John Paul II Foundation for Sacred Arts - An Innovative and Entrepreneurial Answer to Paying Artists Well for Good Work

Here is an exciting and innovative approach to financing original works of sacred art. It comes from the recently formed John Paul II Foundation for Sacred Arts.

It is a free market approach in which artists are motivated to create work of sufficient quality that it will fulfil its purpose fully, which means that it will connect with congregations in their worship. If he fulfils both of these criteria, then through this system, he will generate enough return that he will have more than a living wage.

Instead of a traditional endowment or commission model, the Foundation partners with artists in an entrepreneurial venture to fund a given project at cost. This format makes funding sacred art financially accessible to donors of all levels. Grants are crowd-funded and paid in installments throughout the creative process to pay the artist’s material costs and living expenses. Upon its completion, the artist retains primary ownership of the work, while the Foundation enjoys a share in the proceeds of any sale of the work, associated prints, or revenues from displaying the work.

The great strength of this, is that once the artist is selected for crowd-funding, he is still not guaranteed success. The funding will only come if the crowds are interested, so to speak. In other words, it must appeal to large numbers of ordinary, non-elites as well.

This is the ultimate test of beauty - it appeals to the cognoscienti and hoi polloi alike. As Benedict XVI said in A New Song to the Lord (p123): "It is precisely the test of true creativity that the artist steps out of the esoteric and knows how to form his or her intuition in such a way that the other - the many - may perceive what the artist has perceived."

This is saying that while all that is popular is not beautiful; all that is beautiful will be popular (provided enough people are exposed to it). Therefore, the judges who consider its appropriateness for sacred art must consider also whether this is likely to connect with congregations. If they get it wrong and no one wants to fund it, they won't make the same mistake twice! It is, in part at least, self-selecting.

Some artists may still argue that they won't be able to access this funding unless they can first jump through the hoop of judges' selection. This is true. But if that happens to you...start your own crowd-funding foundation! The best will rise to the surface and the crowds will decide which judges they trust, and whose art they want to back.

The Foundation is inspired by the personal experience of its founder, Fr. Michael Burbeck, who had a profound conversion sparked by the transcendent beauty he found in the great churches of Europe. This encounter with beauty set him on a path to the Catholic faith and, ultimately, the priesthood.

He told me:

As then-Cardinal Ratzinger wrote, “The encounter with the beautiful can become the wound of the arrow that strikes the heart and in this way opens our eyes.” Similarly, because of beauty, I found the Catholic Church, fell in love with her, and was convinced of the truth of her teachings. That is the power of sacred art.”

The art I encountered was the fruit not only of a culture of faith, but of a system of patronage where art and artists were promoted and financially sustained. That system no longer exists, and yet, as Pope St. John Paul II says so plainly in his Letter to Artists, “the Church needs art.” The John Paul II Foundation for the Sacred Arts exists to help meet that need — to promote sacred art by partnering with artists who share our belief in the evangelical power of beauty.

The Foundation is currently funding its first work, a painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe by Cameron Smith - a full-scale re-presentation that the artist describes as “faithful to the message and spirit of the original mystical image … simultaneously familiar and strikingly new.” It is our hope that this work of authentic beauty will bring the image and message of Our Lady of Guadalupe to a new generation.

This is so different from the most common model of organizations founded to promote beautiful art in the Church. The standard format that I have seen is to have a call for artists, organize an exhibition, and then have an event with prominent speakers to draw people in to see it. The weakness of this model is that the assumption is that the artists are already out there and all we need to do is publicise their work. What happens in practice is that the exhibition is forced to lower standards in order to have enough art to show. People listen to the high ideals of the rhetoric, and they can see that the art doesn't match up to it and as a result very little happens except that it undermines the message.

Every time such an event is organised, I always hope I will be proved wrong and perhaps things have improved enough now so that such events will be successful. If so, terrific! Nevertheless, the John Paul II Foundation at least provides some alternative approach that can be responsive and allow the style that connects with congregations today to emerge organically and naturally if it isn't there intitially.Regardless, the John Paul II Foundation at least provides an approach that can be responsive and allow the style that connects with congregations today to emerge organically and naturally if it isn't there intitially. This need not be an alternative - it is method that could be added to existing intitative as well, it seems to me.

For more information or to make a donation, visit their website: www.sacredartnc.org or contact director@sacredartnc.org.

For more information on Cameron Smith and his work, visit www.smithcatholicart.com. Two examples of his work are shown below.

The Dynamic of Prayer with Baroque Sacred Art - Why the Style of the Painting Makes You Pray Well

And how it is connected with the rosary. Have you ever had the experience of walking into an art gallery and being struck by a wonderful painting on the far side of the room. You are so captivated by it that you want to get closer. As you approach it, something strange happens. The image goes out of focus and dissolves into a mass of broad brushstrokes and unity of the image is lost. Then, in order to get a unified picture of the whole you have to recede again. The painting is likely to be an Old Master produced in the style of the 17^th-century baroque, perhaps a Velazquez, or a Ribera, or perhaps later artists who retained this stylistic effect, such as John Singer Sargent. I recently made a trip to the art museum at Worcester, Massachusetts and there was a portrait by Sargent there that was about 12ft high and forced us back maybe 35ft so that we could view the whole.

This is a deliberately contrived effect of baroque painting. These paintings are created to have optimum impact at a distance.  It is sad that the art gallery is the most likely place for us to find any art, let alone any sacred art that conforms to its principles. The stylistic elements of the baroque relate to its role firstly as a liturgical art form in the Counter-Reformation. The baroque of the 17th century is also the last style historically that Benedict XVI cites as an authentic liturgical tradition - where there is a full integration of theology and form - It should be of no surprise that this has an impact upon prayer.

