The Visitation - More Work of Students in the Style of the School of St Albans

Here's some more work from the summer painting course I taught in Kansas City, Kansas at the Savior Pastoral Center Kansas. It was sponsored by the Diocese of Kansas City, Kansas which runs the center. I thought I would show some of the work done by students. This is unusual in that we focussed on 13th century gothic illuminated manuscripts from the School of St Albans. The original is shown top left and the work of the class below. Apologies to those whose work isn't featured -  I really haven't deliberately cut anyone out. For some reason I didn't arrive home with photographs of everybody's work. We have already booked up to do two more courses next summer, so those who are interested might even contact the center now. This year the places went quickly and we could have filled the class more than twice over. The center website is here.

At group of about a dozen adults attended the course and the level of experience varied. Some were themselves teachers of icon painting classes (who were interested in learning about the gothic style); and some were complete beginners. What was exciting for me was that all took to this western form of sacred art very naturally and were enthusiastic to keep doing it and develop this as a tradition for today. As with the work I showed recently (of St Christopher) what strikes me is how naturally the students took to this Western style. Withing a carefully controlled palette, I allowed some range of freedom in the use of colour, and encouraged them to use different borders around the painting. The ornate border is a characteristic feature of Western styles of sacred art.

I do my best to teach people so that they understand the underlying principles of what they are doing, and then they can work out things for themselves. I do stress the need for critiques of work from teachers in order to keep making progress, but at the same time, I want students to have the confidence to be able to do something on their own afterwards. So, I always try to explain why they copy precisely in some instances, and change things in others, for example. I also tell them how to examined the original painting and worked out how the artist did the original. 

What is the Definition of Beauty? ...Will the Real St Thomas Aquinas Please Stand Up

I had a friend once who used to teach philosophy to undergraduates at Cambridge. He told me that for him philosophy was all about the phrase: ' it depends what you mean by....'. He was joking but what he was getting at was that just about anything can be true as long as you make the words fit the meaning that you want them to.

Consider now what might be a good definition of beauty? How about this: 'that which pleases upon being seen (or perceived)? To give it some medieval authenticity here it is in Latin - id quod visum placet. This, is regularly presented as definition of St Thomas Aquinas. I am no philosopher (and so am happy to consider that the problem could be mine), but my first reaction is to be troubled by this definition for two reasons. First is that it didn't seem to take into account the possibility of error in judgement. If I disagree with someone on whether or not something is beautiful (and this has happened plenty of times), and if beauty is an objective quality and not merely a matter of opinion, then one or both of us must be in error. It always seemed to me that the only way of reconciling this with the definition was to say that it depends what you mean by "seen"; and it depends what you mean by "pleased". Maybe this is relying on the fact that to apprehend beauty I have to see in the sense of apprehend clearly, as the pure see; and maybe also it is true if we consider only a genuine pleasure that which is derived from what it truly good. For all I know this definition probably also depends on what you mean by 'that which'. Simple though the expression is, if we have to struggle with the definitions that much to make it fit ordinary experience then does it have any real use? Couldn't someone clever come up with a better definition? Is the goal here to discover truth or to make Thomas Aquinas true I wondered?

The other reason that I struggled with this was that I read this definition first in a book by Jacques Maritain, (Art and Scholasticism, I think) The problem I had with the whole book was that after wading through hundreds of pages of difficult text he finally applied his theories and 'proved', that the work of Picasso, Braques and Severini was beautiful. This seemed so absurd that my reaction was to dismiss Maritain and his book. Clearly I thought, if he should propose such models, he didn't know much about art and didn't understand what constitutes Christian art. Also it soured my opinion on the value of the whole study of aesthetics. Maritain is the great name in the field and in the end all he seems to be doing is using long words to try to justify his personal taste. Like a politician who decides first what he wants to do, and then looks for the persuasive argument afterwards. Here I was trying to learn how to be a good painter, brush in hand, looking for guidance...and in the end, it seems it call comes down to what you like, even for Jacques Maritain. So why bother with all that intellectual stuff at all? I'll just copy what I like. It also put me off reading Aquinas in more depth, because once again, here is a great champion of him

Later in reading Umberto Eco's Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages there is a note in the bibliography at the back that reads as follows in a discussion of Maritain: "Expressions such as pulchrum est id quod placet are accepted as authentic Thomistic formulae by people who do not care, or perhaps are not aware that this definition was devised by Maritain himself. What Aquinas actually wrote was pulchra dicuntur quae visa placent. The difference is considerable. Maritain's proposition is a dogmatic attempt to define once and for all the ontological character of beauty. Aquinas's is more like a sociological finding. It means 'things that give pleasure when they are perceived are called beautiful', and this is to introduce the problem, not to solve it."

