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Artists - Please Learn to Draw

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16f90a730d12ba3fbc91a2cfae56d13859b2c1154846039One of the most common shortcomings in the works of artists today is poor drawing ability. There is a perception among some, especially if working in the highly symbolic styles of the gothic, the iconographic or even the style featured recently, the Beuronese style, that the artist can hide his lack of technical skill behind the stylistic elements. I have heard people say that they signed up for icon painting classes for example, because they think that they don't need to be so good at drawing.

The same thing happens in mainstream arts schools, students opt for Expressionistic styles because they know that they can't be held to account for how bad the drawing is - they can hide the lack of skill behind wild and flamboyant brush strokes. Many just forgo the paintbrush altogether, pick up a video camera and go for conceptual art.

This may be acceptable in the context of 20th century art styles, but I suggest this is not good enough for sacred art, no matter what style we want to work in.

In fact it is more difficult to work within a particular tradition and retain accuracy in drawing. It requires the artist to understand both where he must be precise in reflecting nature, and where he must be precise in deviating from natural appearances in accordance with the demands of the style of the tradition.

Artists quite often show me their work and one of the usual comments I make is, you need to improve your drawing. It is great that there are more and more people who are looking to traditional forms as inspiration for sacred art and so I always want to be encouraging. There is hope, drawing is a skill that can be taught. Someone who wants to learn to draw can spend time learning the academic method of drawing - this trains the eye to observe nature and then to render it in two dimensions. Another thing to consider is an illustrators' course, in which one can learn how to create new images without always having to set up a tableau of figures posing for the image. At some point the good artist does need to be able to go beyond simply drawing what he can see. He must be able to draw what is in his imagination too.

Here are two examples of faults that I often see. I don't like highlighting what is bad in other peoples' work, so I'll use examples of mine to illustrate (I have plenty to choose from!)

The first is the drapery of cloth. In sacred art, the figures are often portrayed with draped clothing. It is vital that the folds in the cloth look natural and that there is a sense of a properly proportioned figure underneath. The only way to understand this that I know is to study how material drapes over the human form. One of my frustrations when I was studying academic art was that we spent so much time studying the nude, but none devoted to studying clothes. This would have helped me.

Have a look at this painting of St Silouan the Athonite. At first glance, the folds in the cloth look natural, but if you look closer you can see that the deep red robe is done incorrectly in the region between the arms. The reason is that I didn't really understand what I was supposed to be painting and so just guessed.

In fact, it the red robe should have been doing what St Hubert's is below (in Aidan Hart's icon), hanging in a U shape between the arms.

and then the figure is rotated for a three quarter profile view as in this figure of Elizabeth Prout shown below. Aidan Hart has shown it with the line drawing in black on a plain brown robe rendered without additional shading or highlights.

If we want the figure to look natural underneath the drapery then there are certain pressure points at which the clothing is supported by the figure or otherwise directly acted upon by the figure, while else where it hangs free. This will usually be places such as the shoulders, elbows, knees and the crook in the elbow. If these pressure points are not place absolutely precisely the whole figure looks wrong.

We can see how well John Singer Sargent does this in the painting below, a portrait of Mrs Henry White. So much of the dress is swirling away from direct contact with her body. This means that in order for it to look as though it belongs to her he has very few of these pressure points to work with, but these must be absolutely right. In this case the shoulders and the tight fitting waist and her hips. Her left hip indicated with a tiny little detail, a conjunction of shadow and highlight. If these were not absolutely correct, the eye of the observer would pick it up instantly and everything would look wrong.

Another common area of error is in the drawing of the proportions of hands and faces. In the example below, I copied a famous icon of St Matthew. When I showed it to my teacher, Aidan, he instantly pointed out that his right hand looked distorted. I replied that I noticed this but thought that this was how it had looked in the original. Because I didn't know if I was allowed to change it, I had left it exactly as I thought it had been done by the original artist. (I believed that when I said it, but now that I looked at it, I wonder if I copied inaccurately as well! you can see the original below and judge for yourself). Aidan immediately replied that it didn't matter and if the original looked like that too, then the original was done badly and I should be copying errors unthinkingly. Here's the point: just because we are working in the iconographic style it doesn't mean that we accept anatomical inaccuracy. The goal is to be both anatomically correct and to work with the iconographic style, this is what all the great icon painters are able to do.

 

The image at the top is the Drawing Class by Sweerts (Dutch, 17th century)

Moments of Vision, A Poem by Andrew Thornton-Norris

daffodil Andrew Thornton-Norris offers readers his new poem, Moments of Vision, along with an explanation of its composition. An Englishman based in the west of England, whose work is admired and published on both sides of the Atlantic, Andrew teaches literature and poetry at Pontifex.University.

Andrew wrote an earlier blog posting called 'Redeeming Romanticism' by which he meant raising the purpose, or end of the genre to something higher, what it ought to be. In this poem he gives an example of what he was describing. I find it fascinating how he brings modern ideas of form into what has at its heart a traditional structure.