The best analysis of the stylistic features of the baroque of the 17^th century that I have seen is in a book about Velazquez, published in 1906 and written by RAM Stevenson (the brother of Robert Louis). RAM Stevenson trained as a painter in the same studio in Paris as John Singer Sargent. This studio, run by a man called Carolos Duran was unusual in the 19th century in that it did not conform to the sentimental academic art of the time (such as we might have seen in Bougeureau, whose painting is shown above), but sought to mimic the style the great artists of the 17th century, such as Velazquez. In this he says: “A canvas should express a human outlook on the world and so it should represent an area possible to the attention; that is, it should subtend an angle of vision confined to certain natural limits of expansion.[1]  ”  In other words we need to stand far enough away from the painting so that the eye can take it in as a single impression. Traditionally (following on from Leonardo) this is taken to be a point three times longer than the greatest dimension of the painting. This ratio of 3:1 is in fact an angle of 18°, slightly larger than the natural angle of focused vision of the eye, which is about 15°. When you stand this distance away, the whole painting can be taken in comfortably, without forcing the eye to move backwards and forwards over it to any extent that is uncomfortable.

If the intention is to appear sharp and in focus at a distance of three times the length of the canvas, it must be much painted as much softer and blurred on the canvas itself. In practice this means that when one approaches a canvas, the brush stroke is often broader than one first expected. So that if we do examine a painting close too, it is often hard to discern anything, it almost looks like a collection of random brush strokes. The whole thing only comes together and knits into an image once we retreat again far enough to be able to see it as a unified image. This property makes baroque art particularly suitable for paintings that are intended to have an impact at a distance. The scene jumps out at us.

There is an additional optical device that contributes to this. The composition of the painting is such that the figures are painted in the foreground. Two things: the placement of the horizon; and the relationship between the angle of vision of the perimeter of the canvas and that angle which spans each figure within, affect the sense of whether the image is in the foreground, middle ground or background in relation to the observer. Baroque art tends to portray the key figures in the foreground. When these two effects are combined the effect is powerful.

If we look consider the very famous painting of Christ on the cross by Velazquez, for example. Its appearance at a distance is of a perfectly modeled figure. As we approach we see that much of the detail is painted with a very loose, broad brush. I have picked out the loin cloth and face as detail examples. The artist achieves this effect is achieved by retreating from the canvas, viewing the subject at a distance and then walking forward to paint the canvas from memory. Then after making the brushstroke the artist returns to review the work from the position from which he intends the viewer to see it several feet back. I learnt this technique when I studied portrait painting in Florence. I was on my feet, walking backwards and forwards for two three-hour sessions a day (punctuated by cappuccino breaks, of course). Over the course of an academic year I lost several pounds! I was told, though I haven’t been able to confirm the truth of it, that Velazquez did not feel inclined to do all that walking, so had a set of brushes made that had 10ft handles.

This dynamic between the viewer and the painting is consistent with the idea of baroque art which is to make God and his saints present to us here, in this fallen world. There may be evil and suffering, but God is here for us. Hope in Christ transcends all human suffering. The image says, so to speak, ‘you stay where you are – I am coming to you. I am with you, supporting you in your suffering, here and now’. The stylistic language of light and dark in baroque painting supports this also. The deep cast shadow represents evil and suffering, but it is always contrasted with strong light, representing the Light that ‘overcomes the darkness’.

This is different to the effect of the two other Catholic liturgical traditions as described by Pope Benedict XVI, the gothic and the iconographic. These place the figures compositionally always in the middle ground or distance, and so they always pull you in towards them. As you approach them they reveal more detail. (See a previous article on written for the New Liturgical Movement on the form of icons for more the reasons for this).

In this respect these traditions are complementary, rather than in opposition to each other. It has since struck me that the mysteries of the rosary describe this complementary dynamic also. They seem to describe an oscillating passage from earth to heaven and back again that helps us understand that God is simultaneously his calling us from Heaven to join him, but He is also with us here and helping to carry us up there, so to speak. If we consider the glorious mysteries, for example: first Christ is resurrected from the dead and then he ascends to heaven. Then He sends the Holy Spirit from heaven to be with us. Then we consider how Our Lady followed him, in her Assumption, and she and all the saints are in glory praying for us to join them. Both dynamics take place at the Mass itself. Christ comes down to us and is really present in Blessed Sacrament. As we participate in the Eucharist, we are raised up to Him supernaturally and then through Him and in the Spirit to the Father.

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[1] RAM Stevenson, The Art of Velazquez, p30.

A Simple Recipe for Artistic Success

In my opinion there are two simple goals for an artist who wants to make a living: first is that he creates good works of art; and second he knows how to sell it. This might seem like a statement of the obvious, but I didn't always see it that way, and when I talk to unsuccessful artists I hear many who still don't. I regularly used to complain that the culture doesn't support art, or most people have plebeian tastes and don't appreciate good art (people today get all their information from the internet and blogs for heaven's sake); or that the Church doesn't train its priests to be good patrons. All of this may be true some degree and even relevant to some degree; but complaining about it never got me anywhere. Rather than expecting society to change until it demands what I am already producing, I was forced to conclude that my success depends more on creating forms that appeal to people. Furthermore, I had to work out how to do it without comprimising on the principles of tradition. The main barrier to my accepting this is my pride: if my work is not selling at high enough prices then I must accept - in this age of the internet when marketing has never been easier - that the most likely reason is that what I produce just isn't good enough. This presented me with a choice: keep complaining or strive to improve. I have chosen to follow the second option (and have much progress to make).

In fact an artist can do both: improve his work and transform the society to which he aims to sell it, thereby creating a demand. The means by which he will do so is the same in each case, through the creation of works of beauty. It is beauty that will change the world. So I need first to create it, and then strive to get people to see it. If people value what I produce sufficiently, then they will pay me for it. The truly beautiful will transform those who see it, and people will want it. If this is not happening, I must work harder to create something that they will value more - I must become a better artist, or a better salesman, or both. This is the principle of noble accessibility coming into consideration again. We have to create forms that are so powerfully beautiful that they connect with people today. The nature of beauty is that tends to creates the desire for it once seen. As John Paul II put it in his Letter to Artists in the context of art, beauty is the 'good made visible'.

In that same letter, John Paul II was so confident in the supernatural power of beauty to do this that he called for a new epiphany of beauty. He did not appeal to society as a whole, or even the Catholic community to change itself and become more tasteful; nor did he even appeal to educators to change society so that it would appreciate good art (not that either is undesirable); but rather he addressed his call to artists. The clue, its seems to me is in the title of the document. It is the artist who will effect this epiphany through the creation of beautiful works of art.