I feel happier just not liking Maritain than I do not liking both him and Aquinas! I always preferred the definition of beauty as 'the radiance of being' or John Paul II's  'the good made visible' anyway (the latter comes from his Letter to Artists). Once we have either of these, then Aquinas's three qualities of beauty: integrity, due proportion and claritas work well..(.he did actually give us these didn't he?).

Work from the Drawing Course at Thomas More College, Summer 2013

Here is the work produced by the students who attended the summer that took place at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts. It was a two week course offered in conjunction with the Ingbretson Studio. Students spend the working days at the studios learning to draw using the academic method (which can trace its history back to figures such as Leonardo). In the evenings and at the weekend in the middle there was a full program of talks and museum visits plus daily Mass, in the Extraordinary Form, first thing each morning. With its origins in the earlier High Renaissance, the method was developed to teach the naturalistic style of the baroque and reached its zenith in the 17th century. The visual vocabulary that it transmits cannot be understood except in the context of the Catholic liturgy. It is this additional component, therefore, that makes the partnership between the Ingbretson Studios and TMC such a unique offering. Most ateliers teaching this method tend to focus on a 19th century ethos, which is different and non-Christian. The 19th century style of naturalism, though superficially similar, was a sterile neo-classicism. It was the reaction to this that caused the modern art movement.

Cast drawing is the at the core of learning this method, by which students learn to think tonally and in see and draw in shapes rather than lines. These are the product of two weeks' hard work.

Why Studying Mosaics Helps Painters to Discern Colour

When I was learning to paint icons with Aidan Hart he gave us the principle of learning to paint in a particular style: 'copy with understanding'. This is true regardless of the style we wish to learn. For example, I am now focussing in the classes I teach on 13th century gothic images of the School of St Albans. I use the same principle: I look carefully, I try to understand what the artist was aiming at and then I copy. Even the great masters get things wrong and occasionally you can errors. On these occasions we don't copy the errors but try to have in mind the ideal that the artist was aiming for and correct what is there. In order to be able to make such a judgement you either need to be very knowledgeable about the tradition, or have a good teacher who can point such things out to you. The motto that Aidan used was 'think twice and paint once'. In other words, study carefully and think before you paint.

One thing that is sometimes very difficult to ascertain is how the colour and tone effects of a painting have been achieved. Usually what we are seeing are the combined effects of multiple transparent washes and glazes of all sorts of different tones and colours. To help us, Aidan encouraged us to look at old mosaics. The reason for this is that you can see how, for example, a flesh tone has been mixed because each constituent colour is present as a pure-coloured tessera.

Also, I can see more clearly than in a painting devices that artists use to describe form. For example, if we look at the mosaic of St Apollonarius below then we can see that the mosaicist has used all the devices that a painter is told to use on the face, but they are more obvious. So the line defining the upper lid is darker than that defining the lower eyelid. There is a dark red line between this and the eyebrow, which is the line where the eyeball goes back into the socket of the skull. There is a red line that defines the deep shadow between the hairline and the brow. Similarly, there is a red line below the end of the nose. All of these things are present in painted faces, but often they will be translucent to some degree and so the effect is more subtle and this makes it more difficult to discern what the artist did.

This mosaic, by the way was in the reliquary of a monastery that I visited recently in the US. I was told that it came originally from Ravenna! Whatever the details, it is a great piece of work.

Teaching the Western Tradition - Work from My Students at a Recent Painting Course in Kansas

This summer we held a painting course in Kansas City, Kansas at the Savior Pastoral Center Kansas. I taught it and it was sponsored by the Diocese of Kansas City, Kansas which runs the center. I thought I would show some of the work done by students. This is unusual in that we focussed on 13th century gothic illuminated manuscripts from the School of St Albans. This one is a St Christopher painted by a master of the school called Matthew Paris. The students, Paul Jentz and his mother Christi (who kindly took and sent me the photographs) worked from the image shown top left. They constructed a grid as a help but drew the design by hand. While giving them guidance, I gave each freedom to vary the border and the colour schemes. I think you'll agree that they did a good job.