Moments of Vision

1. The Apophatic (After T.E. Hulme)

O moon hanging there not lighting up The darkness but just leaving it obscure, Reflecting light that's hidden for a time: You are the blessed sacrament that shines Upon the darkness of their majesty.

2. Helen's Face

The female body is the battlefield In the war that's taking place between The Word, the world, the devil and the flesh: The judgement cast upon it, lust that it Betrays and crimes that are committed there.

3. The Hymn of the Nuptial Mystery

In intimate relation we are in Eternal intimate relationship Within our souls and beating in our hearts The passion of transcendent being back Together that we thought we'd left behind.

4. Lent

The Forty Days and Forty Nights is when God's Kingdom is the desert where we meet Him in the hidden fasting and the prayer That separates us from the world outside And brings us to the peace of penitence.

5. Dead Souls

All beauty's holy and eternal and Destroyed by commodification, Which brings it back to dust in an Embittered fall from heaven earthward but The hope of faith is in the Death of God.

6. The Flower Bed

When I went back to the place where I Had slept and saw the mess of lying there I felt forboding of the grave and rushed To get away but now I see perhaps One heaven sent and love to contemplate.

7. WWW

When the whole world and all its life And history is here to hand and at The touch or click upon a button then The only way to turn to get away Is inwards, walk into the world within.

8. Sapperton Tunnel

Between the catchment of the Severn and The Thames, the way of life is different, The valley sides that crumble down into The houses flowing streamward down below, Suggestive of the valley of the Wye.

9. The Passion of the Lord is the Birth of Love

As fires from tiny flames great cities fell My love for you began with just a glance A word and then the conflagration grew Until the world was all aflame like stars That fall from skies above into our hearts.

10. The Walled Garden

Narcissus, yellow archangel, and then, Because of sympathetic magic, so Called lungwort: metaphysicians of the spring; But why are winter snowdrops purest white, O winter what has happened to your sting?

Brief note for students

This poem deals again with the subject of central concern to me: the deepest longings of the human heart, for love, joy, and peace for example, their frustrations, and how these experiences are most perfectly responded to, of any available belief system, by Catholicism. Its form is ten titled sentences of blank verse or unrhymed iambic pentameter. I chose this form because this is roughly how the ideas for the individual stanzas came to me as a group all around the same time. The idea of collage, or collection of disparate elements arranged around an overall theme rather than a logical narrative or argumentative structure is a modernist technique employed in other arts as well. Here it is combined with the most traditional form of English verse. The overall title is from a collection of poems published by Thomas Hardy in 1917.He is the last representative of a peculiarly English late-Romanticism, described as the last words of a dying protestantism by John Powell Ward in his book, The English Line. That line begins with Milton and only Philip Larkin was to attempt its resuscitation, describing himself as an "Anglican atheist". In Catholic terms, the title represents the moments of vision or contemplation when the pure of heart see God. It is therefore an attempt to redeem the Romantic form and subject through re-establishing the proper relationship of art to religion that I described in the last post.

snowdrop

The 19th Century Beuronese School, An Inspiration for Artists Today?

I have become aware over the last couple of years of contemporary artists looking to the 19th century Beuronese school for inspiration when painting for the liturgy. Time will be ultimate test of how appropriate this is, but my initial reaction is that this is good thing. I thought that I would give some thoughts as to why I think this.

Stylistically, Beuronese school is an interesting cul-de-sac that sits outside the mainstream of the Christian tradition. It is named after the town of Beuron in Germany which is the location of the Benedictine community in which the school originated in the mid-19th century.

The most well known artists who painted in this style in Europe are Desiderius Lenz (d 1928) and Gabriel Wuger (d 1892). In the United States, the walls and the ceiling of the abbey church of the Benedictines at Conception Abbey in Missouri, are decorated primarily with authentic examples of the Beuronese style. The abbey website tells us that the work was done between 1893 and 1897, by several monks of Conception, most notably Lukas Etlin (d. 1927), Hildebrand Roseler (d. 1923), and Ildephonse Kuhn (d. 1921), the latter two of whom had studied art at Beuron.

The original Beuronese artists were reacting against what was the dominant form of sacred art being painted for the churches of the Roman Rite at the time. This dominant style was an overly naturalistic and sentimental form of academic art, the product of the French academies and ateliers. The most well known artist of this decadent form is probably the Frenchman Bougeureaux. (For an in-depth discussion of this over naturalism in academic art read Is Some Sacred Art Too Naturalistic?)

Authentic Christian art has a style that is always a carefully worked out balance of naturalism (sometimes referred to as ‘realism’) and idealism. The naturalism in art tells us visually what is being painted – put simply if you want to paint a man it must look like a man, with a human body and limbs and so on. The idealistic element of the style is a controlled deviation from strict adherence to natural appearances by which the artist reveals invisible truths. The invisible truths that the artist might reveal, though style, are that man has a soul and a spirit that is intellect and will, for example.

