Living Gargoyles - the Medieval Art of Gurning (or How Ugliness Illuminates Beauty)

Believe it or not, there is an annual face-pulling competition that takes place in Cumbria in northern England that can trace its history back in a continuous line to the 13th century. The art of face pulling is called 'gurning'. Every year there is a competition at the annual fair in the Cumbrian town of Egremont. What is now called the gurning world championship has been held at the Egremont 'crab' fair since 1269. I have a personal connection here as as members of my family, on my mother's side, own a farm there (no jokes about how you can see the similarity from my photographs of me please!). If one compares the faces of the gurners with cathedral gargoyles we can see similarities - I managed to make the pairings shown below. When you look at the faces of these champions, the gargoyles don't look so fantastic.

So compare the above with the gargoyle below. When I look at the medieval carvings I always think that we can be certain that the masons of the 12th century had a pretty good sense of humour!

We can compare the two below too!

and....

Okay, I will admit I have no evidence whatsoever that there is a connection historically between between gurning and gargoyles, this is just fanciful thinking on my part....but you never know! It does raise the question however about the role of ugliness in the culture. If beauty is good, and ugliness is the absence of beauty, isn't it always bad?

Some of you may be saying, is this the Way of Beauty or the Way of Ugliness?

In fact ugliness has its place in the creation of the beautiful. It was recognised by commentators in the middle ages that beauty was a quality that could be apprehended as a good in itself. However, they recognised also, that our ability to see what is beautiful could be enhanced by contrast with ugliness. For those of us who through our fallen state might not be attracted to what is good in itself, the contrast with what is bad might illuminate it for us.

John Scotus Eriugena wrote of this principle of contrast in the 9th century: "For anything that is considered deformed in itself as part of a whole not only becomes beautiful in the totality, because it is well ordered, but is also a cause of Beauty in general; thus wisdom is illuminated by the relation to foolishness, knowledge by comparison with ignorance, which is merely imperfection and wanting, life by death, light by the opposition of shadows, worthy things by the lack of praise for them, and to be brief, all virtues only win praise by comparison with the opposite vices but without this comparison they would not be worthy of praise...As is the case with a beautiful painting, for example. For all that is ordered according to the design of divine Providence is good, beautiful and just. Indeed what could be better than the fact that the comparison of opposites lets us sing the ineffable praises of both the universe and the Creator?' De divisione  naturae, V; quoted in The History of Beauty by Umberto Eco.

Now I know why beautiful people like to have me around. I flattered myself it was for other reasons, but I'm wondering now if my presence makes them look even more attractive!

For any who are interested, a modern champion describes this ancient art in the video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qWyMBmvNYs

Modern Painting of Christ Carrying the Cross in Traditional Style

Following on from an earlier posting about the Russian school in Florence, Italy which teaches the academic method as it was practiced in Russia in the 19th century, I would like to draw readers' attention to a painting of Christ carrying the cross by and artist called Ilya Ovcharenko.

 I like very much the dark shadowy feel - very baroque and the fact that the faces are generally in shadow which is characteristic of 17th century sacred art (as we saw in Van Dyck recently) but different from the way that portraits are painted. This helps it to avoid the sentimentality that infects so many modern works of sacred art in the naturalistic style. I don't know many artists around today who are able to produce sacred art to this level.

 If you want to see a larger reproduction, follow the link here, and you will see a thumbnail, top middle, which you will be able to enlarge using your cursors.

Work By Thomas More College Students

Here is some more work by students from Thomas More College. They took traditional tiled patterns from Romanesque floors and incorporated them into a design for church floor. The oblong shapes are intended as a design for the nave; and the square for the main feature in a sanctuary. I asked them to take care in the coloration. Most colored pencils that are obtainable from the store are bright, artificial colors, but this is what we had to work with. So we used a light touch of even shading and overlaid the red, for example, with grey and brown so that it had an earthy, more natural feel to it and so it would evoke the material which one would expect such a floor to be made of, colored marble. Also, I encouraged them not to color everything evenly but to indicate only in some small area within any boundary what the infill design would be through full coloration and detail and then allow the rest to fade out. For a diagram this would be sufficient to indicate what the full floor would look like.

The design principle is have large shapes with patterned infill. Typically the large shapes would be orthogonal or a quincunx (four circles spinning out of a central one) or the chain of interlocking circles called a guilloche.

Beauty Comes in Threes

Look at this photograph of St Clare's in Assisi, which is top in the series of photographs below, and at the Basilica of St Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe New Mexico, which is second. The first is 13th century and second was completed in 1886.

If one takes in each case the lower section (containing the door) it is bigger than the second, containing a rose window, which in turn is bigger than the third containing a smaller round window. Even though the lower section is subdivided in the Santa Fe Basilica, the main door unifies the two elements into a single larger one. In both there is a rhythmical progression upwards so that the first is to the second as the second is to the first.

Both these churches have proportions in which there are three sections of different size in consonant relationships with each other. Proportion is defined as a consonant relationship between to two ratios. As a ratio is a relationship between two magnitudes, there is a minimum of three magnitudes needed to create two ratios.The beauty of architecture therefore is analogous to the beauty of music in which three notes are needed to define a chord. If you have just two notes you can have pleasing relationships - harmonious intervals - but the full chord needs a third not so that we know if it is participating in, for example, a major or a minor chord. We have seen this musical connection to architecture before in consideration, for example, of the octave, here.

This three tiered design principle can be applied to just about anything - below are  couple of buildings. The first is the grand Attingham House in Shropshire (seen before in the octave article); the second is an 18th century house in Frederick, MD; the third is in Newburyport, MA.

In each of the buildings above there is very little decoration - the elegance is derived almost exclusively from the proportions.

On a recent visit to the Cloisters Museum in New York I saw the following beaker and even a plant cut to follow the  same design principle. In this way the whole culture can participate in the liturgical form which is at its root.

Now compare with this modern house below. This is in Frederick, Maryland too and it looks to me as though the architect is trying to design something to complement the colonial architecture that dominates the town. Yet because he has even sized windows and stories, it lacks this elegance.