We have already booked up to do two more courses next summer, so those who are interested might even contact the center now. This year the places went quickly and we could have filled the class more than twice over. The center website is here.

At group of about a dozen adults attended the course and the level of experience varied. Some were themselves teachers of icon painting classes (who were interested in learning about the gothic style); and some were complete beginners. What was exciting for me was that all took to this western form of sacred art very naturally and were enthusiastic to keep doing it and develop this as a tradition for today.

Next month I will feature work by other students who worked on the Visitation.

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How a Search for High Quality Painting Brushes Created Chinese Characters that Communicate the Gospel

Here's an unusual story. First of all  a tip for anyone looking for brushes for icon painting. I was looking for a source for good cheap brushes to use with egg tempera. The usual recommendation is Kalinsky sable. These are very expensive watercolour brushes and made from sable hair (a sable is an animal, a Russian marten). If you use brushes for watercolour they will last a lifetime, but if you use them for egg tempera they quickly degrade because the paint is quite abrasive, made from pigment - which is effectively coloured grit - and egg yolk, diluted with water. This can become expensive quite quickly. Luckily, I discovered that Chinese painting brushes are an excellent but much cheaper alternative. They are made to come to a point for use with calligraphy and hold a large amount of paint, so are perfect for painting in egg tempera. I get my brushes from an online supplier called Good Characters, here. Another side of their business is doing a consultancy for people doing business in China - they develop company logos that will speak to the Chinese and give the right impression. As a regular customer, and as part of a promotion for this Andy Chuang who runs the company in California asked me if I wanted him to create a Chinese character for me. I thought about it and suggested this:

First of all the statement from Lao Tsu: ‘Man’s standards are conditioned by those of Earth, the standard of Earth by those of Heaven, the standard of Heaven by that of the Way [Tao] and the standard of the Way is that of its own intrinsic nature.’ (from Tao Te Ching, XXV (6th century BC)

Then I asked that this be juxtaposed with the scriptural quote: ‘I am the Way’ Jesus Christ, (John 14:6)

I thought maybe it would help evangelise China. Doaism has belief in heaven which is a non-material, spiritual place, but is an impersonal, empty heaven with no God. I thought that maybe putting these together might lead them to accept Christ as the fullness of what is believed.

Andy was very happy to oblige and sent me the following. First the Lao Tsu

and then from John's gospel

then he sent me a Chinese screen image into which I could insert them. My techie skills aren't up to it but I thought I would show it in case any readers want to make use of it.

Then he gave me the same script but in a more artistic arrangement of the letters:

and from the gospel:

So I encourage readers to share these to things together and spread the gospel in China. For once we wouldn't mind if Beijing was hacking this site!

Photos of Naumkeag House and Gardens, Stockbridge, Massachussets

The Way of Beauty gardens reporter, Nancy Feeman has sent met me another missal, this one following a trip to Stockbridge, Massachussets. "The name of the house is Naumkeag," she tells me, "and the house itself was built in 1886. It is absolutely enchanting and charming. The gardens were redsigned from 1926 to 1955 and they are in the process of restoring them now. The idea of garden rooms is present in the design and a lot of the garden is heavily landscaped because the house sits on a hillside. The stairs are really interesting and have water flowing down to each level. Mabel Choate - the daughter who worked on the gardens - traveled to many countries for inspiration. This was was popular thing to do in the early 1900's and as a result of this she wanted a Chinese garden. The rose garden is lovely but the rose bushes are very young. In general there were not many flowers which is what I really love but nevertheless it it was still beautiful and of course the views of the nearby mountains, the Berkshires make the whole scene so picturesque. The website is here.  

From Sacra Liturgia, Rome: Beauty is a language without words and must be present in art and architecture

Here is a report of the presentation on architecture and art by Fr Michael Lang of the Brompton Oratory at the Sacra Liturgia 2013. I hope I have done it justice. Once again this was posted first on Catholic Education Daily. This is blog of the Cardinal Newman Society which seeks to spur on liturgical renewal in Catholic higher education, so I was very happy to be asked to report on the conference for them; and to make NLM readers aware of the efforts they are making in this direction as well as what went on in the report.