It is this deviation from strict ‘photographic’ naturalism that characterizes the style of art (although in reality even a camera lens distorts appearances in a way that causes a photograph to be subtly different from what the eye actually sees). All paintings in any particular tradition will have in common particular methods of controlled abstraction that are carefully worked out to reveal the Christian understanding of what it portrayed. It is through perception of these that we are able to recognise the style. For example, we recognise the iconographic style because of, for example, an enlargement of the eyes, the dimunition of the mouth, and the elongation of the nose, in a particular way. These elements of iconographic style were developed to suggest to the observer a particular characteristics in the person portrayed that are appropriate for a saint.

It is as easy to distort appearances to hide truth and to create the equivalent of a visual lie through style, incidentally. Many advertising hoardings have photographs that are composed and then usually ‘airbrushed’ – that is, deliberately distorted - so as to to exaggerate in an imbalanced way the aspect of sexual attraction (and so, it is believed, sell products). This tells us that it is not enough to stylize, the Christian artist has a great responsbility and must understand deeply how his stylization is going to reveal truth, rather than hide it. If he gets it wrong he can lead souls astray. It's not just what he paints, it's how he paints it. (I hesitated to portray the image, below right, which I see as an example of art that has an anti-ideal. It is about at the limit of what I feel I can show and even then I felt I had to make is small.. Bear in mind it is intended for a children's comic.)

Aware of the deficiencies of the sacred (and mundane art) of their own time, Beuronese art sought to introduce an idealization into their style by seeking inspiration from ancient Egyptian art and from the Greek ideal. Visually it is easy to see the influence of the Egyptian papyri; but in addition the Beuronese artists used a canon of proportion that was said to be derived from that of the ancient Greeks (although this is speculative on their part, given that the canon of Polyclitus is lost). The link between ancient Greek art and Egyptian art is not an unnatural one. Plato praised the Egyptian style and it has been speculated that Greek art from the classical period (around 500 BC) was influenced by Egyptian art. The Beuronese artists themselves were trained in the methods of the19th century atelier and the result is a curious mixture, 19th century naturalism stiffened up, so to speak, by an injection of what they believed to be Egyptian art and Greek geometry.

What of the painting of Beuronese art today? In his encyclical about the sacred liturgy, Mediator Dei, Pius XII made it clear (in paragraph 195) that we should always be open to different styles of art for the liturgy provided any style under consideration: has the right balance of naturalism and idealism (he uses the words ‘realism’ and ‘symbolism’ to refer to these qualities); and that what drives its use is the need of the Christian community and not the whim of the artist or patron. In my experience, the Bueronese style does connect with people today in the right way so that it is appropriate for the liturgy. It has the sufficient naturalism so that one can recognise easily what they are looking at; and sufficient idealism that it does suggest another world beyond this one. Furthermore, contemporary culture does seem to provide naturally enough cultural reference points to allow modern people, even those without a classical education, to relate to this style. Art deco architecture, for example, is also derived from Egyptian styles. Strangely, many might find the Beuronese style with its Egyptian roots more accessible than a traditional icon in the classic Russian style of Andrei Rublev.

I have read an account of the geometric proportions used in the human form in translation of the book written by their main theorist Fr Desiderius Lenz, On the Aesthetic of Beuron. It was so complex that my reaction was that it would be very difficult for any painter to use the canon succesfully in any but very formal poses. As soon as an artist seeks to twist and turn a pose in the image, then the necessary foreshortening requires the painter to use an intuitive sense as to how the more distant parts relate to the nearer. Usually this means that in these cases he is less able to adhere to the cannon of proportion so well. This might account for that fact that when the figures are in less stiff and formal, Bueronese art seems to work less well, in my opinion. To my eye, the more relaxed poses produce art that looks like illustrations from the bible I was given when I was a child. Good in that context, perhaps, but too naturalistic for the liturgy I would say.

The approach of original Beuronese school is idiosyncratic – I do not know of any other Christian style of liturgical art that looked to ancient Egypt for inspiriation. Nevertheless the end result, when done well, does strike me as having something of the sacred to it and being worthy of attention. Perhaps their efforts to control the modern temptation to individual expression have contributed to this too. The school stressed, for example, the value of imitation of prototypes above the production of works originating in any one artist, furthermore the artists collaborated on works and did not sign it once finished.

Note, the icon detail is from a contemporary icon at St John the Baptist, Euless, TX, painted by Vladimir Grygorenk

Below I show some examples of Beuronese art that I think are less successful than the examples above. The first is less formal and ends up looking like a good illustration for a children's bible, but not so good for the liturgy, I suggest.

The next is highly skilled, but a little to close to 19th century naturalism for my liking.

