A 7th Century Saint Describes How We Participate in the Transfiguration and Shine with the Light that will Save the World

The spirit is the mind's eye through which we see God, face to face, and by which we partake of the divine nature, and are transfigured, in this life by degrees, through our participation in the mystical body of Christ. Here is a quotation from a 7th century Greek Father, St Anastasius of Sinai. I read it in the Office of Readings for the Feast of the Transfiguration. This is from a sermon by the saintwritten for this day. 'Let us listen to the holy voice of God which summons us from on high, from the holy mountain top. There we must hasten - I make bold to say - like Jesus who is our leader and has gone before us into heaven. There, with him, may the eyes of our mind shine with his light and the features of our soul be made new; may we be transfigured with him and moulded to his image, ever become divine, being transformed in an ever greater degree of glory.'

I have written a number of articles recently emphasising this idea of personal transformation through an ordered and active participation in the liturgy. By this transformation we shine with the light of Christ and experience profound joy in this life. Oh that all Christians could live this, then we might, in turn, see a profound and powerful change in society through their engagement with it. This is what will call people around us into the Church.

This is a force that can change society and change the culture, but it all happens through our everyday human relations. It is tempting to think that we should focus on influential figures, high profile people to win mass attention to our causes. But a publicity campaign is not a personal relationship and cannot touch us in the same way (although it can open the door). For those who think that relying on personal contact will be too slow to effect anything. However, if it really is true, as I have told, that even in a human race of 6 billion, no one is more than six personal relationships apart from anyone else, then this suggests that it is not only the most powerful but also the most efficient way of reaching most people.

Notice also, St Anastasius's reference to (in translation) the 'mind's eye'. This, it seems to me, is the spirit by which we establish the most important personal relationship by which, in turn, the personal transformation  described by St Anastasius is acheived.

Past articles describing the anthropology of body, soul and spirit are here and here. In his book The Wellspring of Worship, Jean Corbon describes how liturgy is the means by which we participate in Christ's transfiguration.

A summary of what they describe follows: the spirit is the highest part of the soul. It is that part of the soul which touches on God, a portal for the grace that pours out from God ‘transfiguring’ us into the image and the likeness of God. The divinely created order of the human person is the spirit, which is closest to God, rules the rest of the soul which in turn rules the body. All move together in union and communion with God. It is our participation in the liturgy that establishes this personal relationship with God at the most profound level.

The painting above is by Titian; and below by Rembrandt and it is of St Anastasius in His Monastery, 'the new Moses'. He is venerated in both Eastern and Western Churches.

The Institute for Catholic Culture - an Organisational Model for the New Evangelisation

How to make your organisation at once personal, local and still have national reach and recognition I recently gave two talks in Virginia (close to Washington DC) at the invitation of the Institute of Catholic Culture. What impressed my about them was the organisational model that their founder and Executive Director Deacon Sabatino Carnazzi has developed. I have never seen anything quite like it before. I think that this has applications in fields beyond what the ICC is involved with. It's mission is stated here: the Institute of Catholic Culture is an adult catechetical organization, faithful to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, and dedicated to the Church’s call for a new evangelization. The Institute seeks to fulfill its mission by offering education programs structured upon the classical liberal arts and by offering opportunities in which authentic Catholic culture is experienced and lived. First of all, this mission seems to me to fulfill what is needed at the moment. The need is for education. We also have to ask ourselves, in my opinion, why educate? Who are we trying to reach? I personally do not think that any programme, or any number of programmes will educate society into transformation. Most people won't be educated, or not without some other agent of transformation. I believe that we are trying to reach those who will be the creators of the new culture. Thinking now of the fine arts, those who create art and music are the ones who will create the forms that participate in the timeless principles that unite all Catholic culture; yet also speaks directly to the modern age. We looking for something that is both new and timeless. This is the popular culture that is beautiful, true and good and will create the 'new epiphany of beauty' called for by John Paul II. This is what will in turn open people's hearts so that they will accept the Word. I addressed this in a previous article Why Create New Art or Music? The people who we need to reach and form are the future artists, composers and the patrons who will pay them to do it.

I spoke on a Friday evening and a Sunday evening and both times the hall was packed with nearly 200 people. I don't flatter myself here, they came because they trusted the ICC to provide lectures that interest them. The Institute organises at least two lectures every week in its curriculum of learning; and each attracts similar numbers. Furthermore, people were watching live on the internet; and DVDs of previous talks were available to all who come, for free. Their organisation was such that by Sunday a DVD of my Friday talk was being distributed. For those who are interested you can see my two talks online at the their website here: Culture, Liturgy and Cosmos; and here: Catholic Traditions in Sacred Art. From the questions people were asking afterwards, many in the audience were artists who were serious about contributing to the New Evangelisation. All of this and the salaries of its employees are funded by many voluntary contributions from those who attend the lectures, not from large donations.

The Institute's model is one of creating a local community of learning. People are drawn from about 10 parishes locally. This means that they have to be in an urban area where the population is large enough to have 10 parishes that a close enough so that people will travel to the talks. They come because the talks are interesting and of high quality and they enjoy the whole experience. For most lectures, Deacon Carnazzi draws on professors from nearby Christendom College. He says that having good speakers and people who are used to teaching your material is vital. In order to give variety he occasionally pays for speakers to come in from outside. The week before I came Denis McNamara gave a talk on sacred architecture (and you can see his presentations here).

At each talk food is available and the lecture hall is prepared so that it is comfortable and looks attractive. One talk (on the transcendentals!) was held outside in a park overlooking waterfalls on the Potomac River and sausages were grilled for any who wanted them. This organisation is possible because there is a team of volunteers who work to make it all happen. Deacon Carnazzi has created a community devoted to learning and to giving back to the organisation. He has done this by careful attention to the personal element. He makes sure that people enjoy the whole expereince. After my Sunday talk I was ready to return to my hotel. He told me that I would have to wait because he and Melanie Baker, his assistant, always stay on to socialise with any, but especially any volunteers, who want to stay on after the lecture.

This personal touch is vital for the growth of the program, and in my belief to the success of the process of its education. The traditional model for a college, for example, was built around the idea of creating a community of learning because the personal relationships that it engendered (all centred on the liturgical life of the community) allowed for the possibility of God's grace to transform information learnt into wisdom. This is why the old Oxford colleges are designed as they are.

But this model has a limit to how much it can grow. The group of people cannot grow too large, otherwise this sense of community will be lost. If the Institute of Catholic Culture is to grow, therefore, the answer is not for it to develop a larger and larger group of people (with a beaurocracy growing along with it to organise them), but rather, to create new communities of learning. This is what Oxford University did. When each college reached its limit (perhaps 300 at most), it was not allowed to grow, but instead new colleges were founded.

I know that Deacon Carnazzi is aware of this because I had this very conversation with him during my weekend stay.

Although, their focus is on lectures, they do organise events around the liturgy and promote the liturgy of the hours especially by connecting events to the celebration of Vespers. They have organised traditional Latin Vespers, Choral Evensong by a congregation from the Ordinariate and Vespers in the Eastern liturgy. I have posted two posters (if you forgive the pun). One is for a Byzantine Vespers at Melkite Catholic church which is on Saturday September 1st at Holy Transfiguration Church in McClean, Virginia. This is combined with a Middle Eastern Food Festival at the Church and before and after Vespers, Deacon Carnazzi will give tours of the church describing its design and explaining the importance of the icons to the liturgy.

How You Can Add Proportion to a Building Through Decoration

Take a look at these photographs of a farmhouse in Groton, Massachusetts. This is a 19th century house on the site that eventually will become the new campus for Thomas More College of Liberal Arts. Look first at the gable end in which there are three windows, one on each floor. Notice how the first is bigger than the second. The second is, in turn bigger than the vent at the top that aerates the loftspace. There is a sense of rhythmical progression as we go up, the first relates to the second as the second relates to third.  The are three objects and two relationships. Each relationship, for example how the first window relates to the second, can be described as a mathematical ratio between two magnitudes - the magnitude of each window. Due proportion is defined as a consonant relationship between two or more ratios. When the proportion is appropriate ('due') for what contains it, in this case a house, then is pleasing to the eye. We can think of due proportion therefore as a harmonious relationship between two or more relationships. Now look at the bay windows that are built into the wall at right angles to the gable end, which are painted  a yellow cream. The windows are not the same size and so look as though they could be completed with a third which is smaller still, like those just around the corner. This implied proportion is common in buildings - you can't always afford to build three storeys (or in this case, three bay windows).  So this is good, it is like having two notes that are different but still harmonious. You can't have harmony between identical things, that is why in modern buildings in which all the windows are the same size, it looks dull and sterile. However, as I look at these bay windows, something isn't quite right. Although the windows look in harmony, the top storey looks top heavy. This is because the adorning strip of wood that separates one floor from the other is placed at a level that is too low. Although the windows are of different size, the storeys are of equal size. When I look, it see something that would look more natural if the the upper storey was smaller that the lower, (just as the trunk of a tree gets smaller as you go up, it gives a sense of stability). It is a shame that this is off, because everything else seems right.

