Hellmouth
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A Hellmouth, or the jaws of Hell, is the entrance to Hell envisaged as the gaping mouth of a huge monster, an image that first appeared in Anglo-Saxon art, and then spread all over Europe. It remained very common in depictions of the Last Judgment and Harrowing of Hell until the end of the Middle Ages, and was still sometimes used during the Renaissance and after. It enjoyed something of a revival in polemical popular prints after the Protestant Reformation, when figures from the opposite side would be shown disappearing into the mouth.<ref>Example by Cranach, 1545</ref> A notable late appearance is in the two versions of a painting by El Greco of about 1578.<ref>Variously called The Adoration of the Name of Jesus (National Gallery, London)image Template:Webarchive, The Dream of Philip II or Allegory of the Battle of Lepanto (Escurial).image</ref> Political cartoons showed Napoleon leading his troops into one.<ref>from first external link</ref>
Medieval theatre often had a hellmouth prop or mechanical device that was used to attempt to scare the audience by vividly dramatizing an entrance to Hell. These seem often to have featured a battlemented castle entrance, in painting usually associated with Heaven.<ref>The Ecclesiological Society Template:Webarchive Dooms and the mouth of hell in the late medieval period with pictures including two Renaissance stagings.</ref>
The Hellmouth was intended to remind a Christian audience of the danger of damnation. Those shown entering, or already inside, are typically shown naked, their clothing not having survived the general resurrection of the dead that is often part of the same image. Some, even if naked, wear headgear indicating their rank at the top of society, with the papal tiara, king's crown and bishop's mitre the most common. Far rarer are indications of people being non-Christian, such as the Jewish hat.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
History
The oldest example of an animal Hellmouth known to Meyer Schapiro was an ivory carving of c. 800 in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and he says most examples before the 12th century are English. Many show the Harrowing of Hell, which appealed to Anglo-Saxon taste, as a successful military raid by Christ. Schapiro speculates that the image may have drawn from the pagan myth of the Crack of Doom, with the mouth that of the wolf-monster Fenrir, slain by Vidar, who is used as a symbol of Christ on the Gosforth Cross and other pieces of Anglo-Scandinavian art.<ref>Meyer Schapiro, Template:"'Cain's Jaw-Bone that Did the First MurderTemplate:'", Selected Papers, volume 3, Late Antique, Early Christian and Mediaeval Art, 1980, pp. 257–259 and notes, Chatto & Windus, London, Template:ISBN. Template:Jstor.</ref> In the assimilation of Christianised Viking populations in northern England, the Church was surprisingly ready to allow the association of pagan mythological images with Christian ones, in hogback grave markers for example.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Satan swallowing the damned
In the Anglo-Saxon Vercelli Homilies (4:46–48) Satan is likened to a dragon swallowing the damned:
Association with Leviathan
The whale-monster Leviathan (translated from Hebrew, Job 41:1, "wreathed animal") has been equated with this description, although this is hard to confirm in the earliest appearances. However, in The Whale, an Old English poem from the Exeter Book, the mouth of Hell is compared to a whale's mouth:
Association with Cerberus
Later in the Middle Ages, the classical Cerberus also became associated with the image, although it is hardly likely that the Anglo-Saxons had him in mind.<ref>Hofmann, 148</ref>
Hellmouth as the mouth of Satan
Satan himself is often shown sitting in Hell eating the damned, but according to G. D. Schmidt this is a separate image, and the Hellmouth should not be considered to be the mouth of Satan, although Hofmann is inclined to disagree with this.<ref>Hofmann, 85</ref> The Hellmouth never bites the damned, remaining wide open, ready for more.
Decline of the motif in the Late Middle Ages
In general the motif had fallen from favour in Italy and the Netherlands by the late 14th century, and is rarely seen in the many artworks representing the Last Judgement in Early Netherlandish painting, but in the late medieval works by Hieronymous Bosch and his followers, where the wide interior of Hell is shown, there is often a Hellmouth leading to some special compartment. It continued in use in Germany and France. The Hellmouth appears, swallowing a bishop, at bottom left in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a famous woodcut by Albrecht Dürer (c. 1497–98).
Greek painters were the exception to the decline in the depiction of Hellmouth. Painters of the Cretan School and the Heptanese School continued to depict variations of Hellmouth in their Last Judgement pieces, where the style was common in works that continued to follow the maniera greca.<ref name='greek1'>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name='greek2'>Template:Cite book</ref> Georgios Klontzas (1535–1608) created a significant amount of works depicting Hellmouth, some include The Last Judgment and The Last Judgement Triptych. Other works featuring Hellmouth were completed by Frantzeskos Kavertzas in 1641 entitled The Last Judgment and Leos Moskos in 1653, entitled The Last Judgment.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name='greek2' /><ref name='greek1' />
Gallery
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Hellmouth, locked by an archangel, from the Winchester Psalter of about 1150
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Hell Mouth or Jaws of Hell, Bourges Cathedral, ca. 12th century
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Queen Mary Apocalypse—BL Royal MS 19 B XV f. 38v Angel with key and dragon, 1st qtr 14th century
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Simplified Last Judgment from Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, c. 1440s
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El Greco, The Adoration of the Name of Jesus, 1578–80, National Gallery
Citations
General references
- Hofmann Petra (2008). Infernal Imagery in Anglo-Saxon Charters. PhD thesis. St Andrews, Fife, Scotland: University of St Andrews. Template:Oclc.
Further reading
- Schmidt, G. D. The Iconography of the Mouth of Hell: Eighth-Century Britain to the Fifteenth Century, 1995, Selinsgrove, PA, Susquehanna University Press, 1995, Template:ISBN
- Simmons, Austin. The Cipherment of the Franks Casket (PDF). Hellmouth (or the whale as constituting Hell) is inferred in the inscription on the front side of the Franks Casket.