A Pattern for Catholic Education that Places the Liturgy at Its Heart

VBFLI-00000321-001When I decided I wanted to be an artist, I started to investigate the training that was given traditionally to artists in the past. This involved the study of a number of things: how the skills of the art, painting and drawing for example, were transmitted; the great works of Catholic culture so that the artists understands the tradition in which he is working; and a formation of the person, so that he is open to inspiration, and can apprehend beauty and work beautifully.

This article is an attempt to articulate concisely what I discovered (and describe in greater length in the book the Way of Beauty) - that a formation in beauty, was not only part of a general Catholic education, but in fact was identical with what a general Catholic education ought to be, and so rarely is.

The only difference between an artist's education and any good general education was the vocational element, in this case painting. It occurred to me that this could change according to the particular calling of each person. Then the  rest would benefit every person, regardless of his precise calling in life and could complement all other study and human activity.

I believe also, incidentally, that this is a program that could be also a formation of people as evangelists who can participate in the New Evangelization, shining with the Light of Christ as they go about their daily business.

The content of the syllabus, which I do not describe in detail here is superficially similar to many humanities and liberal arts educations. However, in contrast to many of these existing educations (the ones that I have looked at, at least), it emphasizes in its pedagogical method more strongly what I see as an essential element, that of praxis - putting into practice what is learnt and so developing the faculty of the creativity by creating beautiful things..

The other key element - perhaps the most important - is that of consciously ordering of everything to man's ultimate end and relating it to the highest form of praxis - the worship of God.

Teachers and students alike should be able to make the connection between any element of study and our purpose in life. Then the teachers know the answer to the question, why teach? And students know the answer to the question, why learn? And each will be motivated all the more to fulfill their role.

I will outline the pedagogical method first, and then articulate my understanding of what a Catholic education is. Finally I will list some quotations from Church documents that emphasize the points that I am making in regard to the goal of a Catholic education:

Pedagogical method

1. Wonder - the appreciation of divine beauty The first stage is to inspire in the student a natural and personal response to the divine beauty which is present in creation and in the beautiful works of man in both the culture of faith and the wider culture. This response should be a natural and joyful experience.

2. Intellectual Illumination - imparting knowledge and understanding This aspect examines how the good, the true and the beautiful participate in all that exists and are personified in God. As much as communicating the subjects taught - eg the liberal arts, philosophy and theology - a goal is to train people to think both analytically and synthetically so that we set them on a path of lifelong learning which they can direct themselves. By 'analytically' I mean examining the parts of the subject; by synthetically I mean understanding the whole in the light of what we know about the parts. The broadest synthetic thought is that which places all that we know in the context of our whole human life and its purpose.

3. Praxis 1 - creating a culture of beauty. First by imitating the most beautiful parts of the culture - eg the works of masters, with understanding. Second, by creating original works in art, music, literature etc. and so contributing to the culture.

4. Praxis 2 - participatio actuosa - active participation in the sacred liturgy: the realization of ‘liturgical man’. Teaching people the practice of the worship of God and all it entails. When students take these lessons to heart, participation in the liturgy becomes the ultimate act of creativity, by which they enter into the mystery of the Trinity and by grace participate in the creative love of God.

What is a Catholic education?

The aim of all Catholic education is to offer students a formation that might lead to supernatural transformation in Christ that each might be capable, by God's grace, of movement towards their ultimate end, and of contribution to the good of each society of which each is a member.

All other stated ends in education, for example, the re-ordering of society's culture, of bearing witness to Christ in their surroundings and the training of skills to enable the student to earn a living, while necessary are nevertheless ordered to this ultimate end and achieved in their fullest measure by this supernatural transformation.

It is common in the field of Catholic education to cite the creation of the virtuous person as a goal. This is true, and it is in effect another way of saying the same thing, for the highest virtue is a cardinal virtue, the virtue of religion. According to St Thomas (ST II-II, Q.lxxxi) it is a virtue whose purpose is to render God the worship due to Him as the source of all being and the principle of all government of things. It is a distinct virtue, not merely an aspect of another.

This supernatural transformation, made possible by baptism, is made real by an encounter with the living God. This encounter can happen in many ways but occurs most profoundly and most powerfully in the Eucharist and by it we are made capable in a new way, through God's grace, of loving Him and our fellow man. Love of our fellow man in all its forms is inseparably bound up with love of God: the encounter with God in the Eucharist renews our capacity for love of neighbor; and love of neighbor tends to deepen our participation in the worship of God in the Eucharist.

So profound is this connection between love of God and love of neighbor that there is no authentically human activity - thought or deed, sacred or mundane - that cannot be formed by and ordered to the Eucharist for the better of each person, society and the Church. In this sense the Eucharist is the form (as in guiding principle) of every aspect of the Christian life including all those pertaining to a Catholic school.

