In the early 14th century the artist Giotto was commissioned to decorate the interior of the Scrovegni chapel in Padua. Along with several gory visions of hell, he created a series of panels depicting the virtues and vices. One of the most striking is Envy. It is shown as an ugly old woman with flappy ears and horns growing out of her head. A fat snake emerges from her mouth, which twists around to face her, eye to eye. One hand holds a sack of coins; the other is grasping and claw-like. The woman is painted to look like a statue, in shades of grey (a technique known as grisaille); the only colour the vivid red flames that lick the hem of her sack-like dress.
It’s a good tool for teaching, and this was its intention: a memorable moral lesson for a congregation with limited literacy, whose cohesion as a community was threatened by the actions of envious individuals. Envy burns, like fire; envy makes us blind to what we have and see only what others have; envy makes us monstrous. The image is an instructive allegory and its lesson can be seen in more modern works, such as Disney’s The Lion King, in which Scar’s bitterness about his brother’s superior grace and power makes him wizened and ugly. It makes him do terrible things.
Children are particularly prone to envy, acutely attuned to the myriad unfairnesses of existence: why does my cousin have more cool stuff than I do, why does my friend have better snacks than we do? (There is a lot of snack envy in our house; some of the worst arguments we have are about crisps.)
And it is true that such feelings can burn, can make us blind to the plenty that we possess. They can also cause unpleasant behaviour. A lot of bullying is bound up with envy — what else is one meant to do with all those bitter feelings other than lash out? Furthermore, we live in a particularly envious age mediated by social media, in which how much prettier everyone else is than us, how much thinner, richer, more popular, more in love, more well-travelled, more well-read, is brightly blasted into our eyeballs during every spare moment.
But I am not sure if Giotto’s image of envy is the best place to start with a child. The first thing to do is to talk, to help them to unpick the emotions they’re feeling. Ask them how it feels — envy can be very physical. Ask them to explain why they are envious, to tell you what it is that they want. Get them to think about whether the thing they want will give them temporary pleasure or more long-lasting happiness. Ask them to think about whether the person they envy really has “more” than them, if we define “more” not just in terms of possessions but in terms of love, fun, wellbeing. The aim is to help to free their gaze.
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Dante, in his Purgatory, describes the envious as having eyelids that are stitched together with iron wire. When we spend less time looking at what others have, we can be more content with what we have. Encourage your children to think about what enough looks like — a useful practice for us all.
It is important, though, to explain that envy is a completely natural emotion — we all feel it and it is nothing to be ashamed of. It is what you do with it that counts. Envy is about desire and it can be a spur, making us work harder to get the things we want. But mostly we need to just let it wash through us, like anger.
Back in Padua, in the Scrovegni chapel, each of the vices has its companion virtue. Envy’s is Charity. She is young and beautiful, wearing a crown, holding out a big bowl of fruit while being passed a pear by an angel. She stands on what look like sacks of grain, and little bags of money lie discarded at her feet. The act of being generous to others — when you share your Nik Naks — will always make you feel happier than when you have more packets of crisps than your friends. That’s Giotto’s message.