Pope Benedict after him chose to address artists for the same reason, as did Paul VI before him. Each is echoing what the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council articulated. In his letter, he talks about art both inside and outside the church and points out that the beating heart of the tradition is sacred art. He writes: 'At the end of the Council, the Fathers addressed a greeting and an appeal to artists "This world - they said - in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. In this profound respect for beauty, the Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Consilium recalled the historic friendliness of the Church towards art and, referring more specifically to sacred art, the ''summit'' of religious art, did not hesitate to consider artists as having a ''noble ministry'' when their works reflect in some way the infinite beauty of God and raise people's minds to him. Thanks to the help of artists ''the knowledge of God can be better revealed and the preaching of the Gospel can become clearer to the human mind''.

(In this he distinguishes 'sacred' art from 'religious' art. I am assuming here that he considers 'sacred art' to be that worthy of veneration and appropriate for the liturgy - in accordance with the criteria laid down by Theodore the Studite- and to be distinguished from the more general criterion of protraying religious subjects.

This, by the way directs our focus in education today. The greatest need in all the arts is for people who create beautiful work. Therefore education should be directed as much to the stimulation of creativity, as to cultivating an appreciation of what is good. Patrons have a huge part to play in the creative process and education of future patrons, lay and religious, is certainly part of this. John Paul II called also for a dialogue between artists and the Church, in accord with the 7th Ecumenical Council, which stated that artists are merely executors of ideas and the ideas originate with the Fathers. Ideally, this dialogue would be a real one between the artist and living breathing Fathers. However, when an artist chooses to conform to principles of tradition, he is in connection with the Fathers of the past who directed those artists who formed the tradition. The reason that the Popes addressed the artists, I believe, is that it is the artists' responsibility to initiate this dialogue today by demonstrating that he can produce works that possess this transforming beauty. This will then draw the other parties into the dialogue.

The successful Christian artists that I know who are working in traditional forms have certain things in common. Each produces work of high quality and they assume that this is the basis upon which people want to buy it. Each knows how to sell his work and each manages to support their families comfortably through their artistry.

I have never heard either complain that the culture or the Church doesn't appreciate what they do. The majority of these artists have not been through any formal long term training and are mostly self taught. Regardless of how they were trained originally, the successful artists are constantly looking at new methods and materials that will help them to improve, largely teaching themselves now. And all are great students of their traditions: if there appears to be a need for innovation and there is any doubt as to its validity, they always seek advice from those who are aware of the great body of Church teaching, the theologians, philosophers and liturgists.

None has a precious attitude to the craftsmanship. Making money from what they do is as important as being able to do it. This is good, I feel, for if they cannot pay the bills by doing it, then they cannot keep on doing it; but also because the market is the most efficient mechanism for the distribution of goods that we have today. Postscript Incidentally, this is something that all manufacturers might take note of. This says that if what they make is beautiful then people will be attracted to it and will pay a premium for it. The success of Apple computers is based upon this premise. Mass production doesn't need to detract from this. In fact, if an object is beautiful, then mass production means more beauty than if only a limited number are produced. I have not seen any evidence to suggest that ugliness is intrinsic to the manufacturing process. The cost of making something beautiful is not necessarily greater than the cost of making something ugly and even if it is, it is as likely to be an investment that pays off, as in the case of Apple where people will pay more for a more appealing design. The reason, I believe, that we associate mass production with ugliness is that since the rejection of tradition values in art and design, most designers simply don't know how to make something that participates in the timeless qualities of beauty. The quality of the article that is mass produced is dependent upon the quality of the original design. If the design is bad, then we have ugliness in great quantity; and if good, then it produces beauty in great quantity. And that is a desirable thing...isn't it?

A Traditional Western Icon - from the Rheinau Psalter

How we might re-establish Catholic traditions in sacred art After my references to Western icons and also my assertion of the importance of re-establishing the gothic style as living traditions, people have been asking me to give examples of the images I am talking about. I am going to do a regular series of features of such examples in order to promote these styles. My hope is that we in the West will follow the remarkable work of the Russians and Greeks who reestablished the iconographic tradition in the Eastern Church in the middle of the 20th century (figures such as Ouspensky and Kontoglou). The first stage in doing this is the artistic study - copying with understanding - of the works of a past tradition. And then the second stage, if this is to become a truly living tradition, is the creation of new works that are consistent with the core timeless principles of the tradition. The great achievement of our Eastern brethren is to moved through to the second stage. In the West our artistic heritage is richer (in the sense that we not only have iconographic tradition, but also the gothic and the baroque as authentic and complementary sacred art traditions). This means that in once sense, given there are three traditions, the task ahead is greater but in another, because we can follow the methods used by the Russians and Greeks (and more recently Copts with Dr Stephane Rene doing great work) it is less because we can use the principles that they used.

We have made a start at this effort in cultural reform at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts and my classes there now focus on these Western forms. What is interesting is to see how the students take to these forms very happily and seem to enjoy creating them. As a result they are producing some of the best work I have seen students of mine produce. (I will post some of their work at the end of the semester once they have finished their projects). My sense is that just seems more natural to us Western Catholics to paint like images like this than to paint Eastern icons. Similarly, the Way of Beauty Summer Atelier (see here for details), which is offering an icon-painting summer school will focus on these forms, which come from illuminated manuscripts. These are excellent examples to study if you are a beginner because they are strongly line based, rather than relying on the modelling of form through gradual blening of tone and colour. This latter requires sophisticated handling of the paint which is very difficult in egg tempera, the medium used. We use egg tempera paint on high quality watercolour paper to replicate these manuscript images.

The image shown here is a remarkable plate from a 13th-century German psalter. Rheinau is the town in Germany where it was created. The artist's name is unkown. It is consistent with the iconographic prototype. The draughtsmanship is wonderful. I love the contrast between the sure smooth flow of the lines that describe the human forms, which contrast with the vigorous angular handling of those lines which describe the drapery. Artists today could learn from this, because this use of a faceting in the description of drapery helps to give the image a greater strength and less sentimental feel. Sentimentality is the scourge of modern sacred art. This device is not limited to iconographic or gothic art - even Bernini used it when he sculpted drapery in the baroque era. Note also how the Rheinau image conforms to the Western preference for patterned borders (which is not unknown but certainly less common in the Eastern variants).