St Anthony of Padua

To mark the Feast Day here are paintings of Anthony of Padua by Sir Anthony Van Dyck. Van Dyck was a pupil of Rubens. A star at a young age, he moved to the protestant patron Charles I in England. I was told when I was studying in Florence that he is the father of the English portrait school which traces a line from him through figures such as Reynolds and Thomas Lawrence and then those who painted the American founding fathers, such as Gilbert Stuart. Although better known for his portraits (especially the famous triple study of Charles 1) he did a number of works of sacred art that I like very much. Both the inset (featuring the legend of the mule) and the large image below are by Van Dyck.

Each has all the shadowy qualities of baroque art that are often lacking in modern naturalistic styles of sacred art. Most of the painting is rendered in monochrome and loose focus with the sharp detail and naturalistic colour saved for the main areas of interest so the eye is drawn naturally to them. St Anthony is shown with Virgin and Child. I have just been reading through his life in the Catholic Encyclopedia and it recounts how, shortly before he died he had a vision of Our Lord as a child. Although I have not found references to Our Lady being present as well in the accounts that I read, paintings of this vision do seem always to depict her presence too. The book I think with which he is always portrayed indicates that he is Doctor of the Church.

And to support this, h.Here is a pen and ink from the 17th century by and Italian called Canini of the the Virgin and Child appearing to St Anthony of Padua and a hermit. We can see in this monochrome rendering how the baroque period is characterised by the rendering of form by tone rather than by line (which characterises the iconographic and gothic far more).

An Art School in Florence in the Naturalistic Tradition that is Good for Christians

The Russian Academy of Art in Florence 

I have just been given information about a school that teaches the traditional academic method according that  which developed in Russia in the 19th century, which seems to be a place that Catholics should think about for study. A former student of mine at Thomas More College, Jacqueline Del Curto, who went through our Way of Beauty program, has been studying there and is now about to go and do an apprenticeship with the British Catholic artist, my friend Jim Gillick in England. It seems to me that this represents the perfect training.

 The Russian Academy of Art in Florence, is one of a number of traditional schools that have been established in recent years. I am told that it was founded about three years ago and that the atmosphere is Christian - this is important, some of these traditional schools are antagonistic to the Church. It has the strong emphasis on drawing that one would expect at a school teaching traditional methods. As important as the teaching of the skill of drawing and painting are the ways that the artist is taught to introduce stylistic elements into the painting. This is done through control of the intensity of colour and focus (ie the blurriness of the image); and it is as important as the accuracy of the draughtsmanship in creating a picture of beauty that conforms to its tradition and the taste of the teacher is hugely important in governing this, because there are no set formulas that can dictate it. I have just been looking at the website of the work of their students and teachers and at first sight I am impressed.

For comparison, readers might like to look at the gallery of the artists from the Art Renewal Center which shows work derived from Western European academic art of the 19th century. I prefer the style of the  works of the Russian school. What is noticeable is how their figures are not charged with any eroticism (which is very common in those that appear on the ARC gallery). Also there are hardly any nude figures amongst the selection. When I asked Jacqueline about this she told me that she did no studies of nudes at all in her training. She spoke of a strong sense of modesty because the founder is Christian (they wouldn't offer housing to couples who were not married for example). She also told me that the convention in this tradition, as she understood it, is to paint male figures wearing at least loin cloth. All of this is very heartening if correct just goes to show that you don't need to study the nude in order to learn to draw well.

The photographs as well, I hope, give you a sense of the the style of work the school produces. They are figures studies and not sacred art, but the sort of thing that one must be able to do well if one is going to paint sacred art well. They are by a teacher at the school called Svetlana Kurbatskaya.

Schubert Soothes Savages, Becalms Beasts and Subdues Students (Throwing Food) - the Evidence is Here

As another in an occasional series that just relates pieces of music that had a great effect on me  I offer Schubert's Impromptu Op 90 No4. I was a student at Oxford when I first heard this. It was at a formal college Christmas dinner of the Middle Common Room (the graduate students). It may surprise some people to learn that these were often quite rowdy affairs. Even though we were in the college dining hall (this was St Edmund Hall) and wearing black tie and tux, drink flowed freely (the drinking age in England is 18) and by then end food was being thrown across the hall. So if you have a picture of the typical Oxford University student as one who is highly sophisticated and cultured, think again. Instead, try to think of the BBC production of Jeeves and Wooster with Hugh Laurie playing Bertie Wooster, and a scene at the Drones Club. Usually, totally incidental to the conversation going on the front and centre, we see grown men, tux wearing toffs, throwing bread rolls being thrown left and right. This was the norm at college dinners that I went to, especially Christmas dinners. Despite all efforts of the dean to discipline students or to appeal to us to grow up it happened each year. In the end they gave up trying to stop us and made special wooden covers to go over all the portraits of past principles and notable Old Aularians. Into this atmosphere, once the dinner was over, the graduate students had decided to put on some musical entertainment (this was very unusual and, I thought when I heard the announcement, highly pretentious).

First up was a lady singing a Victorian drawing room song (something like Come Into the Garden Maude). I couldn't believe that anyone would think that this was worthy entertainment and spent most of the time with my head buried in the crook of my arm stifling childish giggles. Then it was announced that a pianist would play a piece by Schubert.  I rolled my eyes to the ceiling again and prepared to launch some soft fruit. This however stopped me in my tracks and just as was to happen with Palestrina and Mozart's Laudate Dominum years later I felt goosepumps on the back of my neck and just wanted to the performance to go on and on. I was embarrassed by my reaction and tried to hide my face - I didn't want people to know I was enjoying it. Afterwards the whole mood of the dinner changed and the audience became far more peaceful I noticed. It seems I wasn't the only one affected.

Afterwards I began to investigate classical music starting with Schubert and then moving into Beethoven. The pattern of these beautiful pieces is the same as before. Their beauty draws me in and leaves me wanting more, something beyond it. Initially it means trying to chase the experience by finding more pieces of music but in time (several years later)  I realised that this was beginning to stimulate a search for absolute Beauty that will only be satiated by God.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZm3JbzFzrQ

This is a truly beautiful rendition of Schubert there is no denying it and I would love to hear him play it in person.