However there is something that could be done to restore harmony without any new building at all. We are just in the process of repainting the house (you can see the sanded garage door and its surround painted slate grey). The whole house will be this colour and the trim will be cream. The answer is to repaint these bay windows so that the lower floor is separated from the upper, perhaps if it is painted this slate grey colour, separate them with a trim band. You paint the band of cream perhaps 10 inches wide above the wooden rail that now appears. The final photograph shows how painting can be used to create harmony even when the windows are identical in size. It is of a hotel on the seafront in Llandudno in North Wales, close to where I grew up.

This harmony of three is just as it is in the area that you think of first when harmony is mentioned - music. We hear harmony between two notes, for example a perfect fourth, a perfect fifth or an octave and it is pleasing. And this is good on its own. However, whenever I ask any musician if this is the full chord, they will always tell me that it is incomplete. You need to third note to create a second interval, so we know if we are hearing part of a major chord, or a minor chord.

 

This is the Somerset Hotel on the promenade at Llandudno, north Wales.

St John of the Cross and the Artistic Portrayal of the Joyful Pilgrimage

Office of Readings, Friday, Wk 18 the reading is from the Spiritual Canticle of St John of the Cross. In it he indicates that the saints in heaven are in union with God through love.

He tells us that, 'they possess the same blessings by participation as he [God] possesses by nature; for this reason they are truly gods by participation, equals of God and his companions. Therefore St Peter said:"Grace and peace be complete and perfect in you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord, according as all things are given to us of his divine virtue for life and godliness, through knowledge of him who has called us with his own glory and virtue; whereby he has given into us many great and precious promises, that by these things we may be made companions of the divine nature." Saint Peter indicates that the soul will have participation in God, performing in him, in company with him, the work of the Most Holy Trinity, after the manner whereof we have spoken. And though this can be perfectly fulfilled only in the next life, nevertheless in this life, when the estate of perfection is reached, a clear trace and taste of it are attained.'

It is this final sentence that caught my eye. Our goal in this life, one might say, is to get to heaven in the next. Although we cannot experience heaven fully in this life, supernaturally we 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. And this means, in turn, that by degrees we can experience the joy of heaven in this life.

It is the gothic figurative liturgical tradition that through its form portrays this pilgrimage to heaven. (Baroque art portrays through it form evil and suffering transcended by hope; and the iconographic portrays man fully in union with God in heaven). I have talked about this before in an article: Why the Church has Different Artistic Traditions. In it I written about the theology that shapes the form of the three liturgical traditions of the Church and explain why I feel they are complementary.

This passage of St John did cause me to reflect for a few moments on my own journey and what caused me to convert to Catholicism. As one might expect there were a number of different influences, but very important was the belief that becoming a Catholic would open up for me a life of greater joy. I went through a very unhappy period in my mid/late twenties. I don't want to get too melodramatic about the whole thing, but it was bad enough that I was even prepared to consider Christianity as an option. I was lucky during this period to meet someone who was a Catholic and I saw this joy in his life. He eventually became my sponsor when I was received into the Church. Through his example as much as through his answers to my questions, I had a clear picture in my mind of a life with a beginning, a journey and an end. The beginning was where I was before coming into the Church, suffering but with hope; the journey is the life of faith and Christian joy; and the final end is heaven. Artistically, this is a transition from the baroque to the iconographic via the gothic.

As one might expect, the the journey for me has not been perfectly smooth. In some ways I experience this grand picture in microcosm on a daily basis. It is a process of continually straying from the path, renewing that hope, fixing my sights once again on that final end and resolving once more to follow my guide on the journey. Nevertheless, the underlying trend is one that moves steadily upwards. And my overall experience is that the Christian life is a joyful one (without claiming to have reached the heights of St John of the Cross). This 'gothic' message of a joyful pilgrimage which attracted me to the Church was true.

In his address on the saint, Pope Benedict told us that in his Spiritual Canticle, from which the excerpt above is taken, 'St. John presents the path of purification of the soul, that is, the progressive joyful possession of God until the soul feels that it loves God with the same love that it is loved by him.' The Pope goes on to make it plain that this path is open to each of us. St John, he says, had 'a hard life but, precisely in the months spent in prison, he wrote one of his most beautiful works. And thus we are able to understand that the way with Christ, the going with Christ, "the Way," is not a weight added to the already sufficient burden, but something completely different, it is a light, a strength that helps us carry this burden.'

One of the surprises for me when I entered the Church was to discover that not all of my fellow Catholics seemed to believe that happiness was really on offer to them in this life as well as the next. Aside from missing out themselves, I believe that one of the reasons that people aren't flocking to the Church, is that they don't know that do not always see joy in the lives of Christians they meet. It as seem that part of the New Evangelisation we must rediscover Christian joy.

Clearly, the idea of Christian joy did not begin or end with the gothic period. Historically, of course, St John himself came after the gothic period. However, I believe that the artistic form developed during the gothic period can play a part in directing us to a participation in that joyful pilgrimage. It seems to me that one reason that Fra Angelico resonates so strongly today is that he is communicating something to us that is needed. This is why I would like to see the gothic reestablished as a living tradition.

Remember when I speak of what the gothic communicates, I am talking of its form, it's style. The content, that is the subjects painted, is likely to be the full range that one would expect to tackle in sacred art; but its form, because it is integrated with the theology is always in the background speaking poetically to our mind's eye, as it were, encouraging us with the idea that there is joy in this life on route to the next. (Just as with icon painting: the fact that its form speaks of the eschaton - the heavenly realm - does not mean that you cannot paint scenes in salvation history.)

The art from above: Christ on the Cross, by St John of the Cross; Chaucer as a Pilgrim from the Ellesmere Psalter; 13th century, lady at prayer; and Fra Angelico's Madonna and Child.

Photos of Bodnant Garden in North Wales

Last week I wrote about Bodysgallen, a country house in the Conway Valley in North Wales. Here are some photos of somewhere I visited on the same day further inland on the same river valley. It is Bodnant Garden. The mountains you see in the distance are the Snowodonia range, the highest in England and Wales. I visited earlier this year in May and have just been working outside in my garden here in New England. I was looking for some inspiration to remind of the ideal I am aiming for. So here are some photographs of the National Trust property. As you will see the planting is in the traditional British style of drifts of colour and lots of herbacious borders - in the manner of Gertrude Jeckyll. I really can't think of much more to say other than please just enjoy the photos and to ask, why can't we have a few more gardens like this over here in the US?

The Cosmos is Made for Man - How this Affects the Way We Paint It

The Office of Readings for July 30th, the Feast of St Peter Chrysologus contains the following passage from one of his sermons: 'Man, why do you have so low an opinion of yourself, when you are so precious to God?...Has not the household of the whole universe which you see been made for you? For you light is produced to dispel the surrounding darkness; for you the night is regulated; for you the day is measured out; for you the sky shines with the varied brilliance of sun, moon and stars; for you the earth is embroidered with flowers, groves and fruit; for you is created a beautiful, well-ordered and marvellous multitude of living things, in the air, in the fields, in the water, lest a gloomy wilderness upset the joy of the world.'He was writing in first half of the 5th century AD. This idea that the universe is made for man to see, and its corollarary, that man is made to see it governs how we paint in the naturalistic artistic traditions. The stylistic elements of baroque naturalism are generated from an analysis of how we observe the natural world and how this manner of observation of the beauty of creation, leads us to give praise to the Creator. If the work of man, in this case a painting, participates in the beauty of the cosmos then it too will raise the hearts and souls of those who see it to God through its beauty. By incorporating traditional harmony and proportion into compositional design, the artist or architect is creating something that participates in this cosmic beauty, described numerically. Similarly, by painting in such a way that stimulates a response in the way we observe it, which is the same as our reaction to the natural world, it is likely to raise our hearts and minds to God just as the beauty of creation does.

These considerations are only relevant when we are considering the natural observation of the world we live in now. The baroque tradition is one of these as it seeks to portray fallen man, ie 'historical' man, in such a way that his potential for sanctity through cooperation with God's grace is emphasised. It aims to give us hope that transcends any evil and suffering. This does not apply to artistic traditions that are trying to communicate something different, such as the iconographic which seeks to communicate eschatological man, mankind in union with God partaking of the divine nature.

How do we observe the natural world? When we look at the world around us the eye roves around the scene before it. At any moment on only the central part of the vision is in focus and coloured - to an angle of vision of about 15 degrees. Peripheral vision is monochrome - reflecting only tonal information, no colour - and blurred. This is the nature of the image that is on the retina at any moment. But this is not what we see in our mind's eye. The memory supplies additional information to complete the scene. Usually the information is given to the memory by prior observation of different parts of the same scene. For example, if I am talking to somebody. I spend most of the time looking at the face, most particularly the eyes and eyebrows, because they communicate most information about what the person is thinking and feeling. Other than that I would make the occasional cursory glance up and down the person and unless something unusual particularly catches my attention, I focus first on the eyes, then the mouth and the gesture of the hands. All of these communicate thought. The soul is revealed through the body.