Any school or educational institution therefore should ensure that all that goes on is in accord with the end of all education. Accordingly, it should ensure that students are aware that their capacity to be educated and that every aspect of their lives as Christians, whatever their personal goals, will be enhanced when they participate actively in the Eucharist and live a liturgically formed life. This knowledge will help to motivate students in their studies and order all their activities to their personal goals in life, which in turn are ordered to their ultimate end.

Each student should be clearly aware of the profound desirability of a supernatural Christian transformation and, therefore, the need for grace in their education, as in all human activity; and that the Sacred Liturgy is the optimal encounter with Christ in this life that provides for this need. There are many ways that Christ can be encountered, and every activity of a school should be such an encounter of one form or another. However, each encounter, if it is real, points to and is derived from that optimal encounter in Sacred Liturgy. Students should be aware that the fruits of such a transformed Christian life, which are promised to us, are precisely those that a Christian education aims to provide in the ideal.

As well as imparting an understanding of the primary importance of the Sacred Liturgy as the form of their everyday lives and in their education, students need to be given religious instruction so that each, in accordance with his personal situation, might develop a sacramental life that will make the transformation possible. This religious instruction includes principles by which they can develop a harmonious balance of liturgical prayer, both the Mass and the Divine Office, devotional and personal prayer in which the non-liturgical elements are derived from and point to participation in Sacred Liturgy. By this instruction they will know, in theory at least, what is necessary continually to deepen their participation in the sacramental life, with the Eucharist at its heart; and continually to renew and increase their capacity for love of neighbor.

While it may be appropriate for the instruction of what is just described to be given to all in the classroom, the actual participation in the liturgically centered sacramental life must always be one that is voluntary. We must respect each person's God-given freedom to choose. Transformation itself can neither be taught nor enforced: it is derived from a personal and free response to God's love for us. The participation therefore, should be encouraged. Accordingly, the role of the school is to increase the freedom of each person to choose well by enhancing their knowledge of what is good in this regard and giving them, where humanly possible, the power and opportunity do to do so. In accord with this the college should make it a priority to make beautiful and appropriately celebrated Sacred Liturgy available to the students in a beautiful place of worship. Ideally the faculty will lead by example, so that their actions speak of the centrality of the Eucharist in a life well lived.

All subjects included in the curriculum, while not all relating directly to the subject of the Sacred Liturgy, must nevertheless be consistent with these twofold and inter-connected aims of love of God and love of man, consummated in a freely chosen liturgically oriented piety. Each faculty member should be able to explain the reason for the inclusion of the subject taught in the light of these principles and willingly direct the students to its liturgical end.

Moreover, beyond the classroom the college should strive to encourage a culture in which any aspect of community life is in accord with and reinforces its ultimate goals for the students.

Quotations from documents on education:

'A school is a privileged place in which, through a living encounter with a cultural inheritance, integral formation occurs.' (The Catholic School, 26; pub The Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education, 1977)

'The proper and immediate end of Christian education is to cooperate with divine grace in forming the true and perfect Christian, that is, to form Christ Himself in those regenerated by Baptism...For precisely this reason, Christian education takes in the whole aggregate of human life, physical and spiritual, intellectual and moral, individual, domestic and social, not with a view of reducing it in any way, but in order to elevate, regulate and perfect it, in accordance with the example and teaching of Christ. Hence the true Christian, product of Christian education, is the supernatural man who thinks, judges and acts constantly and consistently in accordance with right reason illumined by the supernatural light of the example and teaching of Christ; in other words, to use the current term, the true and finished man of character.’ (Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri, 60; Encyclical on Christian Education, 1929, 94, 95, 96)

'The integral formation of the human person, which is the purpose of education, includes the development of all the human faculties of the students, together with preparation for professional life, formation of ethical and social awareness, becoming aware of the transcendental, and religious education. Every school, and every educator in the school, ought to be striving to form strong and responsible individuals, who are capable of making free and correct choices .' (Lay Catholics in Schools: Witnesses to Faith, 17; pub Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education, 1982)

'No less than other schools does the Catholic school pursue cultural goals and the human formation of youth. But its proper function is to create for the school community a special atmosphere animated by the Gospel spirit of freedom and charity, to help youth grow according to the new creatures they were made through baptism as they develop their own personalities, and finally to order the whole of human culture to the news of salvation so that the knowledge the students gradually acquire of the world, life and man is illumined by faith.' (Paul VI, Gravissimum Educationis, 8)

'For a true education aims at the formation of the human person in the pursuit of his ultimate end and of the good of the societies of which, as man, he is a member, and in whose obligations, as an adult, he will share.' (Paul VI, Gravissimum Educationis, 1)

'First and foremost every Catholic educational institution is a place to encounter the living God who in Jesus Christ reveals his transforming love and truth' (Benedict XVI, Meeting with Catholic Educators, Catholic University of America, Washington DC, April 2008)