It should be said also, that Mr Zimerman, while being able to play the piano with sublime beauty, also has a serious case of classical music face pulling. For your entertainment here is Rowan Atkinson satirising... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd0UAdpBNUg

Gardens in Berkeley, California

Here are some photos of ordinary gardens in Berkeley, California. I was visiting recently and just took these snaps as I wandered around the town. Berkeley has a temperate microclimate and so has a long growing season and very little frost. It is warmer and sunnier than Britain, which also has a temperate climate, and gets drier in summer, but rarely very hot. If you travel just 15 miles inland the temperatures can start to soar, especially in summer. I love to see the effort that the householders go to here. This does rather blow my Americans-don't-garden hypothesis, I have to admit...except for the last one.

Oh dear! The English equivalent of this is a front garden with plastic gnomes or Noddy and Big Ears (from Enid Blyton)...I think I prefer this.

A Single Mathematical System that Unifies Liturgy and Physics - and Removes Wave Particle Duality

Are there any mathematicians out there who can tell me if this is nonesense? It might turn the whole of science upside down. I recently did a posting about how the passage through sacred time might be viewed as a helical progression based upon the significance of the numbers 7 and 8 in the liturgy as commented on by St Thomas Aquinas. In the comments at the bottom of the article a regular reader called Alexey suggested that if this is so we can conclude that time exists in three dimensions. Here is his comment: Time then is more than one dimension. Just like, when traveling through space, it is not enough to say “I am at 40 degrees latitude”, — the longitude must be specified as well, so it is not enough to say “40 days passed”, one has to add “it is Thursday".

What I fascinating idea. I have heard of multi-dimensional space (although really claim to understand the idea), but not three-dimensional time.

This immediately reminded me of someone I met years ago in Mountain View, California called Irwin Wunderman. His son was a friend of mine from my time studying engineering at Michigan Tech. Irwin was a brilliant man (he was in his seventies, I think, when I met him and he has since died). He was a PhD from Stamford, where he told me, his thesis was so advanced that even in awarding it his advisor told him that they weren't sure that they fully understood it. He had invented a pocket calculator in the 1960s in his garage, which had patented and then marketed (you can read about this here). He was also an entertaining character who loved to give tours of his house which had been a speakeasy and bordello in the 1920s and had even been raided by the Untouchables.

When I met him he had just written a book in which he described a number system he had developed in which he suggested that numbers do not progress linearly (as we normally imagine them) but in fact counting from one to two is a vector operation (even in the absract world of mathematics). In moving from one to two, the vector of the transition is almost linear, but not quite. It moves slight off in two other dimensions as well. This means that the process of counting follows not a linear scale but a helical path.

At the beginning of the conversation he had immediately launched into a complicated description of how his theories worked. I have a degree in materials science (which is the physics of solids) from Oxford University and a Masters in engineering.  I was never a star student, but it does mean I have more than the average grasp of maths and science. Nevertheless, Irwin lost me in about three sentences. I was hopelessly out of my depth. So I stopped him and said: 'Don't tell me how this works. Tell me instead what the important consequences of this are.'

Then he told me that if you used his number system, rather than the conventional one, there were no irrational numbers and you could, for example, calculate precisely the area of a circle without having to use an approximate value for 'pi' (ratio of the length of the circumference of the circle to its diameter). Also, he said, through this he had come up with his own unified wave theory in which there was no wave-particle duality in the behaviour of photons, for example. I thought that this was staggering. If he really had done this then it could turn science upside down. However, Irwin couldn't find anyone to take any notice of him because he was not associated with any university. He was a complete amateur who had developed this at home. It wasn't just this (from what he was saying). It was so complicated that even most university mathematicians wouldn't understand him. Eventually he had managed to find someone to read and understand it who had some authority and his book was published. But even then, its publication passed largely unnoticed. You can find it on Amazon here.

I tried to show his book any scientists I knew, but I couldn't get anyone to take me seriously and as soon as anyone started to push me with further questions I couldn't answer them; and again, because Irwin was an amateur they were inclined not believe that it could possibly be true.

At the time I had not thought about the comparison with the progression of time and the liturgy in a helix, but it is a striking parallel. Perhaps it means that anything that has magnitude (and not just space and time) is three dimensional; because that magnitude is counted by numbers and the number system is three dimensional? Woh, I'm getting out my depth again...I this needs a real mathematician! Perhaps someone who reads this might be motivated to read Irwin's book and see whether there is anything to it. I would love to think there might be. Maybe this is unifying even more than waves and particles? We might have a bridge between the physical and the metaphysical. Readers help please!

Above: Irwin in his Mountain View house; below the garage in which he invented his desk calculator; and his invention as produced.

How To Choose a Painting for Catechesis

The following article is written by Dr Caroline Farey and John Casey and of the Maryvale Institute and first appeared in The Sower, which is published by the Maryvale institute and distributed in both the UK and the UK. It is available online at www.thesowerreview.com.

This is written about paintings of the Annunciation, but through it they describe very clearly the principles by which one can choose a painting for catachetical purposes. This is something that is very important, but additional to its appropriateness for a liturgical setting or for devotional prayer.

Caroline and myself will be teaching the summer residential weekends for the diploma offered by the Maryvale Institute, Art Beauty and Inspiration from a Catholic Perspective. The goal of this course is to understanding of the place of beauty in Catholic culture with a special focus on visual art; by this we hope to contribute to the formation of future artists and patrons who serve the church. The course is offered in the US through the Maryvale Mid-America Center at the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas . It is design with  for working adults (and that means stay-at-home mums as well) living in any location, provided they can get to the first residential weekend. The dates of the first residential weekend are July 12-15 (Friday-Monday).   Even if you don't wish to do the written work for the diploma, you would learn a lot if you chose to audit the course - attending the residential weekend and then working through the accompanying material at home at your leisure.

The Annunciation and Catechesis

A picture of the annunciation is a resource par excellence for catechesis because it can illustrate so many interconnecting doctrines of the faith. Having said this, not all artists have the same degree of ecclesial depth and so some pictures will be of greater catechetical value than others. At this point it is also good to be aware that one might look at a painting of a great artist,r a very beautiful painting, or one that speaks very personally, or one helpful for prayer or meditation – none of these criteria, however, makes the painting necessarily the most appropriate to use catechetically. What, then, do we need to look for as catechists in order to choose the best art of the annunciation for our purposes?