Similarly when I look at the broader scene I naturally focus on points that interest me and these will reflect, generally, the hierarchy of being. I look first and longest at any people, second at any man made objects, such as buildings, then at animals and finally at plants. Of course unusual sights will cause me to look at things longer - if I saw a two-headed sheep, then I would probably focus a lot of my attention on that.

How does the painter make use of this? He supplies key focal points of interest in the painting, harmoniously placed relative to each other and on these focal points he gives most detailed and coloured information. The rest he depletes of colour and softens the focus. In order to make sure that the eye is attracted to these key points the artist not only provides more detail, and more colour, but also will introduce into the composition something that will attract the eye immediately. Generally there will be a heightened and sharpened contrast between light and dark at the key points, and the brightest colour, perhaps a red to draw the eye.

When the focal points arranged by the artist correspond to those foci that we would have looked at preferentially when presented with a scene, because they conform to the hierarchy of being for example, then viewing the work is a delight. We are given most information in those aspects that we would be most naturally interested in anyway and we are barely aware that this is what is going on. The observation of the painting is so natural.

If the artist seeks to overturn our natural curiousity by painting, for example, a cigarette butt on the floor every bit as detailed as the person standing beside it (as a photorealist would do), then we feel overloaded with detail and information and it creates a tension as we observe the painting.

However, one would not want to give that this hierarchy of observation is a rigidly defined set of rules that allow no room for manouvre. The skilled artist understands how much leeway there is and will (through these devices of variation in focus, contrast and colour) deliberately pique our interest in things he wants us to notice by directing us to them prefentially; or conversly play down details that otherwise we might be more interested in.

The contrast between portraiture and sacred art demonstrates this point. In a portrait, the aim of the artist is to demonsrate the uniqueness of the person. By a strong emphasis on the face of the individual the artist not only communicates the thoughts and feeling of the person, thereby communicating the fact that this human person is body and soul; but also he communicates the unique characteristics of the person which for most of us are most striking in our faces. These unique characteristics are the things that differentiate us from all other humanity.

If the artist is portraying a saint or Christ, then the task is slightly different. Certainly the artist must represent the characteristics of the person that identify him as unique. But there is an important need also to emphasise those aspects of the person that can be emulated by us, these are the general characteristics of a good man - virtue, holiness and so on. This is why we look to the lives of the saints. For this reason, the baroque sacred artist, relative to a portrait painter, plays down the facial features. So very often the face will be wholly or partially in shadow, while the thoughts and feeling are communicated through the gesture and posture. The whole person is emphasised. When I was learning in Florence, my teacher Matthew James Collins made this point to me directly in contrasting the aims of portrait painting, which we studied each morning, with figure painting, which we studied in the afternoon. The figure, he told me, should have the light moving up and down its length - particularly on the broader masses such as the thighs and torso, as this emphasises the whole person and this is what the baroque tradition sought to do.

I have shown examples of portraits and paintings of saints to illustrate the point, but what the artist is doing in order to emphasise the general aspects of humanity is not always so obvious. The effect of failing to do it is more obvious. Rather than convincing us that this is the Virgin Mary or Christ, painting looks like painting of the girl or boy next door posing in costume.

This ability to partially abstract the painting in accordance with our natural way of observing, even more than a lack of technical painting skill, is in my opinion what distinguishes the masters of the past from so many atelier trained artists of today. This visual language was developed out of a Christian understanding of the relationship between the human person and the cosmos. While it is possible to consider simply it as a traditional form, without linking it to a Christian ethos, and still paint well (John Singer Sargent, for example, was not a man of faith, to my knowledge), any artist is going to increase his chances of doing so, I would suggest, if he understands and accepts the end to which all of this is directed and how these stylistic elements conform to that end.

The landscape above is by Rubens. All the paintings below are by Ribera: the Lamentation over the Dead Christ, St Andrew, the Martyrdom of St Andrew and St Peter. These should be contrasted with portraits by him that follow: the Drinker, Girl with Tambourine and Clubfooted Boy.

A Country House and Grounds - a Model of Manmade Harmony and Order

And how a 'marvel of Renaissance verse' describes precisely this, by Corey French. This article started out as a simple description of a country house that I visited on a recent trip to Britain. It is in North Wales and is called Bodysgallen Hall.  I was introduced to the house by a friend who took me there for the very British event of afternoon tea. What a delight that was! A number of things struck me about it. First was the harmony between house and grounds and the surrounding countryside. The gardens are more formally laid out close to the house, then they change into the less formal English cottage style and planting (a la Gertrude Jeckyll) and then into managed woods. Even the vegetable garden was arranged in an ordered and beautiful fashion, everything in its proper place. From the grounds we could see  and sheep fells on the Welsh mountains in the distance, beyond the Conway valley.

Second, is that every aspect of what we see is man made. There is no part that has not been shaped by the activity of man. This is not the untamed beauty of nature, but something even greater: nature conforming to a higher order. It has been raised up by the work of man.

Another aspect of note is the date in which the house was made. Or rather, dates. The various wings of the house were built over centuries ranging from the 17th to the 19th centuries. I could tell because each wing year of construction placed visibly on it. Despite this there is a unity to the whole because each part uses traditional proportions. These are the proportions that go back to the ancient Greeks and are derived from observation of the order and beauty of the cosmos. (There is one part that is an exception, it seems - the tall tower in the centre, which has even sized windows).

I was just contemplating this when I received an email from Corey French, who is currently working on his doctorate in English Literature at the University of Virginia, with a focus on 17th century British poetry. He had attended the first summer retreat of the Way of Beauty Atelier this year. I mentioned to him that I am a literary philistine with little regard for poetry. Undaunted he told insisted that his specialist area would be of interest to me. This is because, he said, they often refer to the ideal of beauty and harmony that I had been talking about in my lectures.  He told me that many even have and 'architecture' (ie structure) that incorporates he sacred number theory that I had mentioned. This piqued even my interest and I had asked him to send more information.

Here is the first poem he sent me. It is called Penshurst and it is by Ben Jonson. There is a link to the poem itself here. It is the subject matter, rather than the form which is of interest here. It describes how the country house is a model of beauty. In his letter to me Corey describes how it reflects exactly the ideas I had been discussing of the liturgy of the Church as an ordering principle of cosmic beauty. You can see what he has written below in italics. Before that here is the closing stanza of the poem:

Now, Penshurst, they that will proportion thee

With other edifices, when they see

Those proud, ambitious heaps, and nothing else,

May say their lords have built, but thy lord dwells.

'The poem itself is a marvel of Renaissance verse and inaugurated a minor school of English poetry--the country house poem.  (Although there were other country house poems before "Penshurst," such as Emelia Lanyer's "Description of Cooke-ham," Jonson's poem establishes the conventions of the trope through the seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries.)  In any event, the overall schematic of the poem traces a movement from the grounds around Penshurst Place (ranging from the copses of Gamage and Sidney to the Medway) into the manor-house itself, culminating in the middle of the poem with a depiction of a feast and then launching into an excursus on the hospitality of the Sidneys.

First of all, the poem begins with a meditation on the virtues of Penshurst Place as an edifice compared with the "prodigy houses" of more recent construction.  As the poem presents it, Penshurst's architecture manifests an organic harmony that extends through time, pulling together through a unified tradition both its ancient and more modern aspects.  In this way, the house becomes an emblem of the virtues which reside therein and which subsist in the Sidney family.  The other houses, "built to envious show," are merely objects of conspicuous consumption, discordant in their architectural programs and intended only to display wealth.  Penshurst's own harmoniousness extends to the natural world as well, and we find the entire natural order revolving around life in the manor house, even offering itself sua sponte for the enrichment of the manor's tables.  As we travel around the grounds, the poem leads us through the natural topography of the place, yet it insists upon our simultaneously recognizing it as a moral topography.  The concord of the land reflects the virtuous concord of its landholders.

Then the poem takes us into the feast, and we find that it is the feast that resides at the heart of Penshurst, the energy which drives its entire harmony.  Now, I'm absolutely convinced that Jonson intends this feast to be an image of the Eucharist.  He spent several years as a recusant Catholic before reverting to Anglicanism, and I cannot help but think that he understood the intrinsic necessity of the liturgy.  Indeed, what I see in this poem is precisely your concept of the liturgy as the ordering principle of the cosmos, as the source and summit of human life.  The entire poem centers around this scene of feasting in which "all come in" and all are fed to satiety with "thy lord's own meat."  I've written some on this poem, and to my surprise, no one has argued substantively for a reading of the poem as a profoundly liturgical and sacramental poem.  Even Harp's article [see below], which raises and considers the Eucharistic elements of the poem does not, I think, unravel the full implications of this reading.