Some might question the ideas this is iconographic by pointing the fact that some of the figures are in profile (not seen in icons usually). However, it seems to me that the artist is being selective in accordance with the iconographic convention. The two figures who have halos, Christ and St Peter are not in profile. All the other figures, with Judas most prominent, are part of the crowd of men who are arresting Christ. These are not saints and so this is indicated not only by the absense of halos but also by drawing them in profile.

Giusto's Institution of the Eucharist

This article is by Dr Caroline Farey of the Maryvale Institute. She and I worked together to design the Institute's degree level diploma (6 US credits): Art, Beauty and Inspiration in a Catholic Perspective. A distance learning course requiring one residential weekend, this can be taken either by application tothe Institute in Birmingham, England; or in the US through their centre based at the Diocese of Kansas City, Kansas (link here). Dr Farey writes:

Between 1465 and 1474, Giusto executed the Communion of the Apostles (The Institution of the Eucharist) which Vasari has described, and is now in the museum of Urbino. It was painted for the brotherhood of Corpus Christi at the bidding of Frederick of Montefeltro, who was introduced by Caterino Zeno, a Persian envoy at that time on a mission to the court of Urbino. Giusto is Joos van Wassenhove who was a Netherlandish painter, part of whose career was spent in Italy, where he was known as Giusto da Guanto (Justus of Ghent). He brought to Italy some of the characteristics of Dutch painting and combined them with the local Italian style.

This painting unites Jesus Christ, the Church and the Eucharist in a single harmonious illustration of the Catholic faith. It is perhaps important to begin with an initial teaching point: it is worth helping people realise that such a painting as this is has both an historical and a contemporary dimension to it. We do not need to believe, therefore, that the artist wishes us to see every part of the painting as an historical depiction. He is not necessarily wishing to communicate to us that the upper room really looked like this, or that the table was historically laid out like this, or that the apostles necessarily knelt to receive the body and blood of Christ as he has painted it here. Of course, they may have done. However, what the artist is also trying to show us in the painting is that what Christ did at the last supper with the apostles he, personally, still does for his disciples today at Mass.

One way to introduce this painting to those whom we are catechising is to begin by teaching about the Gospel accounts of the Last Supper from this piece of art. Then we can continue by explaining what the painting reveals about Mass today.

Christ at the Last Supper

Let us look at this painting first of all as depicting an event in the life of Christ.For this we can follow the Gospel accounts, especially that of St Luke.

• In the Gospel of Luke chapter 22 we read that, during the Last Supper, a dispute arose amongst the disciples as to who was the greatest. Jesus replied to them ‘which is the greater, one who sits at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who sits at table? But I am among you as one who serves’(Lk 22:27).Much in this painting depicts this dialogue. The Persian in the turban and the members of the confraternity in the red hats are disputing and Christ is portrayed as the one who is not sitting at table now but is among his disciples, serving.Look at the bending figure of Christ, beautifully depicting the reality of Christ the Servant.

• We can also see here an artistic depiction of the central truth of the Faith, that God condescended to be born and to live among us, that the divine Second Person of the Trinity took flesh for our sake In the General Directory for Catechesis the part on the Pedagogy of God opens with a quotation from Hosea, ‘I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them’ (Hos 11:4, in GDC 137). The bending figures of the apostles around Christ also emphasises this mystery. By contrast, the Persian in the turban stands erect, with his head and shoulders thrown back. The painting is also showing us the amazing truth that Christ only ever serves himself to us – ‘This is my Body’. The Church, in her Tradition, follows this truth without deviation, accepting that Christ gives his whole self to us.

• Christ, the one who serves, is portrayed as ‘greater’ by his stature and centrality in the picture. You can see that Christ is painted disproportionately larger in height than any other figure.

• Directly in front of Christ on the floor we can see the jug of water and basin.The Gospel of Lukes tell us that the disciples were to meet a man carrying a jar of water and to follow him into the house which he enters (Lk 22:10).

• John’s Gospel also links the Last Supper scene to water: ‘He rose from supper, laid aside his garments …poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet’ (Jn 13: 4-5). It seems that in this painting this may have already happened – look at the bare feet in the picture!

• John’s Gospel also speaks of Judas as the one with the money box, or bag (Jn 13:29), and we can see him in this painting clutching a moneybag in both hands, looking back into the room as he edges out of the open doorway into the night with dawn breaking already in the distance.

• Eleven reverent apostles remain, three kneeling on the right and eight on the left. One in white at the back, perhaps the young John, still holds a bottle as though he had been serving, too, with his other hand raised as he gazes adoringly at Christ.

• The one next to him is quite different. See how he seems to be staring intently at the disputants.He is holding a lighted candle, representing perhaps the light of faith, of truth, of Christ. He has seen the truth of Christ as the greater who has come among them as a servant and longs for the disputants to be enlightened by this same truth!

Christ in His Church

Let us look now for every indication that the painter is portraying Christ as present and active in his Church. What does the picture tell us about the Mass as it is celebrated in the Church?

·The building is the first sign, with its pillars and its windows portrayed like the apse of a Cathedral Church.

·The sanctuary lamp hangs directly above the figure of Christ, in shadow in the central round window between the pillars of the apse where the tabernacle would usually be found.

·The table is painted as though an altar, and the chalice and sacred hosts are placed as though on the altar at Mass.

·The apostle in white at the back on the left hand side acts like a server acolyte at Mass and the one beside him carries a tall candle.

·The jug and basin directly in front of Jesus remind the congregation of the sprinkling of water that can take place before mass on Sunday to remind us of our Baptism.

·Christ takes up the position that we normally associate with the priest.The priest is called ‘in persona Christi’, ‘in the person of Christ’ at this moment of distribution of the sacred species and throughout the Mass.

• The apostles are painted kneeling and receiving the body of Christ on the tongue, as they would have done for most of the Church’s history until recently, as a sign of the holiness of the moment, hence the use for many centuries of the name ‘holy communion’.

This is the greatest moment possible on this earth of communion with Jesus, the Son of God, and it is the holiest moment possible, receiving the body and blood of Christ himself. The angels kneeling and adoring above the scene help to indicate this holiness.

