Saint Elizabeth of Hungary

                                    Harry Clarke: Saint Elizabeth of Hungary                   1921

         Color-stained glass art bewitches me like kaleidoscopes do. Originally churches ordered them to acquaint the bible to the illiterates. Stain glass artists painted scenes from Jesus’s life or the catholic saints’ with beautiful black lines and curves and vivid colors. Harry Clarke, the well-known Irish illustrator and stain glass artist depicted, among many others, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary.

         I like the modernism with which Clarke portrayed her: like a contemporary, young girl in 1921. Saint Elizabeth has short-cut hair and a trendy dress. At her neck, there is a huge precious stone with pearls. She has seemingly valuable earrings and a fancy crown. Elizabeth would never wear such vain things.

      She was the daughter of the Hungarian king, Andrew II and was sent to Thuringia, in 1211, to the royal court at the age of four to be raised by her betrothed, Hermann’s odious family. She was just a little girl who missed her family. Her only friend became Ludwig, Hermann’s younger brother. They were inseparable.

      Before long, her betrothed died and his father too, leaving Ludwig to become the ruler. He married his beloved Elizabeth. He was twenty and she was fourteen. Things could not have been more wonderful: they had two children and loved each other very, very much. Ludwig supported all her decisions and let her help the poor and sick peasants, and to fund an orphanage and Europe’s probably first hospital. Elizabeth fed the hungry from the castle’s larder. Ludwig’s family was angry with her for that, but Ludwig, who spent much time in the battlefields, approved her every “whim.” 

         In 1227 Ludwig left for the crusade and never came back. He died from the Black Death. Their third child was born just two weeks later and Elizabeth was utterly devastated. She said, “The world with all its joys is now dead to me.” She left the castle and joined St Francis of Assisi’s followers. She starved herself, lashed herself, and lived in humility until she succumbed and died four years after Ludwig. Now they are both saints of the Catholic Church.

         Elizabeth is one of the most beloved saints and she became more popular in the beginning of the twentieth century, just around when Clarke created the stained glass. That is why she looks so modern and that is why I like this depiction of her: because it is so different from the other, many-many statues and paintings made during the hundreds of years since she died. The others are about her holy sacrifice, but this one is about her timelessness.