'The true Christian does not renounce the activities of this life, he does not stunt his natural faculties; but he develops and perfects them, by coordinating them with the supernatural. He thus ennobles what is merely natural in life and secures for it new strength in the material and temporal order, no less than in the spiritual and eternal.' (Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri, 60; Encyclical on Christian Education, 1929, 98)

'Since all Christians have become by rebirth of water and the Holy Spirit a new creature so that they should be called and should be children of God, they have a right to a Christian education. A Christian education does not merely strive for the maturing of a human person as just now described, but has as its principal purpose this goal: that the baptized, while they are gradually introduced to knowledge of the mystery of salvation, become ever more aware of the gift of Faith they have received, and that they learn in addition how to worship God the Father in spirit and truth (cf. John 4:23) especially in liturgical action, and be conformed in their personal lives according to the new man created in justice and holiness of truth (Eph. 4:22-24); also that they develop into perfect manhood, to the mature measure of the fullness of Christ (cf. Eph. 4:13) and strive for the growth of the Mystical Body; moreover, that aware of their calling, they learn not only how to bear witness to the hope that is in them (cf. Peter 3:15) but also how to help in the Christian formation of the world that takes place when natural powers viewed in the full consideration of man redeemed by Christ contribute to the good of the whole society.' (Paul VI, Gravissimum Educationis, 2)

'Every form of catechesis would do well to attend to the ‘way of beauty’ (via pulchritudinis). Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in and to follow him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful.' (Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium)

From documents on the liturgy:

'Nevertheless the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows. For the aim and object of apostolic works is that all who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of His Church, to take part in the sacrifice, and to eat the Lord's supper.' (Sacrosanctum Consilium, 10)

'A mystagogical catechesis must be concerned with bringing out the significance of the rites for the Christian life in all its dimensions – work and responsibility, thoughts and emotions, activity and repose. Part of the mystagogical process is to demonstrate how the mysteries celebrated in the rite are linked to the missionary responsibility of the faithful. 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.' (Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, 64)

"The Sacred Liturgy is not a hobby for specialists. It is central to all our endeavors as disciples of Jesus Christ. This profound reality cannot be over emphasized. We must recognize the primacy of grace in our Christian life and work, and we must respect the reality that in this life the optimal encounter with Christ is in the Sacred Liturgy." (Sacra Liturgia 2013 conference, Rome. Opening address by Bishop Dominique Rey of Frejus-Toulon, France, published in the proceedings of the conference, p15, pub Ignatius, 2013)

'We can thus understand how agape also became a term for the Eucharist: there God's own agape comes to us bodily, in order to continue his work in us and through us. Only by keeping in mind this Christological and sacramental basis can we correctly understand Jesus' teaching on love. The transition which he makes from the Law and the Prophets to the twofold commandment of love of God and of neighbor, and his grounding the whole life of faith on this central precept, is not simply a matter of morality—something that could exist apart from and alongside faith in Christ and its sacramental re-actualization. Faith, worship and ethos are interwoven as a single reality which takes shape in our encounter with God's agape. Here the usual contraposition between worship and ethics simply falls apart. Worship itself, Eucharistic communion, includes the reality both of being loved and of loving others in turn. A Eucharist which does not pass over into the concrete practice of love is intrinsically fragmented.' (Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 14)

'There is nothing authentically human – our thoughts and affections, our words and deeds – that does not find in the sacrament of the Eucharist the form it needs to be lived to the full.' (Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, 71)

'The liturgy is a radiant expression of the paschal mystery, in which Christ draws us to himself and calls us to communion. As Saint Bonaventure would say, in Jesus we contemplate beauty and splendour at their source. (106) This is no mere aestheticism, but the concrete way in which the truth of God's love in Christ encounters us, attracts us and delights us, enabling us to emerge from ourselves and drawing us towards our true vocation, which is love.'' (Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, 35)

'Many manuals and programmes have not yet taken sufficiently into account the need for a mystagogical renewal, one which would assume very different forms based on each educational community’s discernment.' (Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 166)

All the photographs are from St Edmund Hall, Oxford. This was established in the 13th century and was named after St Edmund Rich, also known as St Edmund of Abingdon (a town in Oxfordshire), or St Edmund of Canterbury. The design of each building, the layout of the college and still, the rhythms and the patterns of the educational year are all in conformity with a principle that places the worship of God as the highest activity of the student (although I'm guessing that most who now attend are unaware of this). For more detail read the Way of Beauty book.

A Beautiful Icon of the Mother of God

I was trawling the net and saw this in Google images.

I don’t know what you think of it, but I love it. The expressions on the faces show the love between Our Lady and  Our Lord without straying into sentimentalism; the grace, pattern and flow of line in the design is exquisitely handled and in harmonic rhythm, and the color harmony is perfect - bright and attractive, without ever looking like a fluorescent print on a nylon T-shirt.

It took some work and help from others but eventually I found out that it was painted by a Roumanian iconographer called Monica Vasiloaia, you can see her work here.