Additionally, the history of "Penshurst" criticism is a bit of a case study in the deformations of modernism.  The reigning scholarly interpretation of the poem (though one that has met with its share of push-back in recent years) is the Marxist reading put forward by Raymond Williams and Don Wayne.  They attack Jonson for colluding with the structures of power represented in the manor house and thereby using his poem to "write out" the inequalities of labor by depicting the land as offering itself up without human intervention and by suggesting that the life of the tenant farmer was little more than attending soirées at the manor.  Immediately one realizes how truly malicious such an interpretation is; indeed, like most contemporary literary theory, it manages to base an entire interpretation of the poem on what isn't there rather than what is.  Richard Harp produced a rather admirable essay in which he dismantles the Williams/Wayne approach entirely and points to the poem as a poem of festival.  He suggests that Jonson hasn't "overlooked" labor to suit the ends of power but has chosen to write instead a type of Sabbath poem in which labor is given its reward of rest.  The Williams/Wayne reading simply demonstrates the inevitable consequence of having recourse to no other worldview than one in which "labor" is the defining mark of human life and in which transcendence ceases to be possible.

The Pictorial Symbol of a Virgin Before, During and After Giving Birth

One of the tasks that those who are interested in cultural renewal have to face today is one of reawakening to the symbolism of the cosmos. This faculty can be stimulated, I believe, by incorporating a language of symbolism into art. I have written before of how when painting today, the artist has to decide on a case by case basis which symbols to revive and which to ignore (see Pelican Brief - Should We Aim to Revive All Christian Symbols of Sacred Art). A symbol must speak to those who are meant to see it and some symbols are so rooted in a culture that is bound to a different time and place that it is unlikely ever to communicate much to any nowadays but learned art historians. The symbols that seem most prevelant and useful are those that are based on scripture or tradition and furthermore speak naturally of what they are trying to convey. These are the ones that I tend to focus on. So while the halo represents the uncreated light of sanctity it is not an arbitary symbol. It is as much a stylised representation of light eminating from the person.

In contrast colour symbolism is more arbitrary. In fact no strict colour code of symbolism for any of the liturgical traditions, including even iconography (perhaps surprisingly). That is not to say that artists have not chosen colours in order convey spiritual meanings, and temporary trends can develop when artists are influenced by others in their choice. However, it is very difficult to find any colour symbolism that is observed consistently either across different traditions or even within one.

Occasionally I am presented with a colour symbolism as though it is a strict rule. Usually, however, on digging more deeply I discover that over the ages all sorts of different colours have been used; or even where there is a conformity to a colour, the explanation of the symbolism differs, which causes me to wonder to wonder if these are not just explanations after the fact which are not rooted in tradition. The Church Fathers it seems are silent on such matters (although as ever, I am happy to told otherwise and directed to writings I haven't seen yet).

There is one symbol that I am inclined to employ even though I do not know why it has come to symbolise what it does. This is the placement of three stars on the garment of Our Lady that is used in icons - one on each shoulder of her outer robe and one on the forehead. Someone asked me recently what they meant and I knew that it represented perpetual virginity, but couldn't remember why. As was quickly pointed out to me, they correspond to the idea that Our Lady was a virgin before, during and after birth. However, I still have no idea why three stars are used to symbolise this. Our Lady is often associated with the North Star, the Star of the Sea, and so I wondered if it was somehow evoking this. As often happens to, the very next day, there was a reference to this in the liturgy. The reading for the Feast of Saints Anne and Joachim was from John of Damascus and in this he says to Our Lord's grandparents, that : 'By your pure and holy way of life you brought up that jewell of virginity, she who before giving birth was a virgin, who while giving birth was a virgin, and who after giving birth was ever a virgin; yes, she who was always unique, who was to cherish virginity in mind, in spirit and also in body.' So I'm unlikely to forget that again...except there is no direct connection with a star and perhaps taking our lead from St John of Damascus, the three stars might represent a 'cherished virginity' that encompasses the whole person - mind, spirit and body - as well as in perpetuity?

Can anyone help me here?

The reason that I am inclined to use this is that it does seem to be well established across all the differing iconographic traditions. And it is an important message to get across. Furthermore, I can't think of a more natural or appropriate way of symbolising this so that it would speak of it more eloquently or directly. So three stars for perpetual virginity it is.

The Sculpture of Tilman Riemenschneider, written by Christopher Blum

Here is a second in a series about late gothic sculpture. This one is written by Dr Christopher Blum and appears in Crisis Magazine (http://www.crisismagazine.com). You can find the article itself here. One of the questions that I always think about as an artist when I see work that I enjoy is how could we train artists today to work in a similar way today. How does an artist learn to make this style his natural modus operandus. Dr Blum is a historian and his interest is as much on the spirit of the times as the technical skill of the artist. He describes the training and working environment that Riemenschnieder experienced, and focussed particularly on his membership of his town's Guild of St Luke. When guilds are mentioned nowadays there tend to be two reactions. For some it conjures up images of a culturally rich past that we hardly dare dream of emulating today. For others, they are professional organisations that flourished by imposing restrictive trade practices, rather like strident medieval trade union. For my own part, I prefer to put aside the possible negative aspects of the economic organisation of the guilds, and focus on how these associations preserved the attitude of tradition by preserving skills and creating structured environment to train apprentices and which directed their activities activities to the common good. Here is an article that has some thoughts about how the guilds might be a model for the teaching of practical skills today. As a general principle, when considering any aspect of the culture, we should always aim, I feel, to adopt the good and reject the bad.

Dr Blum makes the interesting point that this somber gothic style with its focus on the suffering of Christ was not reflective of the artist's personal character. In other words, 'self-expression' was not one of the aims of the artist (in the way that the phrase is generally used today). It would be wrong however, to think that conformity to the spirit of the times and a tradition ruled out innovation or individual stylisation altogether. What is different here is that that innovation is driven by a desire to serve the stated end, the glorification of God, in a better way, rather than to glorify the artist. As an example, in contrast to the French sculptures described in the last article, here, which were brightly coloured, . Even though they are made of wood, they had a monochrome brown glaze, which was very unusual at the time.

Images are St Barbara and the Last Supper.

St Ephrem the Syrian on the nature of man - body, soul and spirit

Over the summer, I read the Hymns on Paradise written by St Ephrem the Syrian. Ephrem is a 4th century saint who lived in modern day Turkey and wrote in Syriac. Although much of what he wrote is liturgical - in the form of hymns, it is theologically rich. There were two reasons why I read this. The first was at the suggestion of Dr William Fahey, who told me that Ephrem described the visual appearance of Adam and Eve both before and after the Fall. This was of interest to me because in his Theology of the Body, John Paul II asked artists to portray man in the manner of Adam and Eve prior to the Fall - 'naked without shame' - in order to reveal human sexuality as gift, that is, an ordered picture of human sexuality. In order to be able to do this, I wanted to do some reasearch to see what the Church Fathers had to say on what Original Man (ie man before the Fall) looked like. In the Christian tradition, we have iconographic art which portrays mankind redeemed and in heaven (Eschatological Man), and the baroque, which shows fallen man (Historical Man) but we have no fully formed tradition in which the form and theology are integrated to portray Original Man and so no visual vocabulary to draw on in order to paint him. The desire to read him was reinforced recently on my trip to Spain, when I read Pope Benedict's Wednesday address on St Ephrem, a Doctor of the Church, as part of my own personal 'Office of Readings' in the morning (I have written about this here). In this Benedict tells us that St Ephrem is 'still absolutely timely for the life of the various Christian churches...a theologian who reflects poetically on the basis of Holy Scripture, on the mystery of man's redemption brought about by Christ, the Word of God incarnate'.

As Dr Fahey had indicated, there is much useful material written by St Ephrem on Original Man and I am in the process of pulling this together for a longer article. So in this respect, St Ephrem is certainly timely.

I'm sure the style of the translation had a lot to do with this as well (by Sebastian Brock), but I found him pleasurable as well as interesting reading. He was a prolific writer and so there's plenty more to look at in the future!

My reason for bringing all of this up here is that St Ephrem wrote something that caught my eye for another reason in the 9th of his Hymns to Paradise:

Far more glorious than the body is the soul, and more glorious still than the soul is the spirit, but more hidden than the spirit is the Godhead.

At the end, the body will put on the beauty of the soul, the soul will put on that of the spirit, while the spirit shall put on the very likeness of God's majesty.

For bodies shall be raised to the level of souls, and the soul to that of the spirit, while the spirit shall be raised to height of God's majesty.

This describes so well what Jean Corbon described as the transformation that happens to us when we are full participants in the liturgy, as described here. The icon of the transfiguration is an icon of the liturgy, he says, for we participate in Christ's transfiguration when we participate in the liturgy. This passage from St Ephrem suggests that the spirit is a special place in us that is in primary contact with God's majesty that is itself raised to God's majesty and is transfigured. This indicates a special place therefore for the spirit in our participation in the liturgy, for the liturgy is the way in which we ascend, by degrees in this life, to union with God which is complete, as St Ephrem puts it 'at the end' in paradise. It also reinforces an idea that Stratford Caldecot described in his essay, Towards a Liturgical Anthropology. Strat suggests that a lack of full acknowledgement of the spirit as the higher part of the soul has lead, in part, to an incomplete participation in the liturgy since the 19th century at least, and in turn has lead to the Catholic cultural decline that we are all so well aware of.