In this presentation Fr Lang stressed the need for liturgical forms that are in harmony with with well directed worship and for informed patronage; and a dialogue between artist and patron in the planning stages. In his presentation he did not rely on personal opinion as to the quality of the architecture he was showing (the opinions expressed in the article about particular churches are mine not his). Rather, he laid out the processes by which the architect was commissioned, and told us the (often absurd and grandiose) aims articulated by the architect. Then, dispassionately, he compared the stated aims with the requirements of the traditions of Church pointing out differences and contradictions if they occurred. Then without further comment after this analysis he presented us with a photograph of the final product, allowing us to make up our minds. The laughter of the audience said it all. I did not notice Fr Lang even crack a smile as he did this, which just seemed to add to the deadpan humour.

He finished by giving us some guiding principles that he felt that patrons should focus on when commissioning art and artchitecture and that might avoid some of the errors of the last 100 year.

Once again, the full article is here.

Alcazar Garden, Seville

Here are some photos of the gardens of the palace - the Alcazar - in Spain. Owing much in style to the Moorish builders of the palace and gardens (like the even more well known example in Granada), it has nevertheless been since the reconquista a palace of the Spanish Royal Family and so has become reflective of something that is a much distinctively Spanish. I have wonderful memories of visiting this palace and the gardens. I went to Seville for the wedding of a friend to a Spanish lady whose family originated in Seville. The wedding was right at the beginning of September and the weather was almost unbearably hot. In the first two or three days there, we were preoccupied with the wedding and preparations. It was a wonderful occasion but by the time everything was over I was utterly exhausted. The heat was sapping and I was staying in a hostel that didn't have good air conditioning and so I hadn't slept well. We had put aside a few days for sightseeing and so the first place we headed for was this palace.

You enter through the main entrance of the palace building and then after seeing the interior move through to the courtyards in the back and then the expansive gardens beyond. Going out into the courtyard was like emerging into a new and wonderful world. First of all the temperature was controlled. The courtyards had little fountains and shade and the evapouration created a natural drop in temperature. It doesn't always look like it in the photos that I found, but my recollection is that in the gardens every walkway was predominantly shady and cool either through built archways or through high trees creating shade.

The other aspect of the garden that struck me was that the beauty of the garden was created by manipulation of light as much as through the colour of the plant leaves and flowers. So foliage could be dark or light green depending on whether or not they were in light or shade. There were additional effect created by light transmitted through the leave as the sun partially penetrated the canopy above. As well as walking at ground level a high, covered walkway was created just to allow the privileged residents (and now visitors) to stroll out above the canopy and look down on it. This created a whole new range of light effects of great beauty.

In addition, while there weren't many flowers at this point in September, there were nevertheless enough blooms to create beautiful fragrance at every turn.

I have spoken in the past of how my experience of the liturgy at the Brompton Oratory was so influential in my conversion, here. One of the aspects of this experience was how complete the liturgical experience was with art, music, incense, architecture and so on. In many ways, coming some time later, this reminded me of that experience. This is man sculpting and composing in stone and flora and through its beauty so that all my senses were engaged and even the temperature was controlled naturally.

The painting of the gardens shown above, by the way is by a Spanish artist Manuel Garcia y Rodriguez.

The Radiance of Being - A New Book By Stratford Caldecott

In the opening talk at Sacra Liturgia 2o13 the wonderful Cardinal Malcolm Ranjinth of Sri Lanka mentioned, almost in passing it seemed to me, how important he felt that we assert the Pauline anthropology of body, soul and spirit. This immediately reminded me of an paper presented by my friend Stratford Caldecott that is recorded in the proceedings of the liturgical conference at Foncombault Abbey in France in 2001. This was attended by Cardinal Ratzinger and the proceedings were edited by Alcuin Reid (who was the coordinator and a main speaker of Sacra Liturgia 2013).

In this presentation entitled Towards a Liturgical Anthropology, Caldecott argued that a key reason for the stagnation of the liturgy in the 19th century, the effects of which we are still suffering from today, is an insufficient recognition of the spirit of man. This is referred to by St Paul as aspect of the soul. You can find details of this here.

In a chapter of his new book The Radiance of Being Stratford develops this theme further. This is one interesting part of this book which has the subtitle, Dimensions of Cosmic Christianity. In it he develops a number of different themes that he written about in his blog and journal Second Spring and develops further some that he introduced in his well received book Beauty for Truth's Sake. 