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Beauty and the City - Architecture and Design

Geoff Yovanovic, who will teach a course on the principles of design in architecture for Pontifex University, describes some of the sources of inspiration for his ideas. I have always been fascinated by cities.  While cities have always had a fundamental role in shaping culture, I was always more mesmerized by the towering skyscrapers and sinuous interstates which stretched to the horizon.  The physical form of the city was what captured my imagination.  I followed this natural interest into architecture where I focus primarily on traditional design.  My interest in tradition has grown as I have been able to see past the aesthetic surface of a building and uncover the beauty and truth within the designs.  Through my course on Pontifex, I hope to pass along these discoveries, and foster an appreciation of design that transcends the shock, sensation, and “originality” which passes for most architecture today.

My search for beauty started as an observation in my undergraduate architectural history survey course.  I have always been interested in history so it was natural for me to create a timeline of major historical events and currents in the art world.  It became clear to me that there would be a noticeable change in art during the decades preceding a cultural or political revolution.   In France before the French Revolution, the architecture scraped off the barnacles of the Baroque and substituted a more rational Classical style.  Prior to World War I in Europe, we find the introduction of International Style Modernism.

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These observations remained as interesting but unrelated historical currents until I began research for my undergraduate thesis.  I began studying whether architecture was used by the  founding fathers to support their personal political beliefs.  For example, was the Virginia Capitol designed by Thomas Jefferson as an aspiration to the ancient Roman Republic?  It was.  That was the easy question.  Instead, my advisor challenged me to explore a deeper understanding of the Enlightenment ideas that influenced Jefferson’s architecture.  He pressed me even further to look beyond the details and columns.  He taught me to observe how the rational Enlightenment ideas about man’s relationship to the cosmos was subtlety transforming the shape and space created by their architecture.  I first learned of beauty by recognizing its flight from Western art.  And in this recognition, I discovered a fundamental culture shift away from the ideas of the Classical and Catholic world with its inherent embrace of beauty; towards an embrace of the rational and secular world of the Enlightenment.

Viewing this change in architecture from the 21st century is difficult.  We see that the buildings of that era have columns.  They are built of stone, not glass.  They appear Classical to us.  It is difficult for us to understand how Adolf Loos’ Looshaus in Vienna could have so insulted the sentiments of Emperor Franz Joseph that he would block the windows of his palace in order not to see the building.  But, these buildings were only mile markers in the retreat from a Classical and Catholic view of the cosmos.  We are surrounded and live amidst the yield of this Enlightenment world view.

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I will begin to explore many of these themes in upcoming posts.  By highlighting individual examples of buildings and cities, my hope is that I will be able to communicate the truths in the built environment that we all inhabit.  Architecture is more than a style, and beauty is not captive to any specific style.

In my design work, I strive to recover what was discarded.  Like the other artists with Pontifex University, I do not believe that simply returning to the past is a way to transform culture.  I do believe that by learning the lessons of beauty and truth inherent in traditions we can advance our arts and culture.  Originality has become an idol in art and architecture today.  But while designing, I try to heed C.S. Lewis’ advice in the final paragraph of Mere Christianity:

“No man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.” 

One of the things that I realised in my work is that no building ought to be considered in isolation. As soon as it is placed in its environment, it is in relation to it. This may be the countryside, it may be other buildings - as in a city center - but if we want a beautiful environment, then we must take the effect on the context into account when designing buildings. This does not mean, as some interpret this, that every building must be of the same era or the same style, but it does mean that the relationships between the building and its surrounding is as important a consideration as the beauty of the building itself.

It is truth and its sister beauty that I try to incorporate in my design work, and hope to communicate through my Pontifex course on architecture and intend to explore in a series of blog posts over the summer.

Geoff Yovanovic is based in Atlanta where he is a key member of the design team of the architecture firm Norman Davenport Askins, Architect. He is a graduate of the University of Miami and University of Notre Dame architecture schools and is a winner of the Addison Mizner Medal from the Florida Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art in recognition of excellence in classical design. He is also a graduate of my Way of Beauty Summer Atelier at Thomas More College!

A Formation in Beauty - Pontifex.University will Offer a Unique Program of Catholic Studies

studioHow what started as a budding artist’s quest for a formation in beauty and creativity became a manifesto for cultural renewal; and will now be available as a whole program of courses offered by www.Pontifex.University. It’s not just for artists. It's good for anyone looking for creativity and inspiration no matter what they do!

I started to research the material for my book the Way of Beauty about 20 years ago in England, where I am from originally, when I decided I wanted to be an artist to serve the Church. Of course at that stage I didn’t know that it would end up as the material for a book. I was fed up with the art I saw appearing in the churches around me and decided I wanted to do something about it by becoming an artist myself. I was full of the zeal of the newly converted and was on a mission to change the world.

clayton-the-way-of-beauty-267-px-400pxThe problem was how to get the necessary training. I knew that no existing art school would give me what I was looking for. I needed the traditional skills and although it was difficult to find people who still taught drawing and painting with rigor, it was just about possible. The real problem was knowing how to direct those skills once I had them.