In another papal address, on St Gregory of Nyssa, Pope Benedict XVI himself referred to this anthropolgy of body, soul and spirit as being part of the tradition of the Church.

To summarise how the spirit relates to the soul here's my understanding: the spirit is the highest part of the soul. It is that part of the soul which touches on God, a portal for the grace that pours out from God 'transfiguring' us into the image and the likeness of God. The divinely created order of the human person is the spirit, which is closest to God, rules the rest of the soul which in turn rules the body. All move together in union and communion with God.

A Walk in Wales, Seeing an Ancient Roman Aqueduct

When I did my summer trip, after seeing my parents in Spain I went to stay in England and the area where I grew up (a little town near Chester called Neston). As well as seeing friends and family there I wanted to re-establish my connection with the familiar places and especially the walks and the countryside that I remembered from when I lived there (not all that long ago - I don't want to sound too whistfully romantic here!). Neston is near the border with Wales, which is rural and hilly. Just to give you a sense of the place, I thought I would post some photos of one of these walks; but also there are interesting parallels here between this walk and one that I did in Spain (I wrote about this in an article posted on 6th July). First is the existence of laws of 'right to roam' and 'public right of way' on private land. In the UK there are public footpaths across farmland, which require the farmer to maintain for the common good. Second and even more specifically, for part of this walk, one of the reasons for this public access is that we can follow the line of an old aqueduct. The idea of the common good and access to private land here.

The Spanish aqueduct  was built by the Moors, this one was built by the Romans. The Spanish one was in a good state of repair and still used to irrigate olive groves, this has fallen into disrepair and is now a toepath along a muddy ditch in the woods because it is not needed for water any more. My guess here, because you don't need irrigation channels in rainy rural Wales, is that the Roman aqueduct would be used to provide drinking water for a town, perhaps Chester (Roman name Deva). Drinking water supplies have changed - no longer would people drink redirected stream water taken from a mountainside and so there is no reason to have kept it operable.

As you follow the path described below, remember this: the enjoyment and direct contact with farmland and farm animals is possible because of what remains of the traditional application of an idea that comes from Catholic social teaching, that land is a common good. We are crossing privately owned land, but still in the UK there is the understanding that with that privelege comes the responsibility of making it available to all in as way that doesn't stop the owner from cultivating it.

So the first step was for my friend Jim and I to take the car up to a ridge on the Clwyd hills in Wales (pronounced 'clue-id'):

From there the ridge path goes off in two directions, one through grazing sheep:

And the other up a more developed path that takes you up to the highest point on the ridge, Moel Famau (pronounced 'mole vamma') a mountain about 2,000 ft above sea level, so not very high. We took this one. It's a popular destination so the path is well maintained:

The terrain here is, like the whole of Britain, man created. In this particular area, sheep grazing stops the growth of trees, and this hilly terrain is low woody plants of dark heather (which has bright purple flowers) and lighter billberry (a small and not-so-sweet version of the American blueberry) grows wild here.

As we look down into the lower parts, some copses and naturally growing trees are allowed to remain, but much of the wooded area is planted for commercial reasons, for wood. There are also bare patches where the trees have been harvested and no ground cover has yet grown.

After several miles we turn right, climb over a stile and down into the valley below. The gate to left which can be raised is for people to walk their dogs through.

We gradually descend until we hit a level part in the valley below:

We continue until we descend again into a tree-filled broad gully. This has a stream running it, and running parallel above it, but still in this wooded gully, the aqueduct. This is known locally as 'the Leet' (or 'Lete'). I do not know why it has this name.

When we hit the Lete we turn left and walk along the gully alongside it for about two miles.

It looks like this for about another two miles until we emerge into farmland and little village called Cilcain. We stop at the pub for lunch. The red, white and blue balloons are there because this was the Monday after the recent Jubilee celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II's reign.

And we admire the cottage gardens across the road from where we sat eating sandwiches and drinking coffee.

Then we headed out of the village back up to the ridge from where we first descended, through low hills first, past grazing sheep again, then on to the ridge itself, now several miles further along from where left it this morning.

And once at the ridge path, we turned left once more, to complete the final phase of the circular walk along the ridge and back to the car.

Footnote: if anyone who is not used to the spelling of Welsh words found the pronunciation of 'Clwyd' difficult to fathom, then have a go at this name of this place, also in north Wales (it really is a genuine place name):

It is the railway station in the town of 'Llanfair p g'. I grew up in England so wasn't native Welsh speaker at all. However, we used to enjoy learning and then reeling off the pronunciation as party trick. For the curious, this what it sounds like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taUJDmajoaY&feature=related

Why Create New Art or Music When There's Plenty of Good Old Stuff Around?

For me a living tradition in art (and the argument would apply equally to music), is not simply one that preserves and hands on the great work past, it is one also that reapplies its core principles to create new art or music. But one might ask, why bother? With the standard of reproductions in art now, you could have a Fra Angelico in your church at a fraction of a cost of commissioning an original work of art. Similarly, there is so much chant and polyphony already composed, you could have something different but of the highest quality every Sunday for several lifetimes.

Here's why I think it is important. First is variety. It just seems a terrible shame to think of any tradition being a closed door in which there is no possibility of something new. For all that we have much to draw from already, to see how mankind under inspiration can still create something previously unimagined is a wonderful thing. The seemingly limitless variety that is possible, points, I think to the limitless well of grace that is the ultimate source of that inspiration.Second is that we need new expressions in order to attract more people. All the artistic traditions of the Church reflect timeless principles and so have something within them to which every person, potentially, can respond. Traditional chant and polyphony, or great art even in reproduction or original but pastiche, still has the power to touch many people and draw them into the Faith. The timeless principles that unite all good art and music will always have an effect. I speak from personal experience: I was bowled over by my experience of hearing Palestrina at the London Oratory. With a live performance in unity with liturgy, this was old music, but still fresh and new to my ear.Nevertheless, a living tradition will be one in which there are artists and composers who are constantly creating new work, without ever compromising on the core principles that define it. In doing so it will reflect and speak to its time and its place in a unique way. When the timeless and the time-bound aspects are in harmony, you have the most powerful effect. When this harmony is present it will appeal to most people. For many, I believe, it will stimulate into life that part that that can respond otentially to all other traditional forms. Once this is done then there is every chance that many who previously would have been unaffected by centuries old chant or polyphony will now respond. This is the special value of 'new traditional' art and music.If there is an imbalace in the timeless and time-bound aspects (or just a poor attempt at both), you risk creating pastiche on the one hand, or sentimental imitations of modern secular fashion on the other. Iconography demonstrates this perfectly. Aidan Hart, my teacher always says that those who understand iconography well can look at any icon without knowing anything about it, place to a particular geographical location and to a time period within 50-100 years. What is changing here is not the principles that define the tradition - these never waver; but how they are applied. This is how, for example, we can distinguish between Russian icons and Greek icons and within the Russian style Gregory Kroug and Andrei Rublev.

Sometimes the modern expression is not something never seen before, but a re-emergence of an old style, that has its time again. Fra Angelico is an artist who seems to be liked a great deal at the moment, and so any artist who could capture the qualities of his art would do well I think. Having said this, however closely we follow a past form, that time-bound aspect will never be absent altogether. Each artist is a unique individual and even the most cloistered monk will susceptible to the culture of his day. This individual aspect of the work cannot be quashed altogether. The task for the artist, or composer, is to direct it so that it conforms to what is good, true and beautiful. To certain extent this will be an intuitive process but creativity is directed by conscious reason as well. When the artist is responding to a clearly defined need then this latter aspect comes into play particularly.

I think the music of composer Paul Jernberg does this. You can hear is music here. We have been collaborating in developing music for the liturgy of the hours at Thomas More College for the last year and we will be working together at the summer retreat at the college in August where the aim is to teach people how to sing it. What is so great about this is first, how appealing it is and second how easy it is to sing at a satisfying level. This is what the ideal of noble simplicity is all about.

Here's another example. We had a priest who visited regularly and even if celebrating a novus ordo would always lead us in reciting the St Michael prayer after Mass. He used to turn to the tabernacle as he said it. I thought that it would be great if we had an image to focus on, so I painted one for the back wall. Then I then asked Paul if he could come up with an arrangement so that we could sing the prayer. Very quickly he adapted a traditional Byzantine tone to it. In this case there is minimal change musically, because he felt it didn't need it.

This arrangement has been very popular. The students have picked up on it and completely on their own instigation now sing it in four-parts harmony every night after Compline. Dr William Fahey has asked that we sing it after each Mass in response to the attacks on the Church in connection with the new healthcare legislation. Dr Tom Larson, who teaches the choir at the college is so enthusiastic about it that took this up to his men's group in Manchester, New Hampshire. Within 15 minutes they learnt it and enjoying it so much they decided to record it on a mobile phone. Next day it was up on YouTube, and this is what you see here. As you listen to it remember that this is a cell-phone recording of an amateur choir of 5 men of varying ability (including myself on bass - right at the bottom in more ways than one) singing it virtually unrehearsed.