The Symbolic Content of Rembrandt's Holy Family, by Dr Caroline Farey of the Maryvale Institute

This short posting, which focusses on the symbolic content in a painting is written by Dr Caroline Farey of the Maryvale Institute. She and I work as a double team, teaching in July at the residential weekend of the one-year distance-learning course about Catholic art and culture called Art, Beauty and Inspiration in a Catholic Perspective. This is the first a series on the symbolic content on art by Caroline and Dr Lionel Gracey, also of the Maryvale Institute. The Maryvale Institute is the only Pontifically recognised Higher Institute of Religious Sciences in the English speaking world and the course, in distance learning form with one residential weekend is offered through its base in Birmingham, England and in the US in Kansas City through the Maryvale Center at the Diocese of Kansas City, Kansas. For further information go here.

Caroline writes:

The Holy Family by Rembrandt

In this painting we ponder particularly on Our Lady, as Mother of God, Mother of the saviour of the world, Mother of her Son.We can discern a triple revelation here.

The first act of revelation is from the Old Testament Scriptures to Mary.The light picks out the eager attentionon Mary’s young face and on the Scriptures that she is reading. Mary has suddenly but quietly turned in her chair from the text she has been reading to the fulfilment of those words that she now contemplates as ‘made flesh’ in the basket cot beside her.The Scriptures are telling her who her Son is.

But both her face and the book have parts in shadow too. Similarly Christ’s face is part in shadow and part illuminated.The shadows remind us of the shadow of the suffering and death he will endure, as she will, suffering foretold also in the Jewish Scriptures – the Old Testament.

The second act of revelation is by Mary to the world.She holds back a richly embroidered veil: by this she reveals Christ to us the onlookers.Mary has a place in God’s revealing of his Son.

The third act of revelation is by the sleeping child himself. In his sleep, he holds back a bright red coverlet revealing a lining of lamb’s fleece. Christ reveals himself, even as an infant fast asleep.The red coverlet, as we have seen in paintings before, flows over the edge like blood poured out, and it is highlighted further in its brightness in its juxta-positioning against the richly deep red of Mary ‘s skirt. Mary and the child both wear red. By the fleece Jesus is revealing himself as the lamb of God who is to be led silently to the slaughter.

The revelation taking place at the centre of the painting, through an interplay of light and movements, cloths and colours, is reinforced by other details surrounding Mary and the crib.Firstly, of course in the top left hand corner are the angels bursting in on the scene revealing to us that this is no ordinary carpenter’s child.Where are they looking? One is looking lovingly at Mary, the other looking soberly at the baby.Diagonally opposite the angels in the bottom right hand corner is the fire which, together with the angels is the main source of diffused light across the bare boards of the floor and the barren wall behind, with what look like further parts of the yoke being made by Joseph.A contemplative scene, which, despite looking so humble and ordinary is nonetheless imbued throughout by the grace of the Incarnation of the Son of God through Mary, Theotokos, Mother of God.

Is There a Place for Modern Art in our Churches?

In a recent address Pope Benedict XVI praised the work of the 20^th century artist Marc Chagal. He described him as a great artist whose work drew inspiration from the Bible, here. At first sight this might seem surprising. In his book, the Spirit of the Liturgy, Benedict talks of the disconnection between the culture of faith and the wider culture which occurred after the Enlightenment. He cites three artistic traditions as authentically liturgical and all were developed prior to the Enlightenment, namely the iconographic, the gothic and the baroque at its best.

The bridge to this world of modern art was built by the Romantics, who established the idea that self-expression was the purpose of art. In this context it meant that the task of the artist was limited to the communication his personal views and feelings. Whether or not these views and feelings were based in truth was not important. Success was measured by how accurately or – to use the buzzword of the art world – ‘sincerely’ they were communicated.

If the Romantics built the bridge to modernism, then it was the Impressionists who crossed it and smashed it behind them. Though academically trained themselves, they taught their students to reject tradition (and by this they meant the Western tradition rooted in Christianity) as any basis for guidance. By doing this, they broke any connection with the past that remained. Sadly, they were so successful and influential that everyone listened to them. Up to this point all artists were given the academic training of the Christian tradition that had been developed for the academies of the 17^th century. By the 19^th century, the training had become detached from its Christian ethos but because the method was still essentially Christian (if misunderstood) the effect was effect on art was visible but subtle (we can distinguish between mid-19^th and mid-17^th century art for example). After the Impressionists, however, all the academies and ateliers of Europe closed down and artists received neither the skills nor the Christian ethos; the result is the rampant individualism that characterizes the modern era.

Marc Chagall’s work is very much a product of this 20^th century spirit of self-expression and individualism.

So this raises the question, how can Chagall, whose work conforms in many ways to form of the modern era, be called great by the Holy Father who elsewhere is so clear in stating that the modern mainstream culture is not Christian? Is there a contradiction?

I think not and here’s why. (I should state here that I am basing this purely on what I have read of the Holy Father’s words. I do not claim to have any special inside knowledge of his views.)

Firstly, if individualism is a principle governing the creative process, while it is likely to produce error, it does allow for the possibility of good art. Subjectivity doesn’t necessarily produce ugliness. It is always a possibility that an artist will exercise his freedom wisely and choose to follow what is true and beautiful. I have heard this described as a subjective objectivity…or was it an objective subjectivity (I forget now)? Anyway, whatever we call it, Chagall might be one of these. In order to be certain of this we will have to wait to see whether or not it will transcend its own time – one of the marks of works that contains the timeless principles of beauty. His work has not done this because we are still, essentially, in the modern era.

Secondly, sacred art can be good devotional art without being appropriate for the liturgy. The art that we choose to for our own private prayer is a personal choice based upon what we feel helps our own prayer life. We have to be more careful when selecting art for our churches, allowing for the fact that personal tastes vary. While for my home I would pick whatever appeals to me; for a church I would always choose that art for which there is the greatest consensus over the longest period of time. Accordingly I am much more inclined to put aside personal preference and allow tradition to be the greatest influence in the choices I make. For the liturgy, therefore, I would always choose that art which conforms to the three established liturgical traditions: the baroque, the gothic and the iconographic. I would not put Chagall in a church.

This does raise the question as to whether or not any new tradition could ever emerge? None of the established liturgical tradition dropped out of heaven fully formed. They developed over a period of time and in different times. There is no reason to believe that we won’t see more liturgical traditions developing in the future. Could it be that Chagall is a spark that ignites the fire of a new Christian liturgical tradition?

