Grapevine in Decorations of Romanesque Baptismal Fonts

Abstract

The image of grapevine was often used in the repertoire of decorative motifs in Romanesque baptismal fonts. It only appeared in the decoration of their bowls, in several iconographic variants: 1. Grapevine in the form of a shoot or a twig with fruit and leaves, 2. Grapevine in the form of a runner with leaves, 3. Birds pecking at a bunch of grapes, 4. The motif of a mask with grapevine runners with fruit and leaves growing from it, 5. Grapevine with griffins accompanying it, 6. The motif of pressing grapes. The present article is only concentrated on the first two of these.

Baptismal fonts in Deerhurst (England), Hõr (Sweden), a few fonts from French and Belgian areas preserved in Chéreng, Laon, Chaumont-Porcien, Son, Ossogne, Raucourt, Thugny, Wasigny, Halle-Booienhoven, Nouvion-sur-Meuse, Wolvertem, Lubbeek, and a Polish one from Chrząszczyce belong to the monuments having the first variant. This group presents a formal wealth of presentations of grapevine. However, on none of the mentioned objects was the plant shown in a „true to life” way. A peculiar combination was used of twigs and bunches of grapes characteristic of Vitis vinifera along with palmette leaves. The grape clusters were additionally subjected to stylisation.

Grapevine in the leaf form is also present on two Danish fonts in Tirsted and Burs? and on a Polish one in Chełmno. With respect to its style the decoration already shows features of Gothic naturalism.

The symbols using grapevine on a baptismal object should be considered in several aspects that originated on the base of the theological thought of the early Christian period and the Middle Ages involving the meaning and understanding of the sacrament of baptism. According to this thought receiving baptism was a necessary condition for being redeemed. It opened the gates of Paradise for the one receiving the sacrament. This is why the decoration of baptismal fonts often presented images connected to the vision of Eden, floral forms belonging to them (one of them was grapevine surrounded by other plant species or as their only representative). With their changing, varied composition they perfectly rendered the idea of the wealth of paradisiac plants and at the same time the vision of the ultimate aim of the neophyte's way, his posthumous reward, which is a prosperous life in the heavenly garden.

Particular twigs or shoots from the decoration could symbolise the Christian himself, „planted” in the community of the faithful by his baptism, a member of the Church who, from the moment he receives the sacrament, is a seedling cultivated in God's garden, his new plantation.

Noticing the abundance of grape clusters on the fonts in Chéreng, Nouvion-sur-Meuse, Wolvertem, or Chrząszczyce, one can conclude that the plant symbolises the life-giving power of the spiritual conception derived from the miraculous baptismal water as well as Christ himself (the grapevine plant), who through his death on the cross is a source of this supernatural energy and the giver of life (fons vitae).

Christian exegesis also described the Saviour as arbor vitae – the paradisiac tree of life (Gen. 2.8-9; Ps. 1.3; Es. 47.1-12; Rev. 22.1-2) growing over „flowing water”, which „yields fruit in its time, and its leaves do not fade” and „serve to heal nations”. On baptismal fonts it was shown as grapevine (both variants are possible here), where it symbolised Christ or the tree of the Saviour's cross.

The motif of grapevine should also be connected with the idea of Eucharist. The subject of unity of baptism and the altar was often touched upon at the times of the first Christians and developed at later times.

The symbolism of the motif of grapevine on a baptism object, although it has a few possible interpretations, is closely unified around the figure of Christ and the sacrifice of the cross. Through Christ's arbor vitae – the tree of the cross – which offers life, the baptismal water was given its miraculous power. Owing to its supernatural action the baptised one becomes a member of the Church, „a part of the grapevine”, „God's plantation”. He is born for eternity, and his guiding principle becomes a prosperous, happy life in the Paradise.