Paul Jernerg has just been made Composer in Residence at Thomas More College. He will be composing music for us to showcase and visiting to give master classes in performance and for those who have the ability, composition. One of the things we have asked him to do is to compose a Vespers of St Michael the Archangel and I can't wait to hear it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwIoAzbo9wA&feature=youtu.be

How Medieval Guilds are a Model For a Modern Catholic Education

Thomas More College of Liberal Arts has established Medieval Guilds for its students. This is more than recreation; this is a genuine education that transforms the human person so that, in turn, they engage with and help to transform the secular culture. The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in New Hampshire has established a series of medieval-style Catholic guilds that enable students to gain practical skills and experience from master craftsmen in areas such as woodworking, sacred art, homesteading and music.  The College’s guilds take their spirit from the associations of men and women in the Medieval Age who advanced their trades while responding to the needs of their local communities. While idea of a guild does conjure up a romantic picture of craftsmen living by the work of their hands, this has not been an uncritical look at the past. The emulation of what would nowadays be viewed by some as the restrictive trade practices of these professional associations of the middle ages is not one of their goals.

More than simple recreation For many students, the guilds will be a welcome and relaxing break from their studies.  This is to be expected, participation in them is meant to enjoyable. However, the guilds offer more than simple recreation.  Each offers practical experience of these pursuits integrated with academic study.  Saint Anselm said that if we wish to study theology we cannot rely on intellect alone and that in order to learn true knowledge we must incarnate the Word of God in our daily lives - one learns what virtue is, for example by practicing it as well as studying about it.  The guilds are a forum in which the virtues are taught through experience of practice in the mundane.  Once understood, the lessons provided by the guilds can be applied to any aspect of daily life, even if one does not go on to pursue woodworking, art, music or homesteading as a career.

Establishing tradition Through the experience provided by the guilds, students will also understand what is meant by a living tradition.  A living tradition hands down the accumulating positive experiences of the past to the next generation and is prepared to apply them creatively in new ways in order to reflect and speak to the present, but in such a way that its core principles are not compromised.  In the guilds, the students learn from a master and are in turn in a position to pass on many of those simple lessons immediately, guiding the junior guild members.  Our hope is that this dual process of learning and teaching will not stop once they leave Thomas More College.  For example, each member of the St. Gregory Music Guild will be highly capable of joining or forming a choir, teaching others, even those with no experience, how to chant the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours.

Serving the common good Through these guild activities, each student will pursue personal development, contribute to the college community, and even to the surrounding community.  Service to the community is as simple as singing to the elderly in nursing homes, taking on projects in one’s parish, and baking bread for the homeless. Through habitual consideration of the end to which activities are directed, the students will understand how work, paid or unpaid, can be directed towards the common good.

St. Joseph Woodworking Guild Master carpenter, Frank Jenkins, explores the properties of the major types of wood used in fine woodworking, the use and care of hand tools, the preparation of rough lumber for finish work, joinery, project conception and design, and finishing.  The guild culminates in the completion of a small project of the student’s choice, such as a wooden bookcase.

St. Luke Sacred Art Guild In their first year of the guild, I teach the students to paint icons in the Western tradition.  Students also learn the principles of harmony and proportion that govern composition in art, the basis of geometric patterned art (found in gothic church floor patterns, for example).  In addition, students have the weekly opportunity to attend the internationally known atelier of Paul Ingbretson, who teaches the rigorous “academic method” of drawing developed by figures of the High Renaissance such as Leonardo.  Upon graduating, students will be equipped with the core principles that enable them to continue their development to the highest level.

St. Francis and Isidore Homesteading Guild This guild is an excellent choice for young people with a passion to embrace the gifts of nature with a spirit of self-sufficiency.  Students will learn mankind’s time-tested techniques for a wide range of priceless life skills: how to bake sour dough bread, keep bees, raise chickens, transform tree sap into maple syrup, make a fire in the woods, track animals, how to create a garden (see left) and clean fish and fowl.  The intention is to stimulate wonder at God’s creation and the desire both to preserve it for future generations and to raise it up to something greater through cultivation that is harmony with the natural order.

St. Gregory Music Guild – Sacred Music Under the guidance of Dr. Tom Larson, students will learn Gregorian chant and polyphony.  Gifted students will have the chance to develop their skills further through classes with the College’s Composer in Residence, Mr. Paul Jernberg.  Mr. Jernberg will offer lectures, specialized singing classes, and advanced classes in principles of composition.  The Thomas More College Choir will showcase and record Mr. Jernberg’s original compositions in sacred music, which are receiving exceptional reviews from proponents of traditional of sacred music (see www.csmus.org). The approach of Dr. Larson and Mr. Jernberg is unique in that it not only teaches students how to sing well, but also equips students with a deep understanding of the fundamental principles of sacred music so that they will be able to establish choirs themselves, as well as leading prayer in the family home.

St Gregory Guild – Folk Music Mark Schwerdt (who doubles up as the Director of Admissions for the TMC) teaches students the rich history of folk music through the oral tradition.  Each semester, students memorize Irish, Scottish, English and American folk songs.  Students are encouraged to make these familiar songs their own, as they perform them for each other, the College and the surrounding community.  In addition to memorizing a variety of songs, students are offered banjo, mandolin or guitar lessons.

The Thomas More College Guilds contribute to the development of the student, the life of the College and the common good, and instill a spirit of cooperation, prayer and service.  Our intention is that through them, students will do more than establish a Catholic culture that flourishes apart from the wider culture: they will engage with the wider culture and be agents of its transformation.

For more information contact the college through their website, http://www.thomasmorecollege.edu/ ; potential students can speak directly admissions director Mark Schwerdt on (603) 880-8308, or mschwerdt@thomasmorecollege.edu

Polychrome 16th-century Gothic Sculpture - How Could We Learn to Sculpt in this Style Today?

Here is some sculpture from France dating from the early 16th century. It is called The Burial of Jesus and is attributed to a sculptor who until I saw these I had not heard of called Froc-Robert. They are in the Cathedral of Saint-Corentin in the Region of Brittany. I am told that they are made from limestone although I am not certain of this, and because they are polychrome, it is difficult to tell from the photos. At a personal level I love the fact that they are highly coloured. So here's a request for all sculptors and patrons out there: can we work to reclaim polychrome for the liturgical traditions? At the moment it conjures images of sentimental kitsch plastic figurines in a Catholic gift shop? The gothic, as exemplified here, and the baroque (I'm thinking here of Spanish wood carvers such as Alonso Cano) demonstrate that it needn't be so.

If we were to colour, we have to work even harder to avoid sentimentality in the style. So how might we go about learning to sculpt in, for example, this late gothic style. One answer is to go and apprentice yourself to a master sculptor who carves in this style. If we were talking about painting, the answer would be to go through a long training of imitation. For the skilled painter whose eye and skills are already developed and has the ability to analyse well what he is seeing then he might be able to adopt a chosen style by looking carefully and working out some working principles to guide him.

I thought I would ask Andrew Wilson Smith what he did. He is a sculptor who has broken away from a neo-classical, academic style. Readers of this blog will be familiar with his work because of his commissions for Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey. He worked out some principles and stuck to them. It is interesting to me that he analysed Romanesque art. The end result reminds me (and this is not a criticism in any way) of the work of Andrea Pisano, which I would call gothic. I suppose the division between the two styles is continuum rather than a sharp boundary. And however we classify it, I like Andrew's style. Here's what he told me when I asked him about this (you can see his work at the website accesible through his name, above):

"My preparation for my ongoing work at Our Lady of the Annunciation Abbey at Clear Creek consisted of several things. First, I had to familiarize myself with the tools and techniques of the stone carving discipline. I was lucky enough to become acquainted with two stone masons/artists who had worked on St. John the Divine Episcopal Cathedral in the 1980's when there was an effort to train a new generation of carvers and get some work done on the building. From working with these gentlemen, I was able to get started as a carver, learning the principles of the art and how it differed from my earlier training in techniques of modeling sculptures in clay, followed by casting in bronze or other materials.

During this time, I also started to study the various manifestations of Romanesque sculpture.  I realized the Romanesque cannot be reduced to a canon of set forms and principles to the extent that Gothic or classical work may be. There can be no 'Romanesque Manifesto' and the style should be thought of as a period of time including diverse bodies of work. This is liberating because it allows me to find at least one or two precedents for just about anything that I might want to do. In my opinion, the unifying principles of the Romanesque are to be found in the philosophy and worldview held by the artists and scholars of the 10th-12th centuries. Therefore, I tried to saturate myself in the literature of the period, as well as its imagery. 

One major theme in medieval thought is the idea that nature, history, and morality are all mirrors through which to study God. As we cannot study God directly, we may come to a better understanding of His nature through the created world. I have tried to keep this state of mind foremost in my approach to this work.  

When I was starting to design the actual sculptures for this project I had a major decision to make. One approach would have been to fix upon a particular sub-category of Romanesque sculpture and imitate it directly to try to make works of art that might be mistaken for things of a particular time and place. I decided against this approach, as it did not seem appropriate in the context of my work at the Abbey. Also, I do not like that approach in general, as its result tend to be rather flat and dry. (If you are doing restoration work on an antique building, by all means be as historically-accurate and principled as you can, but for new work, "Sing a new song to the Lord".)