Almost anything written by Stratford is worth reading, if only for his beautifully clear prose. He has a gift for being able to explain very difficult and abstract concepts in a way that is informative and engaging. So his books and articles are to recommended to all. In this book he is delving quite deeply into a number of areas that interest him - for example the mystery of the Trinity and aspects of the truth that appear in other faiths. I wonder if it might seem a little obscure to those who know nothing of his work otherwise, so it is perhaps not to be recommended as a first introduction to his work.

Altogether Now...How Do We Keep Together When Singing Chant?

Why singing in a choir is a demonstration of the three aspects of beauty - integrity, due proportion and clarity. When I was at the Sacra Liturgia 2013 conference in Rome, we had two Latin Masses and two Solemn Vespers all with a wonderful choir leading the congregation in chant. This was a congregation that knew their chant. Many were experienced in leading and teaching and I'm guessing that pretty much all would be in accord with the idea that Latin is the norm for the Mass and that chant and polyphony are the highest forms in which it should be sung. Not surprisingly many people joined in. What was surprising though, given the company, was how poorly the congregational members (which includes me!) managed to unify their voices with each other and the choir. We really were a fragmented collection of individuals, so much so that one of the speakers - a Benedictine - remarked upon it. So here are my thoughts on how one might achieve this in a congregation. The full article is here.

It has since struck me how singing in a choir and aiming for a beautiful unified voice requires us to think about the three aspects of beauty: due proportion, integrity and clarity - simultaneously and therefore will form us in an understanding of beauty very deeply. I have written elsewhere of how I believe that singing modal music develops our sensibilities, here; but I am talking now of an additional aspect that arises by virtue of singing with others.

Due proportion means that each part in in the right relationship to the others. In this case we work in unision to the singer must listen to the voices of those around him so that his voice blends. Even if he knows the piece perfectly he cannot blend unless he considers how his voice relates to the unified voice of the choir.

Integrity is the degree to which the whole conforms to the purpose intended for it. In a choir even beyond the choice of the music and the words, there has to be a consideration of how it is interpreted. In order for this to happen, the director must decide upon an interpretation that all subscribe to. It would be hopeless if each singer interpreted individually and then sang accordingly. So aside from singing in unity, we must accept the authority of the leader to direct that unified voice to a purpose that is appropriate to the choir (this is also a good exercise in humility!).

Claritas can be thought of as the radiance of truth. For something to be beautiful it must communicate to us clearly what it is. So this means a clear articulation of the words and music and it must be heard by congregation.

All these things are essential, I would suggest, when we sing in the liturgy...and probably a good idea everywhere else too!

New Anglican Ordinariate Parish Commissioning Chalice and Patten in Traditional English Design

Readers may be interested to see the website of the newly establish parish St Gregory which is part of the Anglican Ordinariate, Beverly Farms, Massachusetts (on the coastline north of Boston).

Their priest Fr Jurgen Liias was ordained in April. Kevin McDermott of St Gregory's Church contacted me because they are raising money to pay for the making of a chalice and paten in designs that correspond to those from the time of the Gregorian mission to England.

Their website has a short photo montage and description this project which they hope to have completed by September 3rd, his Feast. It is designed by Vincent Hawley, who is a Florentine trained goldsmith who lives locally. He also designed and made a medallion based upon the earliest English painting of St Gregory (below), which is in what might have been St Bede's own copy of the History of the English Church. You can read more about this here.

This small community of about 30 people plus a similar number of more distant friends on their mailing list has so far worked hard to raise about $10,000 to get the project going (I think I might have seen Thomas Howard, the writer in the photos of the congregation!). High quality does not come cheap and they are looking for a similar amount to complete it. I am happy to see so much energy and time devoted to the creation of beauty for the liturgy.

Any who are interested in supporting this project financially can contact the treasurer Susan Carpentier at treasurer@saintgregoryordinariate.org or write to her at St Gregory the Great Church, PO Box 59, Rowley, MA 01969. Make cheques payable to St Gregory the Great Church and mark 'Sacred Vessels Fund'. There is also a PayPal button on the page linked above.

They also have recordings of the chants they use for the Ordinaries of the Mass which can be listened online or downloaded, here.

The Mystery of Mystagogy! Catholic Education is an Education in the Liturgy...nothing else!

