Vested Angels: Eucharistic Allusions in Early Netherlandish Paintings. (Reviews).

Maurice B. McNamee, S.J., Vested Angels: Eucharistic Allusions in Early Netherlandish Paintings.

Leuven: Peeters, 1998. xiii + 6 pis. + 114 illus. + 385 pp. n.p. ISBN: 90-429-0007-5.

The writer's authoritative yet brief discussion of the "Theological Background of the Eucharistic Motif in Early Netherlandish Painting" (his first chapter), is far more than that. It presents a fine outline of the history of this most complex observance. It is perfect reading for undergraduates and graduates interested in this key, complex area, where the only works in English, such as Patricia Rubin's fine book, tend to be necessarily long or, like most encyclopaedia entries, inadequate.

Several chapters follow upon previous articles by the same author, now reappearing in a somewhat expanded form. Chapter III is based upon his pioneering study, "The Origin of the Vested Angel as a Eucharistic Symbol in Netherlandish Painting," Art Bulletin, LIV 1972, 263-78. Most of Chapter VII was originally published in The Gazette des Beaux Arts, V. LXXXIII, 1974 (37-40).

Chapter IV, "Immediate theological background of the eucharistic motif in early Netherlandish painting," is, as McNamee makes clear, partly inspired by Maurice de la Faille's valuable study Mysterium Fide (English edition: The Mystery of Faith, Sheed and Ward, 1950).

Chapter V, "The Eucharistic Import of the Seilern Triptych," is mostly taken from an essay he cites by Barbara Lane which, in turn, bares a remarkable resemblance to a lecture of the reviewer's which she audited but never cited.

The study of the eucharistic aspects of the Ghent Altar (Chapter VI) is in part a highly intelligent summary of the late Lotte Philip's stimulating, pioneering monograph of 1971. However, Dr. McNamee makes important modifications of her views throughout, these made possible by his exhaustive knowledge of the Mass, especially in conjunction with the interpretation of the presentation of the Mystic Lamb (103).

It would have been helpful had he known (106) that many scholars believe the Oberlin/Prado Fountain of Living Water to precede the Ghent Altar. Similarly, Eve's "apple" is an Etrog (116), from the Succoth service, and not an apple.

Important points are made concerning the Byzantine Rite (108) and the ways in which a contemporary viewer would have understood God's presence in and for the Altar, with no need to include his overt presence in pictorial form within the Altar.

Since the eleventh chapter examines Memling's Najera Altar (Antwerp) attention might have been paid to the possible function of these panels as organ wings, as is often believed to be the case. Such musical "use" might bear upon McNamee's view of their symbolism within the Good Friday Liturgy. This chapter too was based upon the author's previous publication (Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXXVII, 1974, 353-56).

Good Jesuit that he is, McNamee has a sense for the pithy phrase, my favorite (199) is a reference to the Mass "as part of the economy of salvation."

Poorly proofread, the book has a fine bibliography and includes a helpful Appendix A "Litugical vestments and accoutrements," with drawings of all pertinent material.