In my opinion, this is possible but very unlikely.

When Caravaggio produced his work at the end of the 16^th century it had such an effect on the art of the Rome that nearly all other artists modeled their work on it. However, the basis of this new style was not mysterious. He presented a visual vocabulary that was a fully worked out integration of form and theology. It was the culmination of much work done over a period of time (about 100 years) through a dialogue between artists and the Church’s theologians, philosophers, liturgists. It became the basis for a new tradition because the integration of form and content was articulated and understood, so other artists could learn those principles and apply them in their own work. It was possible to reflect that style, and develop it further, without blindly (so to speak) copying Caravaggio. They copied with understanding.

Chagall’s work is very much more highly individual in its stylization than that of Caravaggio; and it relies much more on an interpretation of ideas that is directed by intuition rather than reason. Unless we can discern the principles that underlie it and characterize them very clearly, we can copy his work, but it is going to be difficult to do so with sufficient understanding for it to be the basis of a new tradition.

There is another factor that mitigates against Chagal: we live in the age where the tradition is one of anti-tradition. Today’s artists spend most of their time trying to be different be from everyone else. So even if Chagall does represent the beginning of a fourth liturgical tradition and somebody worked out his system of iconography,  no tradition derived from it is is going to emerge as long as artists spend most of their time chasing ‘originality’ and consciously trying to differentiate themselves from other work.

Time will tell!

Images from top: White Crucifix; Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise; Jacob's Dream; Song of Songs; Abraham and the Three Angels; Ruth.

 

How Do We Revive the Gothic?

When I was given the courage to follow my dream of being an artist (by some inspired vocational guidance 20 years ago) I wanted to paint like the Italian gothic artist Duccio. My reasons were based upon personal preference rather than a deep knowledge of Catholic liturgical art. It was just that I loved what I saw when I went to the National Gallery in London: it had enough naturalism to make it accessible, and enough idealism that gave it a sense of the sacred. It was later that I read The Spirit of the Liturgy in which the then Cardinal Ratzinger wrote of the gothic an authentic liturgical tradition. Once I had decided I wanted to paint like him, it raised the problem of how to learn to do so. I didn't want to create pastiche, but to learn in such a way that it might become my natural way of painting and so if required, I could paint new works of art in this style. The problem was that as far as I was aware, this was not a living tradition and there wasn’t any practising artist who could teach me.

I had a sense that historically, the gothic was a transitionary phase between the iconographic and the classical naturalism of the High Renaissance/Baroque (transmitted through the ‘academic method’ of the academies and ateliers). The methods of both of these traditions were still just about alive, I knew, if not always applied in the full glory of the past. So I decided to seek a training in both traditions and hoped that through this, somehow, I would be able to take elements from both and patch together my own gothic style.

This twin training was extremely valuable to me to this end, but not in the way I had imagined. Rather than learning stylistic elements from two traditions that I could combine to create a hybrid, I learnt how a tradition preserves and passes on its core principles and so was able to see how the gothic could be reestablished as a tradition in its own right, without reference to the other two if necessary.

Both the academic and iconographic methods emphasized the importance of two aspects in the training: first the observation from nature and second the copying, with understanding, of masters in that tradition. The balance of these two aspects was different in each tradition (with the emphasis on observation from nature much stronger, as one would expect, in the naturalistic tradition).

This aspect of understanding when copying is important. Aidan Hart, my teacher, always stressed this strongly. When we studied an icon, he would relate the form of the painting to both the natural form and the theology. Take the example of the eyes: he pointed out that the eyes in an icon have no glint. This is because a glint is reflected light, and this is absent in the icon because it portrays eschatological man who shines with uncreated light which is stronger than the reflected light.

Sometimes he would point out features that might seem at first glance to be an arbitrary stylization but were in fact related to natural form. For example, the dark line above the eye is the deepest point. Below it, the eyeball is curving forward out of the orbit and above it the skull coming out from the orbit towards the brow. (This line only appears in nature if we have deep set eyes.) To accentuate this as a shadow line it is often painted as a red or red-brown shadow line. A warm, reddish shadow is often used in the deepest shadow of flesh even when painting naturalistically (this is what I was taught to do when I was studying in portrait painting in Florence).

So from this lesson I learnt that if I want to learn any tradition, I must learn to draw skillfully from nature as well as copy masters. If I want to paint figures in the style of musclebound superheroes, I would sign up for life drawing classes and copy lots of pictures of Spiderman and Superman. Similarly, if I want to paint like Duccio I can copy his work, while considering how the style relates to the theology; and (as we know the gothic masons did from their surviving manuscripts) draw from nature.

The study of iconography taught me that a tradition can be reestablished as living tradition successfully, even if the line of tradition has been broken. The Enlightenment affected the culture in both East and West and this caused a break in the iconographic tradition. The iconography which we see today is a living tradition that was reestablished in the 20^th century through the devoted work of Greek and Russian iconographers and scholars. These pioneers analysed the tradition for its essential elements, and then sought to account for these by relating them to theology of eschatological man. (The work has not been done yet. It has been developing and changing even in the time that I have been exposed to icons over the last 20 years.)

A similar process is now going on in in the West, both in regard to re-establishing the Baroque and gothic traditions; and in taking a discerning look at the Orthodox interpretation of the iconographic tradition, which is at times limited by its focus on the Greek and Russian traditions to the exclusion of other iconographic forms, for example the Romanesque or the Celtic forms of iconography.

I am confident therefore of a flowering of Catholic culture, especially when one sees how it is underpinned by the liturgical renewal that is taking place under the guiding hand of the Holy Father.

Images from top: Madonna and Child, Duccio; detail of Christ Pantocrator, 6th century; detail from triple portrait of Charles I, Sir Anthony van Dyck, 17th century.

Below: first, a portrait by yours truly in which the eyes are not deep set and so the line above the lids is not visible. Nevertheless, I used a deep red-brown, as instructed, to give the shadow tone in this naturalistic style. Below those we have large scale, full images of those above.

