Matter Purissima

GOTTFRIED BERNHARD GÖZ (1708-1774) and JOSEPH SEBASTIAN KLAUBER (1710-1768)

Augsburg, 1750.

Burin on glued laid paper.

Cut inside the print but without affecting the image. Engraving glued to another paper.

Good condition.

The continuity and transmission of certain symbolic imaginaries between apparently opposite cultures are always exciting. Christianity, despite opposing the pagan universe, ended up reproducing symbolic patterns with which to represent its own creed.

The Virgin Mary, as the woman and mother of Christ, found herself vastly represented by the Moon, which reflected the light of a powerful and dazzling Sun, which in turn embodied the masculine divinity.

In the scene of the engraving we see the Moon-Mary being studied by two attentive astrologers, which makes the scene a delicious theological gibberish, since astrological science was censored and persecuted by the Catholic Church as a form of pagan witchcraft.