Month of May: The Little Garden of Paradise

A work of art for the beginning of this month of May

Master of Paradiesgärtlein, ‘Paradiesgärtlein’ (Little Garden of Paradise), mixed technique on oak, 26 x 33 cm, Städel Museum, Frankfurt (Germany)

This painting, probably executed for a convent of Dominican nuns, is characteristic of the elegant international gothic style which developed in Northern Europe at the end of the Middle Ages. It also reflects the importance of the mystical current which enriched the spirituality of that time, thanks in particular to the influence of Meister Eckhart. The beauty of spring began then to be associated with that of the Virgin Mary, which gradually led the Church to dedicate the month of May to her.

The Virgin Mary, wrapped in her blue cloak, is seated with several saints in a secluded garden filled with flowers and birds. She reads a book with Hebrew characters while the baby Jesus plays at her feet with St Cecilia’s cithara. St Dorothea is picking cherries, St Barbara draws water from the fountain. On the other side St George, with his dragon looking like a toy next to him, and St Oswald of Northumbria are listening to the Archangel St Michael. The garden is full of plants and birds, all precisely represented. Most of them have a symbolic meaning related to the life, the qualities and the holy status of the Virgin Mary.

Despite its apparent secular elegance, this painting is a religious image representing the "hortus conclusus" (secluded garden), one of the litanies of the Virgin taken from the Song of Songs. It is of course known as an allusion to the virginity of Mary. It is also, according to Biblical tradition, a place of beauty and bliss where a human being can develop his or her inner life and his or her communion with God, following the example of Mary.