The Blessed Trinity

Where there is nothing at all to indicate the Trinity, the value of the painting for catechesis is greatly reduced because, as we know, the Trinity is the ‘light that enlightens’ every dogma, every mystery of the faith (CCC 234). Most annunciation scenes, however, will depict the presence of the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity in some way. The icon by Aidan Hart reproduced here gives us an explicit indication. Many older scenes show God the Father and the dove of the Holy Spirit very explicitly, with these and the lamp; angel Gabriel all oriented or pointing towards Our Lady to indicate the presence of the divine Son. Other versions work more subtly but equally effectively. Nicolas Poussin, uses light sources, one from off the painting indicating God the Father, the light shining around the Holy Spirit and the light of the angel as the messenger of the Word. Fra Angelico uses triple rounded arches to embrace the whole scene as though holding it in the stillness of eternity, so great is this moment.

Heaven and angels

Scenes that show nothing of heaven would tend to be less useful catechetically. Heaven unites with the earth at this moment and the way this is portrayed can provide important catechetical opportunities. Many icons will have a gold background indicating the heavenly nature of the event. Others have the sky bursting open surrounded by angels. Sometimes the angel Gabriel is part of the heavenly aspect, since Gabriel is a messenger from heaven, while in other pictures the heavenly scene surrounds the Holy Spirit portrayed as a dove. Catechetically, it is important to be clear with people that angels are creatures, they are not divine; but they do ‘come and go’ Christ tells us, to and from the Father’s presence, from beholding the face of the Father (see Matt 18:10-11). They can indicate the vibrancy of life in heaven.

Mary

The figure of Mary is portrayed in various ways. In the middle ages five ‘stages’ of the story in the Gospel of Luke, or ‘conditions’ of Our Lady, were outlined with changing hand gestures for each stage: conturbatio (surprise at the arrival of the angel Gabriel: Mary ‘was deeply disturbed’;cogitatio (Mary ‘wondered what this greeting could mean’; interrogatio (‘How can this be?’); humiliatio (humble acceptance and faithful submission to God’s will); meritatio (internal bliss, joy at the miraculous conception of Jesus, the Son of God).

The first two conditions lasted only a moment in Mary’s life and are probably the least helpful catechetically. That Mary dialogued with the angel (interrogatio) is of value, and this is normally portrayed as one hand raised and the other resting on an open book, as catechesis needs the same kind of questions of meaning and questions of embodiment that Mary raised - such as, how can this truth of the faith be lived out in my life? Best of all, however, are the two final moments. Mary’s humility and humble acceptance (humiliatio) is typically portrayed as hands crossed on her chest. The final moment of the joy of union with the Holy Spirit as the incarnation of the Son of God takes place (meritatio), is often painted with arms extended and hands completely open. Poussin’s annunciation is a perfect example of this with Mary’s yellow cloak indicating the golden acceptance of grace flowing down from her mind and pouring onto the wood of the platform, like the step of an altar, on which she sits. These scenes would be a constant reminder in a catechetical session of the joy that comes from acceptance of the grace of God and the teaching of the Church. Mary should portray, too, the exquisite dignity of the human person when humble and obedient, when listening and open, when joyful and freely accepting, longing for and fulfilling, the will of God.

The Archangel Gabriel

How the angel is portrayed can indicate more about Our Lady. It was a custom amongst some artists to  ensure that the angel was portrayed lower than Mary as an indication that she, as mother of God, would be their superior, their queen. Amongst other artists, since Gabriel was ‘from God’, he was portrayed floating or flying down from a heavenly realm. As long as the majestic angelic nature is in evidence, the position can be informative wherever placed. The angel Gabriel, as the messenger of the Word of God, embodies certain signs of the message. Pointing upwards and pointing to Our Lady’s womb are typical gestures. Sometimes, as in the icon here, the wings tell the same story, with one pointing to God from where the Word has come,and one pointing to earth, an indication of the Word to be made flesh. The lilies carried by Gabriel in some pictures remind us of Mary’s purity because she was conceived without sin. This dogma of the Immaculate Conception depends partly on this Scripture passage and particularly on Gabriel’s greeting, not calling her by her expected name, ‘Mary’, but using a special Greek word approximately translated ‘full of grace’ but carrying so much more meaning.

Buildings and curtains 

Buildings indicate the temple and the Church, the old order and the new with Mary often on the threshold. Mary is the model of the Church, the ‘house of God’. It is good if there is a building in the picture for these reasons. Sometimes the building is actually a portrayal of church architecture, sometimes it is more figurative. Sometimes it is in the architecture that stonework or woodwork is seen in the form of a cross. Where the building structure is very ornate, it might be an exaggerated form with excessive structural focus,such as in the painting by Crivelli. Curtains are important for many of the same reasons but the artist doesn’t always portray these with the significance that they deserve.

The original tabernacle, following the designs given directly by God in the desert, was a tent with curtains embroidered with ‘blue and purple and scarlet stuff and fine twined linen’, a refrain repeated throughout the book of Exodus (see Ex 36:8ff). Frequently, the background of the scene is not a building but a bedroom. The curtains are not only the tabernacle curtains, those of the ‘tent of meeting’ or the temple curtains – often in two parts to remind us that it will be ‘torn in two’ at the crucifixion (Matt 27:51) – the sword that will pierce Mary’s heart (Lk 2:35).

The veil, drawn back indicates the fullness of revelation, the fullness of God to be conceived in Mary. A curtain is also reminiscent of the curtains around a medieval altar. If the painting is from Northern Europe or England, the curtain drawn up as a hanging bag directly over the space between Gabriel and Our Lady – the space into which the word is spoken – bears a strong resemblance to the hanging tabernacle in medieval churches before the Council of Trent prescribed a lockable container. At this point the annunciation scene is carried forward to the Eucharist and the paschal mystery.

Garden and landscape 

Finally, it is helpful to examine the garden or landscape in the picture for our catechesis. The Song of Songs is the source of the early idea of the enclosed garden symbolising Mary’s virginity (4:12). Landscapes turn our thoughts to land, and in biblical terms this is the promised land flowing with milk and honey, indicating our eternal homeland of God’s life of joyful love, the destiny for which the Father prepares us through the redemptive grace and adoption that comes from the work of the Holy Spirit and the Son of God made man.

Real Men Grow and Pick Lilies...Yes They Do!