Why the Church has Different Artistic Traditions

The iconographic, the Gothic and the Baroque are Complementary Here is a passage taken from the Office of Readings, Saturday, 6^th week of Eastertide. It is part of St Augustine’s Commentary of the Gospel of John: "There are two ways of life that God has commended to the Church. One is through faith, the other is through vision. One is in pilgrimage through a foreign land, the other is in our eternal home; one in labour, the other in repose; one in a journey to our homeland, the other in that land itself; one in action, the other in the fruits of contemplation.

The first life, the life of action, is personified by the Apostle Peter; the contemplative life, by John. The first life is passed here on earth until the end of time, when it reaches its completion; the second is not fulfilled until the end of the world, but in the world to come it lasts for ever….”

This passage seems to me to describe very well why the Church has different liturgical artistic traditions. The form of the iconographic tradition is governed by the theology of the ‘world to come that lasts forever’ symbolized by St John.

Gothic is art of the ‘pilgrimage through a foreign land’, as Augustine puts it. Stylistically the Gothic is a naturalized iconography. I have written about this here. However, the fusion is not arbitrary. This is a naturalization that is integrated with the theology of pilgrimage that Augustine describes. In this regard it should not be confused with the degenerate forms of iconography that dominated the Eastern Church from the period of the 18^th century. (It was not until the 20^th century, with figures such as Ouspensky, Gregory Kroug and Fotis Kontoglou that the iconographic prototype was re-established in the main churches of the East.)

Historically, the Gothic can be seen as something that develops gradually from the Romanesque (a Western variant of the iconographic form). It is almost as if the art form gradually appears from heaven, descending down to earth to join the pilgrims. Duccio, for example, who lived in the late 13^th and early 14^th centuries has a style that is very closely related to the iconographic. Fra Angelico, in the 15^th century, uses both the iconographic visual vocabulary as well as naturalistic ones (such as perspective and shadow) in a theologically coherent way.

Where does the third authentic liturgical tradition of the Church, the Baroque, sit with these? It was during the Baroque of the 17^th century that the integration of theology and form in the most naturalistic of these styles occurred. The controlled variation in colour and focus (described in more detail here) were given theological meaning: we live in a fallen world, with evil and suffering present, but there is hope because God is present – in Baroque art contrast of light and shadow is always painted so to communicate the idea that the Light overcomes the darkness.

Although we cannot reach heaven fully in this life, supernaturally we partially and temporarily step into it through the liturgy and the sacramental life. This is a transforming process that by degrees takes us towards that heavenly state.

In this context, the Baroque is the ground zero, the starting point of our pilgrimage, and the gothic describes the partial and gradual ascent to that heavenly state in this life, before reaching the final repose. The Baroque and the Gothic together represent that aspect of our life in faith symbolized by St Peter in the picture that Augustine paints.

Therefore, these three styles are not in opposition to each other but are complementary. In the light of this I hope to see all three traditions. As each tradition develops, if it bears the mark of a genuinely living tradition, it will be consistent with the timeless principles that define it will, without deviating from the core defining principles, to reflect the time and place that it comes from. Those aspects that are subject to change will be the common ground for each of these traditions. It is possible to envisage a church containing all three traditions that are distinct, yet because they bear the mark of their time, yet containing aspects of form that are common and through this participate in a unified artistic vision.

In regard to the idea that both the Johannine and Petrine aspects of Christian life should be communicated, I leave the last word to St Augustine. Here is the closing passage from the same reading:

“We should not separate these great apostles. They were both part of the present life symbolized by Peter and they were both part of the future life symbolized by John. Considered as symbols, Peter followed Christ and John remained; but in their living faith both endured the evils of the present life and both looked forward to the future blessings of the coming life of joy.

It is not they alone that do this but the whole of the holy Church, the bride of Christ, who needs to be rescued from the trials of the present and to be brought to safety in the joys of the future. Individually, Peter and John represent these two lives, the present and the future; but both journeyed in faith through this temporal life and both will enjoy the second life by vision, eternally.

All the faithful form an integral part of the body of Christ, and therefore, so that they may be steered through the perilous seas of this present life, Peter, first among the Apostles, has received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, to bind and loose from sin. And also for the sake of the faithful, so that they may keep the still and secret heart of his mode of life, John the evangelist rested on Christ’s breast.

It is not Peter alone who binds and looses sins, but the whole Church. It is not John alone who has drunk at the fountain of the Lord’s breast and pours forth what he had drunk in his teaching of the Word being God in the beginning, God with God, of the Trinity and Unity of God — of all those things which we shall see face to face in his kingdom but now, before the Lord comes, we see only in images and reflections — not John alone, for the Lord himself spreads John’s gospel throughout the world, giving everyone to drink as much as he is capable of absorbing.”

Images from top: Baroque -  St Peter being Freed by an Angel (Guercino); iconographic - St John with Christ at the last supper; Gothic - St Peter preaching (Fra Angelico)

The Principles of a Traditional Art Education for Today

When I first met the president of Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, in Merrimack, New Hampshire, he asked me to describe my ideas for an art school that could contribute train artist to serve the Church. This was relatively easy for me to do. Inspired by John Paul II’s Letter to Artists,  I had been on a mission for several years to establish such a school and so describing it was something I had done many times. I described how I would give a training that was rooted in traditional principles, teaching an understanding of what they were doing, so that the tradition becomes a living tradition. A living tradition can develop and respond to the needs of the time without compromising on the timeless principles of beauty, truth, goodness and unity that underlie all genuinely Catholic art. This would enable us I said, to produce art for both sacred and profane settings, and contribute to the establishment of the art of Vatican II. This will evoke the art of the past, yet be distinct and in many ways of a previously unimagined in style. It will characterise our era as beautifully and distinctly as the Romanesque, the Gothic and the Baroque did theirs.

The aim of such an education are threefold: to train in the practical skills; to increase in the individual an ability to apprehend beauty; and to open the individual up to inspiration from God through a disciplined training that looks to Masters for guidance.

