Careful Thought

This is one of my favorite pieces, though not much is known about it.  It’s called, “Entry of Christ into Jerusalem,” and the Wiki entry says it’s from:

Museum for Byzantine Art (Inv. 1590; acquired 1889; from the collection of Sir Andrews), Bode Museum, Berlin.

The description says,

Entry of Christ into Jerusalem (central panel from a triptych), Constantinople, 10th century; ivory

Again, I’m continually amazed at God-given talents.  God is a creative God, and, in fact, Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  So God is creative, and because we were made in his image, it’s not surprising that we have inherent creativity within us.

Technorati Tags: art, faith, faith in art

Tags: art, faith, faith in art

My niece is a nun.  She entered St Meinrad Abbey in Indiana and took orders as a Benedictine nun in 2006.  She’s also an incredible artist, and has turned her hand to producing icons, which have been made into greeting cards and note cards.  This is from The Dome: 

[Sister Jeana] is one of four artists whose icons will be on display at the Saint Meinrad Archabbey Library Gallery, St. Meinrad, Indiana, May 2 through June 3.  Icons in the exhibit represent a diversity of styles, ranging from traditional egg tempera and gold leaf on wood panel to the contemporary medium of acrylic on canvas. Sister Jeana works in acrylic and gold leaf on canvas. Her icons in the exhibit include images of Jesus Christ Savior, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Vladimir Mother of God, and the Holy Family.

Icons were originally painted by artists in monasteries in the Eastern Church, where they are an integral part of church architecture and worship. Appropriate subjects for representation in icons include saints, the Virgin Mary, and depictions of narratives from the Bible. Icons are considered to be windows into the realm of the spirit, inviting the viewer to contemplation and prayer.

A northern Illinois native, Sister Jeana says that she “grew up loving art” and was particularly drawn to portraiture. She attended Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, with a major in religious studies and a minor in art history, and spent a junior semester researching pilgrimage and studying art history in Rome. She entered Monastery Immaculate Conception in 2003 and made her first profession in 2006. She currently teaches theology at Providence Junior–Senior High School in Clarksville, Indiana.

When Sister Jeana began painting icons several years ago, she discovered that iconography built on her love of portraiture. Since then, she has been studying the history, technique, and spirituality of creating and praying with icons. She believes that painting icons is part of a lifelong calling.

I think it’s very cool when faith, art, and God-given talent intersect.

Technorati Tags: faith, faith in art, family, icons, St Meinrad Abbey

Tags: faith, faith in art, family, icons, St Meinrad Abbey

This piece is Christ Carrying the Cross, by Tiziano Vecellio (Titian).  The artist painted this in his elder years (1570-1575), which were painful because of the loss of his friends, family and patron.  It is said that, “In his late works Titian’s signature style became increasingly loose, until, as described by one of his students, he painted “more with his fingers than with the brush.”

From the Web Gallery of Art:

The elderly Titian’s final years are marked by the anguish of personal tragedy. The year 1556 saw the death of his close friend of thirty years, Pietro Aretino. In 1558 Charles V died in the solitude of the monastery of St Yuste; sentiments of gratitude and respect had long bound Titian to his old patron. A year later his brother Francesco died — a trusted and unobtrusive collaborator on countless painting projects. The effect these losses had on Titian is clear in some of his letters to Philip II but his paintings remain the most eloquent testimony of his distress in these years.

Technorati Tags: Christ Carrying the Cross, faith, faith in art, Titian

Tags: Christ Carrying the Cross, faith, faith in art, Titian

This painting (on the left) is by one of my favorite artists, the Italian baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, better known simply as Caravaggio.  It’s entitled The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew.  The painting displays the artist’s trademark realism and stark use of lighting.  It’s also unusual in that it recently came to light again after years of neglect.  The British Royal Family has long held the painting (for almost 400 years), though it has lain unseen in a storeroom at Hampton Court for decades. 

From the (UK) Telegraph:

Years of grime, varnishing and zealous over-painting to cover up damage convinced generations of art historians that it was of little merit. It was recently valued at “a few tens of thousands of pounds”, mainly because Charles I’s stamp was on the back.

The painting was bought by Charles I in 1637 and after being sold with most of the Royal Collection during the Commonwealth, it was re-acquired by Charles II.

Misattributed as a copy of a Caravaggio by an unknown hand, it was valued in thousands rather than millions.

The painting is taken from the scene in St Mark’s Gospel where Christ, with Peter and Andrew while they are fishing at the Sea of Galilee, says to them: “Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men.” Unusually, Christ is shown without a beard. The Royal Collection has dated it to between 1603 and 1606 when Caravaggio worked in Rome.

(The restored painting is on the left.)