Is gardening for beauty and delight a male or a female occupation? Talking to many here in the US, the impression I get is that people see growing food for produce, or rearing animals for food as a masculine thing; but growing a garden for its beauty? Definitely not. They will rear chickens in their back yard, but growing flowers? No, that is for girls. In response to this I would say that the call of every man to cultivate the land, should have 'three acres and cow' is at once too narrow and too broad: narrow in that seems to imply that only a utilitarian view of cultivation; and broad in not every man is meant to be cultivating even three acres of land, but he should at least have a plant-pot and a geranium on the windowsill of his 3rd floor city-centre apartment! Adam was gardener; Christ, the new Adam, was mistaken for a gardener and my great grandfather was head gardener of the Duke of Northumberland (so the family lore goes). Also my grandfather was a keen amateur gardener and my father still is a devoted gardener, who also had a garden-nursery a garden design consultancy business. All were men! Perhaps this is a little family line of the 'Downton Abbey' old world pro aristocracy view of life in which every man has his proper place passing down through the family line, holding out against modernist utilitarian view of the land.

The garden is a place for relaxation and contemplation for city dwellers. The city being the place of culture and the natural place for man to live (according to psalm 106 and Aristotle alike). The city garden then is a sanctuary and is described in scripture as a place in which everything is grown for its beauty and to delight the senses - taste, smell, vision - rather than simply sustenance.  

Also, I note, Christ went to the Garden of Gethsemene to pray. He went to the wilderness to meet the devil; but he went to the garden to find the Father in his time of agony. The garden is a sanctuary of the natural world raised up by man to something greater, so that contemplation of its enhanced beauty raises our spirits to God and as such prompts our praise of God the Father in a way that even the beauty of the wilderness is unable to do. When Mary Magadalene saw Christ in the garden, as mentioned above, she mistook him for the gardener, which seems to me to be symbolic of who this was, she was seeing more than we might give her credit for. 

Reading the book of Revelation, that too seems to suggest that man is meant to be a city dweller, for our final home will be the liturgical city of the New Jerusalem. But this is a garden city in which the Tree of Life flourishes and Eden has been restored by Christ the Head Gardener. 

I wonder if the root cause of the idea that flowers are cissy is the same as that which has created the tendency towards the feminisation of the prayer in the Church (leading in turn to a reduction in the number of priests)? It seems to me that it is, although I can't say exactly how - perhaps this removal of anything contemplative from masculine list of activities is a common element.

Perhaps then, accordingly, just as we should be encouraging fathers to lead prayer in the home we should also be encouraging boys to start growing things so that contribute to the beauty of our homes and cities and make them sanctuaries of peace as a gift for the family (even if it begins with just in a plant pot inside the house).

I am not suggesting that macho men should discover their inner femininity, rather, that we need to learn to see that cultivation for beauty is as thoroughly masculine as it is feminine. For as Leo XIII say in his encyclical Rerum Novarum, men should be encouraged to cultivate the land and in so doing will, 'learn to love the very soil that yields in response to the labor of their hands, not only food to eat, but an abundance of good things for themselves and those that are dear to them [my emphasis].'

Consistent of this idea of the gardener growing good things for those that are dear to him, to use Leo's phrase, we see in the Song of Songs that while the garden is identified with the lady, commonly seen  as Mary, a 'garden enclosed'; it is the man who is the gardener who woos her by growing and gathering lilies for her. What strikes me when I look at the traditional pictures of the garden enclosed shown below, is not how our attitude to Mary has changed, but how are attitude to nature and gardens, even as Christians, has changed. I wrote an article that touches on this called Come Out of the Wilderness and Into the Garden . It is this differing attitude to gardens and man's relationship to them that makes this identification of Mary as the garden enclosed so unusual to us today.

As an aside: reading again through Anton Chekhov's the Head Gardener's Tale (and I can't remember why I had cause to read through it the first time!) it is interesting to note that in this short story written in 1894, the gardener is proud of his position, for we are told he calls himself 'Head Gardener' even though he is the only gardener and has no subordinates. The scene is a sale of flowers in 'Count N's greenhouses'. He tells a tale to the narrator in  which a judge acquits a vagrant for the brutal murder of an just and beloved village doctor. The tale itself seems to my unlearned appreciation to be asking questions about how justice and mercy are balanced (and I'm not sure I'm with Checkhov in what appear to be his conclusions...perhaps some literature experts can interpret for us, the story is here  - it really is very short!) What I find particularly curious, is that Checkhov made the narrator of the tale, who a mysterious sage, an aristocrat's gardener. Is there any significance I wonder? Comments please!

Pictures below is  Noli me tangere by John of Flanders, 14th century - Christ with holy spade! And below that: Martin Schongauer, Madonna in Rose Garden, 15th century; and below: Gerard David, early 15th century Flemish.

and finally, below, the York Psalter, 12th century

St Andrew's Church in Maine - A Model in Interior Decoration

Here are some photos St Andrew's Episcopal Church in Newcastle, Maine. It was designed  at the end of the last century by the English architect Henry Vaughan. There are many beautiful neo-gothic churches in New England, and what generally comes to my mind when I think of this style is the grand stone churches of, for example, Boston or New York. Vaughan who was English but received many of his commissions in the US design in this grand manner too. St Andrews is different from these in that it is based upon medieval wattle and daub construction, such as All Saints in Crowfield, Suffolk which dates from the 14th century. Henry Vaughan designed only one other, to my knowledge in this country, half-timbered style. This is the Catholic church in Groton, Massachusetts and is currently not used.

I love Victorian neo-gothic and do not think of it as a pale imitation of something that existed earlier. To my mind, the architects of this period, starting with figures such as Pugin, are a model of how to look back at the past work and study the principles that define it and then create original work that both evokes that period and is an authentic architectural style in its own right. As such, I always think, they provide an example of how Catholic culture could be re-established today.

(Before I go any further I must say that I am very grateful to the Rev Conner of the church who very generously took the time met me and show me around when I traveled up to Maine and for Anna Shaw a parishioner who took most of these photographs just for us.)