Instead, my approach has been to channel several Romanesque idioms into my general manner of working, which is usually more classical. I try to take the elements that I find to be the most delightful and incorporate them into my own style. One example of this is the approach to faces. You will find that in most archaic modes of art, attention is given more to the individual features of a face than to an understanding of the face as a whole. As a result you end up with large eyes, noses, mouths, and ears on top of a relatively ill-defined head. The same principle is found in large hands and feet attached to small bodies. I have tried to find a balance and to make my figures reflect this attitude to a certain extent.  However, I design a figure that is more naturalistic, albeit with an overly-large head with somewhat exaggerated features.

Another element of concern is posture and the realization that the work will always be seen from a distance. I think it was the Italian sculptor Pisano who wished that he could have a 100-foot long chisel and carve sculptures from the same perspective from which they would be viewed. As this is impractical, masons working on architectural carvings have always had to do certain things to make their work plainly visible from a distance. I have tried to adopt various Romanesque techniques to deal with the perspective; these include angling the work towards the viewer, using exaggerated gestures in the pose, and shifting the proportions of a figure, gradually making the lower parts smaller and the upper body/head larger than they are in nature. "

How Small Household Flower Gardens Have Helped Transform a Boston Community

Here is a great story of how beauty really can change the world. A low-income housing complex in Boston has been transformed, through the work of its residents, into a place of beauty and dignity. It started with one or two people deciding to plant the little plots of land in front of their houses, then others seeing what was going on and starting to do the same. And according to the delighted director of the complex, who has just been watching this happen over the last year or so, it has brought benefits to the community as a whole that one just wouldn't have imagined. I have written before about the importance of the pleasure of gardening and as the garden  as a symbol of the culture of life in which man's harmonious work with nature raises it up beyond its natural state. But here is a story of how there is an underlying truth to this that really does affect people's lives for the good; we are talking here of people who, bar one, have never read my blog and are not likely to. There are no Chelsea Garden Show gold medal winners. This is just everyone mucking in and having a go. I heard about this from Nancy Feeman, who is working with me and a band of enthusiastic students to establish an English style garden at a farmhouse in Groton, Massachusetts.  The farm on which this stands will, once the money is raised for building, be the site for the new campus for Thomas More College. Nancy lives in the complex; she became connected with the college by coming along to one of the Way of Beauty retreats, two summers ago. (She has written about how this sparked an interest in gardening before, here.)

I'll let Nancy describe it: 'I have lived here for 9 years.  The housing complex in Boston was originally built for the returning WWII veterans and their families.  Later it was converted to housing for low-income families.  Here we pay 27% of our income for rent as well as heat and electric.  For me working in a Catholic school and as a single mom it was a huge relief to know that my rent would only change according to my income.  Still it was difficult to move here because of the social implications, prejudices and the difficulties raising children here.  But God’s grace has helped us overcome every difficulty. Recently changes in policy from the Housing Authority, which has always work hard to make this a good community, have had a positive effect.  About 4 years ago they received a grant for a huge renovation project and every apartment was completely remodeled which meant new and updated kitchen and bath.  They put in a small police substation to deal with crime, more lights, cameras, speed bumps, and the director moved her office from the main building to this complex about a year ago.

I was told about seven years ago that I could not hang a planted basked from the rail outside my house. That was disappointing I admit, but I am sure they had very good reasons at time.  Then about a year ago I noticed that a couple of people were doing little bits of gardening here and there and went to ask the director about it. I was pleased that this time the policy was different and she encouraged me to do it.

I have a tiny plot of land in front of my house and so this year I have planted it in the English style, that I have learnt about from the writing of Gertrude Jeckyll. This is a new interest for me and I am just finding out about plants, and this is just the first year I have tried it. I am just learning as I go along. What has happened is that gradually people have noticed what I have been doing and asking me about it and then starting to have a go themselves. As far as I know, most had no knowledge of gardening or plants before this. I feel as though I am only half a step ahead of the starter-gardeners. I am not using exotic plants at all - just the ordinary things that you buy from the garden centre, but the colour combinations and that way of packing out the bed so that eventually there are no spaces, which comes from Jeckyll, does have an impact. Not everybody is doing exactly what I am doing, but more and more are planting something and making an effort to think about how in other ways to make the place look neat and tidy. There has been a definite change in the attitude of people who have gardened even if they have simply begun to rake around the trees outside their apartment or sweep their porch. ’

Recently, the director of the complex, who has planted some annuals in front of her office called Nancy over just tell her how wonderful she thinks the imact is on the whole street: 'The director was full of excitement and told me how beautiful she thinks all the flowers are and how it has spread from house to house. She said: "More people are starting to garden and care about their place.  This is their home and it is so wonderful to see them even just rake or sweep their area because it means they care and that is what we want. Also, the gardening brings people outside and then they interact with each other and that builds more community." The director even involves the local children: "The children love the plants too. I invite them to help pit annuals in front of my office and they take great delight in carrying the water jug to and fro to water their small garden.”  She even told me that she taken aside all the summer student workers and the maintainance people to explain to them which plants are to be left and which are the weeds so that they don't take things out accidentally with their mowers and weedwackers!'

As Nancy said to me when relating the story: 'I think this does speak to the truth of human dignity towards things that are good and beautiful and gardening is part of that. It’s not just the beauty of the effect, but even working this tiny garden you feel the truth of the idea that there is dignity in working the land.

'It has made a big difference for me living here to be able to garden and to bring some beauty into a place that is not always easy to live in.  It’s so good that it brings joy to people and that when they see the flowers so many have been inspired to join in and do it themselves. '

What I love about this story is the way in which that has happened without the need for an organisational input or even community meetings. It has just happened organically (if you'll forgive the pun). When one person started doing it the others followed suit. There has been no cost to the taxpayer and precious little to the individuals involved.

We'll finish with a quote from Gertrude Jeckyll that Nancy brought to my attention: 'The size of a garden has very little to do with its merit.  It is merely an accident relating to the circumstances of the owner.  It is the size of his heart and brain and goodwill that make his garden delightful.'

Above is the approach to the complex. Nancy's street is beyond this, below.

And below is a typical view of the what the house front would look like before. At best neat and tiday, but soulless:

And that can be changed into this:

People have been planting the stone circles in the middle of the common lawn area, sometimes with garden plants:

And sometimes seeding with wild flowers:

And then they plant and arrange their house fronts in a variety of differents ways. As you look at them, remember that this is the first summer, the plants will mature in future years if this continues:

Opportunity for Artists to Publicise their Work

The editor of journal Dappled Things, Bernado Aparicio, has contacted me asking for submissions from up and coming artists who would like to have their art featured in the magazine. This is a chance for people to showcase their work in a magazine that is read by Catholics who are interested in liturgy and culture. The magazine is richly illustrated and the reproductive quality is high. They are looking for artwork for a number of future issues. My sense is that if there is work that they are impressed with it, they will do their best to showcase at some point in the future so they are not limited by numbers. They do not pay, but this is way for people to showcase what they do with thousands of readers who are likely to be interested in what they are doing. Perhaps this could spark some commissions! Regular readers will be aware of Dappled Things, but for those who aren't it is a quarterly journal which is focussed on trying promoting all aspects of Catholic culture. They are interested not only in the subject matter but also in ecouraging high quality writing that is both academically sound and engaging. Through this they are highlighting and developing writers who can effectively communicate aspects of faith and culture. For this reason it describes itself as a literary journal.

Those who are interested in submitting work should go to the website, here, and follow the directions.

A walk along an ancient aqueduct in southern Spain

When I was in Spain in May, some neighbours of my parents offered to take me on a walk that followed the line of an ancient aqueduct built by the Moors centuries ago. Phil and Brenda took me to a spectacular route that started in the town of Canillas (about an hour from Malaga). The aqueduct was a small channel providing water for irrigation and drinking water for the town. It is about a foot square in cross section and open topped. It weaves its way around the hills through olive groves and wild flower meadows, climbing at a rate only slightly greater than a contour line. This lead us eventually up high into a fast running stream in a narrow gorge, which was the source of the water.What was interesting was that this was still the means of irrigating the olive groves on the hillside. So in some sections, where the Moorish stonework had begun to leak, the channel had been mended. Somtimes with stone and cement, and sometimes even with sections of black plastic pipeline. From time to time, there would be small sluice gates that could be dropped into the channel, blocking it off and then directing the water onto the fields below that section. I have spoken in the past, here, about how there is a 'right to roam' in European countries. It's exact form takes different shapes, but for the most part, provided you don't take produce or destroy property and respect the land and personal rights of those who own it, you are entitled to go onto privately owned land. It means that in Europe that those who live in cities and suburbs and are not landowners, nevertheless have access to the land and have a sense of connection with it. People can also experience the peace and see the beauty of well managed agricultural land which has a very different effect on the soul than seeing 'wilderness' - land unaffected by man. New-world countries, such as America, Australia and New Zealand do not have such laws and so it is much more difficult to get access to agricultural land (as opposed to wilderness parks). Ironically, this means that even in New Zealand, a country in which perhaps 30% of the land is preserved as national parkland, there is still a greater sense of being deprived of contact with the land than you would have in a western European country. The reason for the difference between old and new worlds is that the new societies, driven by Enlightenment ideas of individualism that started to take hold in the 18th century rejected the traditional idea, which comes from Catholic social teaching, of land being a 'common good'. The traditional idea is that landowners balance their privelege of ownership, which is necessary so that the land can be cultivated in an ordered way, with certain responsibilities towards the community as a whole.