Technorati Tags: Calling of St Peter and Andrew, Caravaggio, faith in art

Tags: Calling of St Peter and Andrew, Caravaggio, faith in art

This is another Tintoretto, called Christ Before Pilate. It was painted in 1567 at the Sala dell’Albergo in Venice, one of a series of the Passion of Christ the artist painted at that location.  From the Web Gallery of Art:

In a very fine and measured luministic web the figure of Christ, wrapped in a white mantle, stands out like a shining blade against the crowd and the architectural scenery. He is centred by a bright ray of light and stands tall in front of the hypocritically bureaucratic judge that is Pilate, who is portrayed in red robes and as if sunk in shadows. Certainly taking up the idea of Carpaccio in his St Ursula cycle, Tintoretto portraits the old secretary at the foot of Pilate’s throne. He leans against a stool covered with dark green cloth and with great diligent enthusiasm notes down every moment, every word spoken by the judge amid the murmurings of the pitiless crowd which obstinately clamours for the death of Christ.

Technorati Tags: faith in art, Pilate Before Christ, Tintoretto

Tags: faith in art, Pilate Before Christ, Tintoretto

Tintoretto (real name - Jacopo Robusti) was a Venetian who painted his Last Supper in 1594.  The artist was an admirer and a probably student of the master Titian.  This painting, like most of Tintoretto’s, shows an incredible use of muted colors.  It was also an unusual work in its almost casual blend of the ‘real world’ and the supernatural.

Technorati Tags: faith in art, Last supper, Tintoretto

Tags: faith in art, Last supper, Tintoretto

This is Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) by Antonio Ciseri, and it’s another of my favorites.  Ciseri was born in Ronco Sopra Ascona in Switzerland and trained in Florence under Niccola Benvenuti. His religious paintings are reminiscent of Raphael in style and composition.  He painted many works under commissions from churches in Italy and Switzerland.  Ciseri admired and learned much from his Italian Renaissance predecessors.

The subject is Pilate’s presentation of Christ to the crowd as described in John 19:1-5:

“Pilate then took Jesus and scourged Him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and put a purple robe on Him; and they began to come up to Him and say, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and to give Him slaps in the face.

Pilate came out again and said to them, “Behold, I am bringing Him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in Him.”

Jesus then came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold, the Man!”

Technorati Tags: Antonio Ciseri, Ecce Homo, faith in art, Pilate

Tags: Antonio Ciseri, Ecce Homo, faith in art, Pilate

This week’s image is another Caravaggio. The painting is Supper at Emmaus (See Luke 24:13-35) from 1598. Caravaggio was an against-the-grain type of painter in that he refused to paint his subjects (particularly his religious subjects) using traditional conventions. Here, Christ is shown as a robust, un-haloed, well-fed, beardless young man. Unlike the artist’s Incredulity of St Thomas, in this painting he does not show the resurrected Christ with the marks of crucifixion.

(HT: Malaspina - Lecture on Baroque Art, Russell McNeil, PhD)

Technorati Tags: Caravaggio, faith in art, Supper at Emmaus

Tags: Caravaggio, faith in art, Supper at Emmaus

This is the Flammarion Woodcut, which probably isn’t actually a woodcut, but rather a wood carving. It depicts,

“…a man, dressed as a medieval pilgrim and carrying a pilgrim’s staff, peering through the sky as if it were a curtain to look at the inner workings of the universe. One of the elements of the cosmic machinery bears a strong resemblance to traditional pictorial representations of the “wheel in the middle of a wheel” described in the visions of the prophet Ezekiel. The caption translates as “A missionary of the Middle Ages tells that he had found the point where the sky and the Earth touched…” The image accompanies a text which reads, in part, “What, then, is this blue sky, which certainly does exist, and which veils from us the stars during the day?”‘

Flammarion (1842-1925) was a bibliophile and book collector, astronomer and engraver.

The image of a pilgrim encountering a spherical heavenly vault separating the earth from the heavens appeared in Flammarion’s Les mondes imaginaires et les mondes réels (”The Imaginary Worlds and the Real Worlds,” 1865) and was probably created by the author.

I find this image interesting because it speaks to me of our desire to understand the world around us in light of Scripture.

Technorati Tags: art, faith, faith in art, flammarion

Tags: art, faith, faith in art, flammarion

This piece by Caravaggio is David Victorious Over Goliath and currently hangs in the Prado in Madrid. Caravaggio was one of the original Baroque “painters of light” — long before Thomas Kincaid.  His works typically make strong use of light and shadow.

He was a pretty wild individual, and may have killed two or three men in brawls. He fled Rome for Naples and Malta with a price on his head and died under mysterious circumstances after he was pardoned for his crimes.

Technorati Tags: Caravaggio, David Victorious Over Goliath, faith in art

Tags: Caravaggio, David Victorious Over Goliath, faith in art