As described before, on my return from the Sacra Liturgia 2013 conference in Rome I wrote an article for Catholic Education Daily in which I argued that the essence of Catholic education is education in the liturgy. The article is A School of Love: the Sacred Liturgy and Education. As part of the recommended reading of the conference and since writing this I got around to reading Sacramentum Caritatis.  Within the section on 'mystagogy' this very matter is discussed directly. Mystogogy means literally in Greek, 'learning about the mysteries'. Mystagogy in this context is, to quote Stratford Caldecott ‘the stage of exploratory catechesis that comes after apologetics, after evangelization, and after the sacraments of initiation (baptism, Eucharist, and confirmation) have been received’ and is sometimes referred to a formal stage of education of the newly baptised Christian in living out the faith.

Section 64 of Pope Benedicts XVI's encyclical Sacramentum Caritatis is entitled 'Mystagogical Catechesis'. In this he says:

'The Church's great liturgical tradition teaches us that fruitful participation in the liturgy requires that one be personally conformed to the mystery being celebrated, offering one's life to God in unity with the sacrifice of Christ for the salvation of the whole world...The mature fruit of mystagogy is an awareness that one's life is being progressively transformed by the holy mysteries being celebrated. The aim of all Christian education, moreover, is to train the believer in an adult faith that can make him a "new creation", capable of bearing witness in his surroundings to the Christian hope that inspires him.'

Once again, the full article is here.

Catholic Education Daily is run by the Cardinal Newman Society which is dedicated to the promotion of faithful Catholic education in our schools and colleges.

Work from a Painting Class Teaching the Style of the gothic School of St Albans

I have recently finished a course in Kansas City, Kansas and in some ways it was an experiment. I was teaching not icons, but the style of the gothic manuscripts such as the Westminster Psalter. These images are commonly attributed to Matthew Paris and the school of St Albans in the 13th century. This is the first time I have taught this style to mature students (that is those who are not undergraduates at Thomas More College). The experience proved very positive. Many of the students who came had experience of Byzantine icon painting classes and some were even teaching others. Even though these people were familiar with the Eastern styles of icons, they took to the Western form very quickly and enjoyed learning it. I cannot prove it, but my feeling is that this is because we were all of the Roman Church and these belong to our tradition. As we are doing illuminated manuscripts we painted in egg tempera on high quality paper. One brought velum. It was encouraging that there seems to be a demand for this style - we could have filled the class twice over and have already booked to do two classes next summer in Kansas, at the Savior Pastoral Center which is run by the diocese of Kansas City, Kansas. In a posting that will follow in the next week, I will show you the work of the students. First I present here the painting I did during the class as the demonstration piece, along with a photo of the original..

The Principles Behind the Beautification of a College Chapel

I was recently invited to write a few pieces for Catholic Education Daily and also to report on the Sacra Liturgia 2012 conference on Sacred Liturgy. Catholic Education Daily is published by the Cardinal Newman Society which is dedicated to the promotion and defence of faithful Catholic education. I will be posting several of these over the next few weeks. I cover topics such as the presentation on art and architecture by Fr Uwe Michael Lang of the London Oratory, and why Catholic education is education for the liturgy....period! They asked me first to write a piece about the changes that have been made gradually in the chapel at Thomas More College. For instance if you look at the photograph below showing us installing the Christ in Majesty, look at the pews. They are facing each other. I explain that we do this because it helps our liturgy - we sing the Office antiphonally and so like monks in the choir, it helps the dynamic of the singing.  Also, because our chapel is a funny shape - it is wider than it is long, visually it helps to create the sense of a longitudinal sweep down the axis of the church towards the altar. The article is here.

What I don't say in the article is that when we first introduced it some students were unsettled by it. Many had not seen this arrangement before and because the pews did not face forward towards the altar, they thought this was the introduction of a post-Vatican II abuse, similar to seating in the round. It felt to them that they were being asked to focus on each other in Mass, rather than God. I explained that this was in fact a traditional collegiate arrangement in which the pattern worship, when taking into account the line of the pews is intended to increase the focus on worship on God. In order to help convince them, I showed them about 20 photographs of the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge made before the Reformation, each with the same seating arrangement. Below the photo of Thomas More College's I show a photograph of Merton College, Oxford as an example. I found videos of the Extraordinary Form Mass and of Solemn Vespers being celebrated in this chapel at 2006 Ciel Conference (Ciel UK was one of the organisers of Liturgia Sacra 2013 in Rome).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myVBAvIyU6I

and here is Solemn Vespers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzq6_IkqWrI

Andrew Wyeth an American Master Who Shows that Even in the 21st Century Beauty will Sell