Detail of the exterior wall, above and below is the church in Suffolk that inspired Vaughan in his design

 The recently restored reredos, above

 Looking towards the back of the church

The Paintings of an American Catholic Master, Carl Schmitt

 Two years ago, I wrote a  feature on the American artist Carl Schmitt (1889-1989).  What has prompted me to look at his work again is the publication of a beautiful book of his work called Carl Schmitt, The Vision of Beauty. Schmitt was a classically trained American artist who was a friend of Hilaire Belloc, who owned work by him, and who contributed a weekly column to Chesterton’s Weekly Review when Belloc was its editor. He was much travelled around Europe, but spent most of his adult life living in Connecticut. I like his still lives particularly see below and at www.carlschmitt.org). He was a faithful Catholic all his life and quite apart from his art his Catholic legacy is strong. He had 10 children who all kept the faith and one of whom was a priest. Descendants of Schmitt were involved at the instigation of Thomas Aquinas College in California and founded and still run Trivium School, an independent Catholic boarding high school with a great books curriculum. This is on the other side of the country and less than an hour south of Thomas More College, in Massachusetts. Sam Schmitt, who wrote this book and works for the foundation that works to preserve his memory is a scholar of chant and the liturgy and I met him before he took his current role when he was working with us at TMC. It was with great pleasure that I received this book to review. What caught my eye at the time was this deposition. This is a good example, in my opinion, to study when considering how to balance the general and the particular characteristics of the person. For good sacred art, that balance has to be right.

Some time ago, I wrote an article (Is Some Sacred Art Too Naturalistic), about the tendency amongst modern naturalistic artists to paint sacred art in which the rendering, especially the faces, is too naturalistic and too particular to one person, like a portrait. The result is paintings that look like the next door neighbor dressed up in old-fashioned clothing in a staged Victorian tableau. In my assessment there was too much emphasis on the particular and not enough on the general human characteristics of the saint or person depicted. It is the general characteristics that enable us to relate to those aspects that we are supposed to be inspired by and imitate, such as virtue. By definition, we can only aspire to imitate those aspects that are common to us. It is not possible to imitate something that is particular to someone else.

The sacred art of baroque of the 17^th century (in contrast to 19^th century naturalism) always plays down the individual characteristics with skillful use of shadow, depletion of color and variation in focus. This is not to exclude the particular altogether; we must know enough to know who is depicted. It is a question of balance. An example of how a baroque artist described this is given here.

In a very 20^th century way, Carl Schmitt has done the same here. I like also the way that he has set up the composition. The circular sweep that contains the main forms is well handled, introducing enough variation (for example in the tilt of the heads of the women) to stop them looking to rigidly bound by the compositional form.

Some might feel that there is too much 'general' and not enough 'particular' for their taste (it is something that crosses my mind). Regardless, I think it is a useful thing for today's artists to see how Schmitt has approached this problem, and at the very least avoided the pitfalls of so many current naturalistic artists.

I am delighted that this book features a large number of his very beautiful still lives. They show the same skillful balance of the general and particular and are reminiscent of the great French Master Chardin. You can read about him in an article I wrote entitled Cosmic Onions, What Does Still Life Have to Do with the Liturgy?. In these Schmitt demonstrates that he understands the baroque sensibility (developed in the century before Chardin) in which large areas of the painting are in soft focus and depleted of colour. This means that the hard edges, deep contrast and most brightly coloured areas correspond to those parts that we focus on naturally within the composition. He gives us information where we naturally seek it. This is how the naturalistic artist appeals to our natural way of look at the cosmos and delighting in it. The focus of the eye is sharp and coloured in the centre, but monochromatic and blurred in the extremes and when we look at the world around us, the intellect process this information so that what we see in our mind's eye delights us. God made us this way so that we delight in the beauty of his creation, and the skilfull artist understands this and gives us visual information that corresponds to this natural desire of the intellect.

I show several of his still lives below.

Photos courtesy of the Carl Schmitt Foundation

An Intensive Summer School in Academic Drawing for Catholics - Useful Whatever Your Preferred Tradition

Learn the Academic Method and Earn College Credit Whatever your preferred style of art, I always feel, if you are an artist who seeks to create beautiful work you must learn to draw. Drawing is the core discipline, the musical scale, of visual art and if an artist cannot draw then any correspondence of his art to his original idea is just a rare and lucky accident. I am approached all the time by people who wish to learn to paint icons and usually my first piece of advice is to learn to draw as well as studying the tradition you are interested in.

The best training I know is the academic method which is a systematic method of training hand and eye that was developed by Masters such as Leonardo and Michelangelo. I did a summer school in Florence in this style and in just two weeks my drawing ability improved by orders of magnitude (and I thought I was pretty good at art before I went!). You will produce a drawing of a cast in charcoal - I did the cast drawing you see left at the same atelier in my first month of full-time study there. My icon painting teacher encouraged me to go and as a result the quality of my icon painting improved dramatically as well. If you don't like what I do now, all I can say is that you would have hated what I used to do before I studied in Florence!

Thomas More College of Liberal Arts has teamed up with the internationally known Ingbretson Studios, based in Manchester, NH to offer summer school. As well as the art instruction there is a program of lectures and museum visits that focus on an deeper understanding of the Western naturalistic tradition. At the end of the two week course I will give talks that place this in the context of a Catholic worldview.

Ingbretson Studios is run by Paul Ingbretson, who is one of the leading exponents of the academic style of painting around today and a Master of the Boston School (the father of the Boston School is the great American artist John Singer Sargent). One of his star former pupils is Henry Wingate, who residents of Front Royal, Virginia will know well and whose work I have featured in the past (it is his portrait that is in the poster below; I have also posted his Sacred Heart). Within 15 minutes of the TMC campus, Paul's workshop has become a little epicentre of Catholic naturalistic artists. I know of four serious students at least who have begun long term study there as a result of recommendations from myself or Henry. Thomas More College students also go there for a weekly evening class during the semester.

For information on the summer school, go to the Thomas More College website here. For insight into what Masters in this style can produce today look at the work of Henry Wingate, here (I have also posted his Sacred Heart below); or one of my teachers in Florence at the Cecil Studios Matt Collins, who comes out of the same Boston line. His Christ Carrying the Cross is below.