In Britain, which is a land of walkers (perhaps because the temperate climate is so condusive to it) there is a modern application of the custom, which has resulted in a network of public footpaths across its length and breadth. My guides Phil and Brenda, who were great company for the day, explained to me that because so many Brits live permanently in Spain now (about three quarters of a million), that the Spanish government has begun to establish British style footpaths through scenic areas and promote them to attract yet more people as tourists. Its not clear whether the Spanish people themselves are yet as enthusiastic about walking. It seems that perhaps Noel Coward was right, only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

An irrigation channel seems to me an example of a project that is intended for the common good and requires each landowner to acknowledge this in allowing it to be built on his land and in the way in which he uses it. Once this was built if the landownder wanted to act against the common good he could and use all the water for himself: nobody below him would be able to stop him taking it. Taking what is necessary for himself is in accordance with the common good, because this is how he grows food for the community (which includes himself of course). Maybe a historian out there could help me, but I don't think this would have been built by the central government buying the land through compulsory purchase order on the land. My guess is that there has been a cooperative process between landowners.

Any, enough of the discussion, here's the walk -  we start by filling up the water bottles at the public drinking fountain:

And then gradually climb our way up, through olive groves and some pine groves, pausing occasionally to look back at the town below. In time the trees clear and we can see the gorge ahead.

Here, below, is a sluice gate (it's on the end of the chain only partly visible). This is a simple metal plate which is dropped into the channel at this point, directing the water out through the opening which is visible above the waterline, bottom, left. This allows the farmer who owns this part of the land to irrigate his olive groves in the hillside below. We would see these periodically as we climbed. Clearly, there is mutual trust here and an assumption that no single landowner is going to abuse the privelege of access to the water and deprive everyone else of a share. Subsequent photos show the flourishing olive groves (note how the hillside is stepped to enable access when the olives are to be picked).

Round a corner, below, and things take a turn for the spectacular:

We can see the gorge in the distance which is the source of the water for the aqueduct, you can see the it cutting across the hillside halfway up on the left:

If we walk on an turn back, we can see, below, how precarious the path is in some places:

On the photo above you can see the aqueduct cut into the cliff face on the near part. In the distance to the left you can make out the line of the road through the hills, which follows the old Moorish trading route through southern Spain. It is seen more clearly in this photo:

Then we walk up into the gorge and to the mountain stream that is the source of water:

The very start of the aqueduct is on the left in the photo above. The manmade channel has water running in it, but it is not obvious in the photographs because it is so clear.

We stopped for a drink of water at a small waterfall in the stream above this point:

And then returned to Canillas retracing our steps. The day ended with a late lunch in the village square: Spanish coffee, which is a strong and milky, and tapas.

Top Catholic Artist Offers Five Apprenticeships to Young Artists

Catholic artist James Gillick has begun a formal scheme of apprenticeships at his studio in England. He will take on 5 people per year and is even building an extension to his studio in Louth, Lincolnshire in order to house his students. James works in the baroque style and sells through one of the leading galleries in London at top prices. He sell as an artist of both sacred and mundane subjects. I have known James for some years now and he has always spoken to me about how he feels that artists don't seem to be aware beyond the basic skills of drawing and painting is his understanding of his market and that he wanted to be able to help people who wished to do this. For example, when he spoke to the students at Maryvale he would always play down the image of the sensitive artistic temperament. Rather, he likened what he did to the job of a bricklayer: 'A bricky gets paid on the number of bricks he lays,' said James. 'Similarly the artist gets paid for each painting he paints. If I am going to support my family, I must be able to paint quickly and to highest standard so that I have enough to sell. Then I have to find someone who is going to buy my paintings. If I don't do that we starve or I get job doing something else. I don't have the time to get precious about it.'

How he is helping directly by offering training and advice.

He is looking for young people who want to, in his words, 'spend the next 50 years' being an artist. They will have to pay small up-front fee to cover room, board and materials (amounting to approximately $120 per week) but once they get going they will be paid for assisting him in the preparation of his canvasses and materials, preparatory painting work and assisting him in his business including liaising with his clients and galleries and book-keeping. By the end of the year they will be able to recoup this initial outlay through what they are paid for this work. Through working with him students will learn the life skills of being artist and be in a position to set up as sole traders. James sees this as much about forming the person to lead a hard-working, disciplined (and frugal) lifestyle as well as teaching them how to creating paintings. The will be pushed hard during this year. Artistically, depending on how experienced they were when they arrived, students can expect to be at a level where they can contemplate selling, or at the very least be in a position to develop their own work without being dependant upon spending years at an atelier in Florence. Some will probably stay and work with him longer than the year, but there are no guarantees here.

Interestingly James, like my icon own teacher iconographer Aidan Hart, is largely self-taught. Both were able to do this by studying in such a way that they discerned at a deep level the principles behind the traditions they were working in. The training I was given by Aidan was not so much about how to paint icons (although clearly it did involve some of this) but more about passing on what I needed to understand so that I could train myself. This is what Jim will be doing with his students.

This is an exciting development and I recommend young artists to consider this. He is looking for people who have the right qualities - self-discipline and preparedness to deal with the business side of being a succesful artist - as much as artistic talent.

Now that I am in the United States, I asked him about the possibility of training students from abroad. Jim said that he was certainly open to this - he was providing basic accomodation, so as long as they were prepared to travel to England he would take them on. He did note that the individuals would have to have to adapt the business elements to American situation once they left (for example, the regulatory aspects of establishing a business).

Enquiries should be made through his website www.gillick-artist.com/

Geometric Tile Patterns in Andalusia

  Here are some photographs of decorative tiles that I took on my trip to Andalusia. These designs are commonplace in Spanish towns here and will be seen on both old and new buildings. They are obviously derived from those of the Islamic Moors who ruled this part of southern Spain for nearly 800 years. The last Moors were defeated and surrendered the Alhambra - the palace in Granada - in 1492.  These were taken in two villages Alcaucin and Canillas de Aceituno about 20 miles inland from Velez-Malaga on the Costa del Sol.

The photo above is of the public drinking fountain in Alcaucin. What I found delightful about these villages is the effort made to decorate details of the exterior. For example, you will see here some steps, small interior parts of doorways. I have included some street scenes of the villages to give you a sense of the villages, and not all of them have geometric patterns.

 

Some Recently Completed Sacred Art

Here are two recently completed works of my own. The first is my own version of a Western iconography. It is Christ in Majesty and will go into the chapel at Thomas More College in Merrimack. I have created the basic design on a Romanesque illuminated manuscript. Christ is enthroned in heaven in glory, surrounded by the six winged seraphim and the four angels representing the four evangelists take the Word to the four corners of the world. In considering how to do this, I felt that in this the figure's sitting pose in the original is too unnatural and primitive for the modern eye. So I looked to the 20th century Russian iconographer, Gregory Kroug for the basis of the central figure. Kroug is interesting to study. Although the form is highly stylised, he was a very skilled draughtsman who placed the relative positions of limbs and torso accurately to reflect the gesture he wanted to show. The third inspiration for me is a 16th century Christ in Majesty that I saw at the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, Massachusetts in which the six winged seraphim who surround the throne are portrayed in monochrome in a deep green background. And finally, the face is my own style, but heavily influenced by my teacher, Aidan Hart, the British iconographer. I started this painting over the Christmas break and finished it in early May. The panel upon which it is painted is about six feet long. The second is an icon of St Victoria. I chose this subject because I painted it to give to a friend for the baptism of her baby daughter, Victoria. It is much smaller, about 10 inches long and painted on good quality watercolour paper. This took me about eight hours to paint. St Victoria according to the source I read, died in 304 and lived in Italy. When she refused marriage and to sacrifice to pagan gods because of her faith, she was martyred (that is why she is holding a cross in the icon).  The guard converted because of her witness to the faith and was himself martyred.

It is interesting to not that my source makes two observations. First is that very little is known about her life, and secondly that the story that we do have is 'probably a pious myth, though they did actually live'. I would love know why this final comment is made. I might be wrong, but the word 'probably' makes this sound like the historical-critical method at work to me. Historical-critical analysis is an overly skeptical form of analysis that assumes that something is untrue unless confirmed by historical evidence. So by this method, the main source of this information, which is tradition, is not accepted as a valid source of information. I prefer to work the other way around and assume that tradition is true unless proven otherwise. So in the absence of any other information I say wholeheartedly, St Victoria pray for us!