Last week I did a feature on an American artist who lived in the 20th century yet made his name painting in the naturalistic tradition. This week there is another. Andrew Wyeth died just a couple of years ago and lived in Pennsylvania. Like Hopper he would spend his summers in Maine and so his landscapes feature this beautiful coastline as well. Wyeth is in my opinion a master of the highest quality. Unlike Hopper, he is more traditional in his use colour. Whereas Hopper would paint the whole canvas brightly coloured, Wyeth is is content to leave large areas of the painting muted in colour, rendering them tonally; and then giving more colour and contrast in those areas of primary contrast. He handles this balance masterfully. Many of his paintings are in the medium of in egg tempera  - this is the one that icon painters use. This dries very quickly and is difficult to blend. In order to create a blurred effect, Wyeth tends to treat the paint as a crayon in which he blends using multiple strokes that become more dispersed in those areas that he intends to more diffuse. He also paints beautiful watercolours.

In painting grass and trees, he tends to supply more detail than Hopper. Part of this is the consequence of using egge tempera in which every stroke is so clearly dilineated. In order to avoid the sense of a painting overloaded with detail, he relies far more on muting the colour and the contrast in comparison to those areas of primary focus. I think it is interesting that despite the fact that so much of his paintings are brown, black and white, we don't feel a sense of a lack of colour, because he knows the crucial focal points in which he must supply it.

The success of Wyeth as a painter - his work was always popular and he was recognised in his lifetime with awards from the American government for achievement - demonstrates to us artists that if we produce work of high enough quality, we can succeed. And if we are not successful...it is most likely because we are not good enough and should aim to get better!

A School of Love: Sacred Liturgy and Education. Reflections after Sacra Liturgia 2013 in Rome

How do you teach Catholic engineering? What does it mean to be a Catholic plumber? The answer lies in the liturgy. I was invited to attend the conference on the Sacred Liturgy Sacra Liturgia 2013 in Rome by the Cardinal Newman Society and asked to write my thoughts on what I hear and how it might impact Catholic education. This was an inspiring three days. This was the Benedictine (as in our wonderful Pope Emeritus) understanding of liturgy made manifest. I will feature the articles over the next few weeks. Before I present what I wrote for them I just want to say what a star Archbishop Sample from Portland Oregon is. He spoke on how a Bishop can introduce changes in the liturgy in his diocese. He impressed my as being totally dedicated and able to win people over without compromising on principle.

In this article I discuss what is meant by a Catholic education, especially when you are teaching things that don't seem instrically religious, such as science. The link is here.

Founded in 1993, the Cardinal Newman Society has a mission to promote and defend faithful Catholic education.

Edward Hopper - the Art of Summary

Edward Hopper is an American artist who died quite recently - 1967 - and is worth looking at. His style is clearly influenced by 20th century forms with his strong colouration. He is famous for his paintings of city scenes, such as the laundromats and diners and I have shown one or two these here, however, it is his landscapes and seascapes that I love particularly. These portray New England, and especially Maine and so there are plenty of examples of his work on display in the museums around Thomas More College. He has managed to use high register, ie light and bright, colouration without it looking unnatural. The effect is of bright sunlight. The quality of light he portrays is exactly what you see in Maine. Another characteristic of his approach is that he summarises form very well, in my opinion. If you have to paint something that in reality is immensely detailed such as a tree, with all its leaves, or even a field with every blade of grass; it takes great skill to make it convincing. On the one hand you need enough suggestion of detail, leaves and branches in the case of a tree, so that you know it isn't just an amorphous sponge on the end of a stick; on the other, we have to have a sense of the broad shape of the tree so that there is a unity to it. If there is too much detail so that every leaf is painted individually then we feel as though it is overloaded (the Victorian pre-Raphaelites tended to do this).

In the spectrum of balancing broad form against representation of detail, Hopper tends to towards summarisation and a stronger sense of the broad form. Nevertheless he gives us enough sense of detail so that they are convincing representations.

Photos of the Gardens of Blithwold Manor in Bristol, Rhode Island

Blithewold Manor and is located in Bristol, Rhode Island about  an hours south of Boston on the Narragansett Bay. The first house was destroyed by fire and the second was built in 1906 in this English Country Manor style with Arts and Crafts style gardens. The photographs were sent to me by Nancy Feeman, who has written on gardens in England for this blog. Here is the website.

