Folk Saints, Changelings, and Our Timeless Love of Dogs
"...if i have presented (the tale of Saint Guinefort) so unceremoniously at the start of the book it is so that it might have the same impact on the reader as it did on me when I first read it."
It was over fifteen years ago that I first stumbled across a reference to Stephen of Bourbon’s writings on St. Guinefort – a 13th century folk saint venerated by the peasants in the Dombes region of France.
The hook is that Guinefort was a greyhound, and I was immediately captivated (I had dreams of double majoring in art and comparative mythology). At the time, you really couldn’t find any English language information on the subject except for Jean-Claude Shmitt’s The Holy Greyhound*, an obscure scholarly text translated from the original French and originally published in 1978. It remains to date, in my opinion, the most comprehensive work on not only the folk saint but on the larger themes within the tale.
Over the years I carried St. Guinefort with me and incorporated his story in my work in various ways – paintings, sculptures, clumsy gallery proposals. I even made a hand screen-printed set of prayer cards that I hid around various religious sites in Italy after my graduation as part of my senior review board body of work.
My artistic practice has grown since then, but there is always an emphasis on the intersections of myth, history, and folk tales – with a particular draw towards the weird and bloody mysteries of Catholicism. And Saint Guinefort has always been there, too.
This devotion to the unusual and the historic has brought me to my latest collaboration with Guinefort. One that seeks to answer the question:
What would it look like if Guinefort, instead of being rejected by the church, had been embraced as the popular folk saint he is steadily growing into today?
Because over the years he has indeed gained in popularity, the universal appeal of a dog saint and the protectiveness felt for him echoing the lay population that would have worshipped him in the 13th century.
This current body of work is meant to reference and replicate very specific visual, material, and executional methods of medieval times to return him to the cult of saints that he was cast out of so long ago, and to explore our relationship with both saintliness and our canine companions.
This first piece in the newest iteration of this theme is a bit different from the ones that will follow it. Rather than specifically mimic an extant manuscript or object it instead brings together references to historic execution and thematic visuals with contemporary sentiment and materials.
The Trés Riches Heures du Duc de Berry – the work that inspired the visual execution of this piece – was completed between 1412-1416 for Jean, Duc de Berry, by the renowned Limbourg brothers. The Dutch miniaturists were considered the top of their field within their lifetime and their existing works today are considered among the best.
The style of the illustration itself draws from the work, including the brilliant ultramarine sky and the way in which the figures are rendered.
Rich with symbolism, the subject is the apotheosis of Saint Guinefort, seen here rising from his well-tomb towards a brilliant point of light in the sky – heavenly light rays beam down around him. He is shown holding a martyrs palm as he rises past a constellation-specked sky that includes Sirius – the Dog Star long associated with plague and “the dog days of summer” that also became associated with the saint.
Flanking the scene on either side are curling spiked hawthorn branches covered in flowers and berries. Within the leaves on the right hand side is an intertwined serpent.
The left hand side shows a rabbit armed with a sword, a nod to marginalia depictions of rabbits.
Below the scene is a decorative depiction of oak, covered in acorns and galls, with a green man peering from between two babies. They grasp hands, the one on the left being a horned and green-skinned changeling and the one on the right the baby he would seek to replace.
Guinefort was seen as a protector of mother and children, and the rites surrounding him included efforts that would return the changeling to the faeries and fauns of the forest, and return to the desperate mothers their normal, healthy child.
As the first offering in the series, this piece does a lot to lay the foundation for future efforts. executed in gouache and silver leaf on vellum paper, its sets a tone for future pieces to come. Prints of this piece are currently available in my shop.
The Apotheosis of Saint Guinefort, Gouache and silver leaf on vellum paper, 10″ x 8″
*Schmitt, Jean Claude. The Holy Greyhound: Guinefort, Healer of Children since the Thirteenth Century. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Image 1: Anonymous Artists. The Knight Kills the Dog Thinking It Had Upset the Cradle. published 25 August 1488. The Illustrated Bartsch. Artstor, JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.12395748. Accessed 16 Aug. 2024.
Image 2: Fig. 1. Limbourg, Jean, et al. Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry: November. Circa 1412-1416. Wikipedia Link to Image.
Image 3: “Canis Major, Lepus, Columba Noachi & Cela Sculptoris“, plate 30 in Urania’s Mirror, a set of celestial cards accompanied by A familiar treatise on astronomy … by Jehoshaphat Aspin. London. Astronomical chart, 1 print on layered paper board : etching, hand-colored.
