for her presence is understandable, considering that Woman Holding a Balance, despite its small size measuring 40.3×35.6 cm, is no doubt a great work of art by a great artist. Indeed, Woman Holding a Balance is one of those paintings by Johannes Vermeer, which is universally admired today by art lovers all over the world for its masterful representation of exquisite balance between light and darkness and its well-structured composition of the things depicted in the painting. Though considered only a minor painter at the time, Vermeer painted Woman Holding a Balance around 1664 at the height of his artistic creativity when he painted such masterpieces as: Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (c.1663-64), Young Woman with a Water Pitcher (c.1664-65), Woman with a Pearl Necklace (c.1664), A Lady Writing (c.1665), The Girl with the Red Hat (c.1665), and Girl with a Pearl Earring (c.1665-66).

Indeed, the only other woman more popular than the woman in Woman Holding a Balance among female figures Vermeer painted may arguably be the girl in Girl with a Pearl Necklace. Depicting a young girl with a charming profile, Girl with a Pearl Necklace is often called Vermeer’s Mona Lisa, and has been made into a novel and a movie.² If it is so popular, what is the reason behind the popularity of Woman Holding a Balance? What was the message that Vermeer wanted to convey to us viewers?

It is to be noted that Woman Holding a Balance used to be called Woman Weighing Gold because of the remarkable similarity between this painting and Woman Weighing Gold Coins (c.1664) by Pierter de Hooch (1629-1684). Art historians have long debated whether it was Vermeer or de Hooch who first got an idea for painting a woman in the act of weighing. Besides the remarkable similarity between the two paintings, what adds to the debate is the fact both artists were working in Delft as members of the Guild of St. Luke, though de Hooch was in Amsterdam in 1664. Another factor that needs to be taken into account in settling the debate is the fact that de Hooch originally had the figure of a man seated at the far side of the table, which he later painted over. Whether it was Vermeer or de Hooch who borrowed the idea from the other, the current title of Woman Holding a Balance stems from the discovery made at the restoration work in 1994, in which microscopic analysis showed nothing sitting on the scales, although gold and pearls are distinctively painted as lying on the table.

Art historians have also debated about whether the woman in Woman Holding a Balance is pregnant, because of her bulging belly, or whether she was just wearing the costume fashionable in Delft around that time. It has also been suggested that the painting depicts the secular image of the Virgin Mary, who intercedes on behalf of the faithful Christians on the occasion of their final judgment. This interpretation is made plausible by the picture of The Last Judgment on the wall. Moreover, it is known that Vermeer had converted to Catholicism before his marriage to Catharina Bolnes in 1653. According to this interpretation, the painting is an allegorical depiction of the last judgment, which Vermeer symbolically represented by the figure of a woman in the act of weighing.

Whatever it was Vermeer intended to represent, what is remarkable about the woman in Woman Holding a Balance is the sense of serenity exuded by the calmness of her body and the concentration of her mind on the act of weighing. In fact, she appears as if she is meditating while totally immersed in the act of weighing. While depicting a similar scene, this type of spirituality is missing from de Hooch’s Woman Weighing Gold Coins. Perhaps Vermeer was seeking the sense of serenity that was lacking from his turbulent daily life, which included his dealing with his sometimes-difficult mother-in-law, the death of his children, and paying off the debt left by his father. Perhaps it was his faith in Catholicism that prompted Vermeer to paint Woman Holing a Balance. Whatever may be the background behind it, Woman Holding a Balance is hugely popular and is attracting a sold-out crowd of her admirers daily in Dublin, which is understandable as Ireland is a Catholic country that promotes tourism today as a spiritual undertaking.³

1. Ben Broos and Arthur K. Wheelock (eds.), Johannes Vermeer, Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1995, p. 60.
2. Chevalier, Tracy, Girl with a Pearl Necklace, London: HarperCollins, 1999.
3. “Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting,” 17 June - 17 September 2017, National Gallery of Ireland.