Thomas More College Alumnus Enter Novitiate for Oratory of St Philip Neri in Lewiston, Maine

Here are some photos of Br Tyler Tracey's entrance into the Novitiate of the Fraternity of St Philip Neri at the Basilica of Ss Peter and Paul, Lewiston, Maine. This is an Oratory in Formation founded just last August and Br Tyler is their first novice. So it is a young community just beginning to establish itself and making a great start. There are three priests. I attended the ceremony which was last Friday afternoon and which was followed by Vespers and Benediction. I was especially glad to be able to make it as Br Tyler is a former student of Thomas More College of Liberal Arts and I know him well. I have additional personal reasons for wanting to support this new community and that is that my experiences of the liturgy of the London Oratory was so influential in my conversion and my continued contact with the London Oratory and with the Birmingham Oratory has been so nourishing for my faith. Both are churches where the liturgy reduced me to tears...for the right reasons!

Mgr Caron, the superior of the community described proceedings as follows: 'On Friday, May 3, at the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Lewiston, Bro. Tyler Tracey was admitted as a member of the Fraternity of St. Philip Neri for the probationary period of one year in the course of a rite which was taken in part from the one prepared by Blessed John Henry Newman for the Birmingham Oratory.  It begins with singing the hymn to the Holy Spirit, Veni Creator. The postulant is questioned as to his desire to live according to the Oratorian charism, and all pray for him using the Litany of St. Philip, composed by Blessed JH Newman. After publicly stating his intention to life according to the statutes of the Fraternity for the coming year, he is given the habit of the community. Each member of the community offers him a fraternal sign of peace, and all venerate the relic of our holy father St. Philip. 

He joins the community for the celebration of Vespers and Benediction. It is the custom in the Oratory to sing Vespers publicly on feast days. May 3 is the feast of the Apostles Philip and James. St. Philip the Apostle was the patron of St. Philip Neri. St. Philip Neri retained devotion to his namesake the Apostle throughout his life. Vespers, or Evening Prayer, concluded with a brief period of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, followed by Benediction.'

Congratulations to all! My prayers are with you.

Above: people starting to gather in the church early (yours truly closest to us on the rhs). The basilica was completed in the 1930s inspired by the French gothic. There is extensive and beautiful woodwork throughout the church. If I turned around from my position in the pew, the photo below shows the sight I would see.

Christian Geometric Art in an Arabic Gospel

Last week I featured the first work produced by my students at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in their sacred geometry class. They did eight sided figures based upon an Islamic design. Just in case anyone has been wondering if this is an over adventurous pushing back the envelope of what appropriate in the context of sacred illumination, I thought that it would be interesting to show these images that I discovered on the British Library website (which is wonderful resource for images of ancient manuscripts). These are from a 14th century Palestinian gospel of St Luke. I have no additional information as to why this particular design was chosen. All I can say is that I would have been very happy to see this in my bible because of the four-fold and eight-fold symmetry that exists in this. Four symbolises the world and four gospels were chosen by the Church so that the Word was carried to the four corners of the world by the four evangelists, each evangelists is symbolised by the four figures described as sitting around the throne of Christ in the book of the Apocalypse.

Regular readers will be familiar also with the symbolism of eight: it corresponds to the eighth day of Creation that ushers in the new covenant: the incarnation, death, resurrection of Christ. Sunday is the eighth day of the week. In the basic repeat unit, which is repeated like floor tiles, we have, geometrically portrayed, four versions of the Word in the gospels (four small octagons) spinning out of one large one, the Creator himself, enthroned and in glory. Pictorially, this would be Christ in Majesty surrounded by the Angel, the Lion, the Ox, and the Eagle. When you have four of the repeat units combined, there is long-range order which has a fourfold symmetry in which four large octagons surround the central, which is the broad design of this 'carpet page'. There is a beautiful harmony to this, and it seems to me to reinforce the superabundant truth of Eucharist: that through the propagation of his gospel in a literary description of his life, Christ in Majesty is really made present in the world in the liturgy of His Holy Church.

I repeat, this is my personal reaction to this design, a meditation upon what I am seeing, so I could be reading more into this than the artist intended. However, as an artist, I would happily reproduce this design with the intention of incorporating this symbolism into my work. There is such a beautiful harmony to it, it seems.

Images: below the images of the 14th century gospel, I have given the Thomas More College, Christ in Majesty to illustrate the point, painted by myself.

The Franciscan Liturgical Art - An Inspiration for Rebuilding the Church Today

The rich artistic fruit of the spirituality of charity and poverty. Following the excellent feature introduced by Shawn Tribe - the Sacred Liturgy and the Apostolate - on how liturgy is the 'indespensable' source of momentum for increased charity and social and cultural regeneration; and my own piece Should We Sell All the Art in the Vatican and Give the Money to the Poor?, I thought that I would explore a little further the part that sacred art and the beautiful decoration of our churches has to play in this. St Francis of Assisi is the figure to whom are encouraged to look in this regard, so perhaps the easiest way to think about this is to consider the effect he had in his day.

 I am no expert on St Francis himself so I am taking a simple approach. I am working on a couple of assumptions that I am hoping are reasonable: that a focus on charity and concern for poor and the art of third order Franciscans artists are all reflective of the Franciscan spirit of the age; and these are consistent with the spirituality of St Francis himself. The artists are those such as Giotto, Cimabue and the anonymous artist known as the 'Master of St Francis'.

 There are a number of points that can be made about the art. Just looking at the interiors of these churches one can say that there is huge importance attached to their beauty and harmony with the liturgy. But it goes further than that. They are highly innovative. Features such as the increased naturalism and heightened sense of the suffering of Christ represented a departure from the strict iconographic prototype that governed the art of period before. However, although innovative the always worked within the broader the principles of what makes art worthy of veneration and it is therefore authentic sacred art that deepens our participation in the liturgy. There is no accounting for how God might choose to inspire individual artists, but it does not seem conceivable to me that a whole culture changing movement which is for the good, (which is what we are talking about here), could happen without a deep attachment to the liturgy.

If we look at the interiors of the churches, for example, notice how much is adorned with geometric patterned art. This suggests to me an deep awareness of the sources of the symbolism that generates such geometry, predominantly scripture and the cosmos. One of the commonly held ideas of Franciscan spirituality is that of an interest in and love of the beauty of the natural world that St Francis inspired. Whatever the truth of this, I would say that as a general principle one could not create such 'cosmic' art unless one was able to read the cosmos symbolically and had a deep understanding of how that symbolism and the beauty of the cosmos points us to something greater, to the rhythms of the heavenly liturgy and ultimately to God.