Following traditional patterns of art training, there are five aspects (in no particular order):

1. The study of past Masters of the traditions of Christian art – imitating them with understanding so that the students learn a visual vocabulary of art. In his Spirit of the Liturgy, Pope Benedict XV cites the icongraphic (of which the Romanesque is a Western variant), the gothic and the baroque ‘at its best’ as authentic liturgical forms.
2. The direct observation of nature: this is the study of the work of the greatest Artist.
3. Practice and study of abstract art in the Christian tradition and the principles of proportion and compositional design (sometimes called ‘sacred geometry’).
4. Learning the theory of Christian art – an understanding of the Catholic worldview and the Church as it relates to art (theology, philosophy, liturgy linked to form and content) so that they understand all that they are practising.
5. Finally, the development of a spiritual life that will open the student up to inspiration (should God choose to send it): artists are unlikely to be able to produce work that inspires prayer and devotion in others, if they are not practised in using visual imagery in prayer themselves.

Students would have an exposure to each of these elements. As study progresses, they would specialise in one of the artistic traditions listed, or into the development of new art forms consistent with the principles they have learnt and as required by the Church.

The president listened without interruption and then asked me a further question. What about those who aren’t going to be artists, can you provide a training that could be part of the core liberal-arts programme as an education in beauty?

I had never been asked this before. I stopped for moment to think before responding, then realized that this really was possible. The traditional artistic training not only taught people the skills, but also the ability to apprehend beauty. This aspect, I was certain could be taught to all and the result would be a transformation of the individual, for to open up someone to beauty, is to elevate their souls to God and to increase their capacity to love what is good. There would be change in emphasis, the practical elements would be there, but those aspects that would not be intimidating to someone who did not consider themselves good at art would be brought to the fore.

The result of this meeting was that I was invited to come to TMC to implement exactly what I had described. The first stage was to be the programme for undergraduates; this would be followed by the gradual identification of gifted artists from the undergraduate body, who would form the core of the specialist art school. I would be looking for those who not only wished to be artists, but were fired by the vision of the college and wanted to play a part in creating the ‘new epiphany of beauty’ called for by Pope John Paul II in his Letter to Artists.

This Fall, Thomas More College starts its Way of Beauty programme to be taken by all freshman (and offered as an elective for other students). It is a course that is, as far we know, unique in the world. It draws on the principles articulated by figures from the early Church, such as Augustine and Boethius and which have been drawn to our attention recently by John Paul II and especially Benedict XVI. What I had described in my interview were the principles of the quadrivium, the ‘four ways’ (the higher part of the traditional seven liberal arts).

The traditional quadrivium is essentially the study of pattern, harmony, symmetry and order in nature and mathematics viewed as a reflection of the Divine Order. When we perceive something as reflecting this order, we call it beautiful. For Christians this is a source, along with Tradition, that provides the model upon which the rhythms and cycles of the liturgy are based. Christian culture, like classical culture before it, was also patterned after this cosmic order; this order which provides the unifying principle that runs through every traditional discipline. Literature, art, music, architecture – all of creation and potentially all human activity – are bound together by this common harmony and receive their fullest meaning in the liturgy. This course teaches a deep understanding of these principles and how they link the liturgy, ie the cult, to its culture. When we apprehend beauty we do so intuitively. So an education that improves our ability to apprehend beauty develops also our intuition. All creativity is at source an intuitive process. This means that professionals in any field would benefit from an education in beauty because it would develop their creativity. Furthermore, the creativity that an education in beauty stimulates will generate not just more ideas, but better ideas. Better because they are more in harmony with the natural order. The recognition of beauty moves us to love what we see. Such an education would tend to develop also, therefore, are capacity to love and leave us more inclined to serve God and our fellow man. The result for the individual who follows this path is joy.

This course not only teaches the students an understanding of these principles. It teaches them how to apply them. The course is directed towards the creation of beauty as well the appreciation of it. We will chant the Liturgy of the Hours, relating not only the structure of the Office itself to the Mass and the Heavenly Liturgy, but the form of the music to the harmonious principles that are replicated in the visual arts as, for example, the abstract geometric art of the Cosmati pavements of the middle ages; and used as principles for compositional design in figurative art. They will construct geometric patterns that reflect this

The practical aspect is not an extra bit of light-hearted fun tacked on to the end of the course. It is considered a vital component. It is the practical creation of beauty that effects the transformation in the person. First, it develops the habit of conforming the whole person to divine order, which is impressed by degrees upon the soul. Second, it is exercising the creative aspect of the intellect in us. We are made by God to be with Him in heaven, partaking of the divine nature. God’s intellect is purely creative intellect – if He thinks something it is. The creation of beauty is therefore a temporal step into our heavenly destiny and so directs us on to the path to heaven. Third, when beauty is created it is a gift for God and directs the hearts of others who behold it to God, bringing glory to Him. Therefore it is an act of love. This is the most powerful transforming principle of all.

The benefits to the person are present most powerfully in the Liturgy, but it is important that there is an experience also of the creation of art other than the praying of the liturgy also. This demonstrates to the students how these liturgical principles are made present in the wider culture. Even the form of the Liturgy of the Hours we are learning is developed to emphasise this link between the culture and the Liturgy. It was first developed at the Maryvale Institute, in Birmingham, England, as part of their art theory course, Art Inspiration and Beauty from a Catholic Perspective, where I taught before moving to the US. The students learn to involve the whole person in the prayer, body and soul, so that it is a greater gift to God and they are fully open to inspiration and God’s grace. This means that we engage the senses directly with sacred imagery, chant, incense and consider bodily posture. This is a simple and beautiful form that draws on the tradition of the Church.

And what about the art school? It was felt that to make all students learn to paint icons was not a good thing, as some would be intimidated by this. There will be elective classes in icon painting and drawing throughout the year so that those who are interested can develop their interest. We will be offering a summer school next year open to people outside the college as well and that offers a condensed form of the Way of Beauty in a week (which like the undergraduate class, is for artists and non-artists).  Artists would wish to take in addition a two-week course in iconography and a two-week course in academic drawing, as taught in the ateliers of Florence.

I arrived at Thomas More College in January this year and I have been surprised (and very pleased) by the interest that the appointment of an Artist-in-Residence has created. There have been numerous newspaper features and even a TV appearance (I was invited to talk about the TMC programme on EWTN in late spring). This demonstrates to me that the is a great desire in the Catholic world to see once again a distinctly Catholic culture of beauty united to the liturgy. In fact as a result of this I have had several enquiries from people looking to study art full time who are well grounded in the Faith and committed to the wider vision, so much earlier in the development process than I had originally planned, I am even expecting our first full time art student to begin this Fall.