The house is in 33 acres of land which sits on the coast and so has spectacular views over the water. As well as the beautiful gardens there is a well developed arboretum. Thank you for sending these photos Nancy, I can't wait to go down and have look myself.

Okay...Here's the Serious Article About Gargoyles and John Scotus Eruigena

I could't help a bit of fun last time, so here's the less frivolous version for those who take their gargoyles seriously! No gurning in this one I promise.

John Scotus Eriugena wrote in the 9th century how sometimes the presence of ugly details within a broader setting allows us to recognise all the more the beauty of the whole: "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).

It seems to me that there are two principles being described here. The first is that our ability to apprehend beauty is heightened when it is contrasted with ugliness. I think that this is a concession, albeit a welcome one, to those of us who are not fully developed in our ability to apprehend beauty. The greater that ability, the more we are able to recognise it as a good in itself and the less we need contrast to do so.

The second point that seems to be coming out here is slightly different, that local deviations from perfect order contribute to the a greater beauty in the whole. It occurs to met that this is similar to the idea that evil is permitted because it allows a greater good to come forth from it. So an evil that is known only in isolation can seem pointless, but were we to know the full truth or, as the expression goes were we able to 'see the bigger picture', we could see the greater good is that will come out of it and so the knowledge of this makes the wider horizon even more beautiful to the eye.

There are a number of thoughts of how, at a very practical level, these principles come into play in the composition design of paintings. I was taught that while there should be an overall sense of order and symmetry that runs through the painting, one does not want to impose formulae for  proportions and harmony absolutely rigidly. Rather, one uses them as a first guide in the planning process, then at the end you look the whole and ask yourself the basic question 'how does it look?' At that point you should be prepared to modify it subtly so that at an intuitive level it just looks right (without reference to mathematics).  So it is a combination of step by step reason and intuitive judgement that produces the finished article. If one the work of the artist is too rigidly fomulaic, then the finished painting tends to look sterile and dull. I was told that this is just like the human face. While faces are symmetrical, broadly speaking, when one examines closely no face is perfectly symmetrical. And if we draw faces that are perfectly symmetrical they do not look human - they look as though they belong to an android.

Also, we are often told that monks deliberately introduced 'errors' into their illuminations and the justification is theological: it demonstrates that the work of man is always imperfect next to the work of God. However, this seems to suggest that there is a complementary aesthetic argument for their inclusion as well. That is an illumination is more beautiful for the inclusion of the odd dislocation. I say that we are often told this, and I do not doubt that it is the case but when I look at illuminated manuscripts it never occurs to me that there are errors and mismatches there unless I break the spell, so to speak, and deliberately try and look for them. This is just anecdotal of course, but this is what suggests to me that the deviations from rigid symmetry are driven by an aesthetic sense (as my teacher Aidan was) as much as by a theology. So when I look at this 10th century manuscript I can see that the ornate design of the stylised plants in each corner and the columns are broadly symmetrical, but not perfectly so. However, the deviation, if it is deliberate, is controlled enough so that the overall sense of harmony is maintained.

In music, this seems to suggest to me that introducing occasional moments of dissonance is not altogether out of place, provided that it does not dominate and that ultimately the overall sense of the piece in context is that there is a resolution. This may be one reason why organum is so striking. As the chant melody floats above the steady drone most are the variations retain a harmonious relationship between the two. Occasionally it hops out of this cozy relationship and then just as quickly returns, like a fish leaping out of water and then falling back.

Now to gargoyles - do they represent ugliness in the context of beauty on a gothic cathedral? Perhaps, I suppose. For while one might say that the subject matter is ugly, one might also argue that the skill of the craftsman is still great and the work of art has a beauty to it. That is, it is a beautiful representation of something ugly (St Bonaventure, for example, wrote of this, and I think therefore we might return to this theme and develop a bit in a future posting). I do think, however, that the relation to the rest of the cathedral is important in our appreciation of both cathedral and gargoyle. If the whole schema of the sculptures in a church were as contorted as the gargoyles it would be overwhelming. What always occurs to me is that a much as consideration of order, harmony and symmetry in the abstract, there is, by virtue of what is portrayed, an element of an emotional contrast provided in many cases. Again, this is just my personal reaction (I have no further information to back it up) but when I look at gargoyles, I always think that it shows that the craftsmen who made them had a sense of humour. These look like artists' jokes done for a bit of fun and tucked away in corners so that we might enjoy a diversion from time to time when we discover them.