To the degree that all of this inspires a true liturgical devotion, then, as Shawn's feature points out, this will inspire devotion also to charity for the poor. In addition, one should say that he needs of the poor are spiritual as well as material. The poor need their souls saving just as much as the rich do and this art is for all people, rich and poor.

To my mind, all of this beauty is consistent with the twin aims that I have heard Pope Francis speak of rebuilding the Church - evangelisation - and caring for poor. When one relies on God we rest in an infinite and superabundant source of all that is good (including wealth). Inspiring people, rich and poor alike to come closer to God will create benefits in every area of our lives. Pictures are of the interior of the Basilica of St Francis:

I couldn't find this in high resolution, but I wanted to show it because of the traditional quincunx design on the altar (the shape where four circles spin out of the central circle  - symbolising the creation of the cosmos),

Above: a crucifixion by Cimabue contrasted with an iconographic (Romanesque) cross painted in Umbria in the 12th century. The former focusses on the suffering of Christ, while the latter on his glory on the cross.

Below: St John and Our Lady during the Passion from the Master of St Francis.

And finally my own version of the Franciscan gothic figures painted for the chapel at Thomas More College.

Some Geometric Art from Thomas More College Students

Here are some examples of geometric art produced by students from Thomas More College of Liberal Arts. They are their first projects for my Way of Beauty class. They were asked to produce an octagonal tile pattern that was based on a traditional Islamic design. I asked them to design the corners and the border and decide on the colour scheme. I encouraged them to use as few colours as possible, using only what was required to give contrast and allow clarity of design. I also insisted on the shape being described by a continuous piece of tape which wove an over under pattern. The colouring was deliberately muted and downplayed as this allows for less clashes of colour. On the whole, I prefer to use natural, earth colours for the same reason. These are difficult to get in the sort of coloured pencil sets that most of our students have, which tend to have very bright, artificial looking colours. If they used these alone then the result would look something like a bad record cover from the 1960s. This might have sold music in 1967, but it won't cut it in traditional design (if only our liturgy musician realised that the same is true for the style of folk music of period)...anyway, back to these design. To try to eliminate the impression of psychedelic kitsch, they carefully built up the colour by overlaying it with lightly shaded layers of earth brown and grey pencil. Students are Isabelle Anderson, Theresa Scott and Katherine Blicharz. In assessing these, remember that this is the very first project that I set them. They are intended as exercise before designing a church floor.

Public Access to Farmland...in the San Francisco Bay Area

Holy cow! Its just like going for a walk in England! In my recent trip to California I decided to investigate the footpaths in the area. As usual, I tried to find the countryside that is the most beautiful - farmland -  and expected to be able to indulge in my favorite complaint: how all paths in the US are in specially created parks that aim to create the 'wilderness' experience, which means that you spend the whole day walking through forest, unable too anything further than the nearest tree trunk. To my surprise, I found that there are plenty of areas of beautifully farmed land to which the public has access.

In Britain, in common with most European countries, there is no wilderness left and the countryside is privately owned farmland. This doesn't stop people being able to feel a connection with the land and enjoy it, however, for there is widespread public access to private land. It is the remnant of the traditional Catholic understanding of land as a 'common good'. If you are surprised by this you can read about exactly how in an earlier article Farms, Country Walks, Private Property and the Common Good. I enjoy farmland because it is more beautiful than the wilderness, if farmed well. The New World obsession with the 'wilderness experience' as exposure to pristine beauty  (strongest of all in New Zealand in my experience) is a reflection of the New Age paganism, which sees man as an unnatural influence on a perfect Nature, rather than a positive influence that raises a fallen world up to something greater.

It is the same worldview that gives rise to the culture of death. When the activity of man is viewed as necessarily unnatural, then human activity is seen as something that should be limited. The easiest way to do so is to enforcing population control; and the obvious ways to achieve this are abortion and contraception.

As well as contributing to making my visit to the Bay Area very enjoyable, these parks are a small symbol of hope for me. I visited two areas. The first is called Briones Regional Park. I am always curious as to why we are allowed onto this land. This is preserved as pastureland because it is the watershed lands that fill the reservoirs that supply water to much of the region. The regional government that leases the land, as I understand it, insists also that there is public access. Trees would suck up too much water so the land is kept for pasture. It has been ranched for about 200 years (since the Spanish colonial days) and so the terrain has been formed by that. At this time of year there is a lot of rain and so everything is lush and green - even the locally produced descriptions remark on how like English countryside it looks. 

The second area is called Lucas Valley and it is in Marin County which is north of the Golden Gate bridge. Much of the valley is own by the film producer George Lucas, but I am told that the matching names are coincidence. What is interesting about this is that we have an arrangement forged between private landowners so that people can enjoy the scenery. I know this because at he beginning of the walk I saw the following notice (perhaps noblesse oblige isn't dead after all!):

So here are some photos of the walk. First Briones Regional Park in the East Bay:

The second area is Lucas Valley.

In the height of spring both of these areas will be filled with wild flowers. It is a little early for the full display, but I took some snaps of some of those that I saw as well.

Summer Schools Teaching Art, Theory and Practice, in a Beautiful Abbey in Devon, England; and Kansas

Taking place at Buckfast Abbey, a Benedictine monastery set in the beautiful Devon countryside, the Maryvale Institute has offering a short residential summer school that will take place in August and which offers you the chance to study Catholic traditions in art. Called Teaching the Catholic Faith Through Art it is held at Buckfast Abbey in Devon (there are more photos of the abbey in its setting at below). It is taught by Dr Caroline Farey and myself and those who attend have the option to deepen their studies afterwards by enrolling on the degree level diploma, Art, Inspiration and Beauty from a Catholic Perspective. The cost for the weekend including tuition and full board is just 275 GBP and the dates are August 15-18th. Readers on this side of the pond who might feel that its too far to go need not be discouraged: as some of you will already know, this course is also offered in the US also. The residential weekend is in July at the Maryvale Center at the Diocese of Kansas City, Kansas. As well as this course about art theory, in Kansas they are offering a 5-day course in which students can learn to paint in the style of the illuminations of the English gothic psalters, such as the Westminster Psalter. Beginners and experienced artists welcome. Posters for all three are shown below, and from these you can get the contact details.

The Maryvale Institute is the only Higher Institute of Religious Sciences in the English speaking world that has full pontifical status.

Below and top: Buckfast Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in the Devon countryside.