Two things were necessary for such a formation. First, was a Catholic inculturation, so that I understood how to recognize what it is that makes some forms instrinsically Catholic – the iconographic, the gothic or the baroque styles of art for example; and others instrinsically anti-Christian and anti-Catholic – cubism or abstract expressionism for example.Secondly, I needed a spiritual formation that would develop my sense of the beautiful, and would engender creativity and an openness to inspiration.

No one I knew could tell me enough about either so I started to do my own research into both the traditional understanding of the basis of Catholic culture; and I how artists were trained.

The Way of Beauty contains all the details about what characterizes Catholic art, Catholic culture and the spiritual formation that engenders those personal qualities needed in the creative forces behind such a culture. In short a formation in beauty.

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It describes how the worldview of the artist is manifested in the style of his art, for good or ill, by giving an overview of the all the stylistic characteristics of the great artistic traditions of the Church; it describes the mathematical basis of traditional compositional design principles and proportion (explaining why this does not include the Golden Section or the Fibonacci series!). We can see this manifest in the proportions of buildings and in geometric patterned art. The book also describes how the numbers that govern the patterns in art, ar the same as those that govern the pattern of right prayer. It describes the traditional prayer pattern of artists (which happens to be exactly what Pope Benedict XVI recommended for the New Evangelization by the way!)

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Although the formation that it describes is, as best as I could discern, the perfect program of Catholic orientation for an artist, I realized that it offered something that would be of interest to many more. Every artist understands the need for inspiration, but in fact I realised that what I had discovered was training in creativity that could be applied to any human pursuit. Man has free will and ultimately, he is free to reject or accept God’s inspiration, but his freedom is increased if he has a greater awareness of what direction that inspiration is guiding him. Furthermore if he follows that inspiration he will flourish in what he does all the more, for it will be in accord with what he is meant to do. This formation could be used, therefore, as a Catholic orientation for any other, more vocational formal education – engineering or science for example. Furthermore, could be general formation for people at all levels of interest, even if they are simply looking for personal enrichment.

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If I was going to argue that this formation should be part of everyone’s education, then I would have to know more about the traditional of understanding of the Church of the purpose of education, and what such a general education is comprised. So this set pattern for the next stage of my personal research and what became the first section of my book.

My discovery was exciting. As I read the writings of the Church Fathers, and others such as Newman and the popes since Pius XI on what Catholic education ought to be I found out that this program of inculturation and formation in beauty had always been right at the heart of every Catholic education. It was just that barely anyone around seemed to know it (even amongst those who are serious about being true to the magisterium). Divine wisdom is the goal of education, imparted by supernatural means!

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The great Catholic artists were given this training in the past not so much because they artists, but rather because they were Catholics!

After the book came out, I was delighted to be invited to become Provost of  www.Pontifex.University which is a new explicitly Catholic online education platform to recruit teachers and create a program of courses as described in the Way of Beauty as first program. I am so excited about this. Now, this traditional formation in beauty will be widely available as a series of courses for all levels – from Masters level through to those who want to audit for personal enrichment. We are at pilot stage right now, but plan to launch the first part of the program later this year.

Photos from the top: Rembrandt: the Artist in His Studio, 17th century, baroque style; Zurburan: St Francis of Assisi at Prayer, 17th century, baroque style; traditional geometric patterned art in Rome, 13th century with 19th century restoration; Attingham House, 18th century, showing traditional proportion (look at the window sizes!); Fra Angelic: the Annunciation; 15th century gothic style (yes gothic, not Renaissance do - the courses and you'll find out why!)

 

 

 

 

Catholic Summer Camp in the Catskills, run by IVE, May 22-26

It's short notice but Fr Brian Dinkel of the Institute of the Incarnate Word, IVE, sent me this flyer for a 4-day summer camp in the Catskills of New York State. It is for young adults and college students. The topic is 'The Mystery of Man'. It takes place May 22-26 and it costs just $70.00 for the four days. You can register at www.iveamerica.org or email ive.universitas@gmail.com for more information. It takes place at IVE's St. Patrick’s Retreat Center, 19 Sunside Rd., Cairo, NY

 

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Universitas Flyer 2016 - 2

Catholic Artists Conference and 'Faces of Christ' exhibition: Sept 12-13, Shuyler NE

Here is early notice of a conference that will take place in the Fall. The Catholic Artists Conference is intended to encourage and guide Catholic artists and patrons. The central theme is prayer and it is entitled Prayer: Art from the Heart of God. You can read more about it at Catholic-Artists.com. Speakers include most prominently Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska. I am also speaking at the conference.

In conjunction with the conference is an exhibition which is the US debut of the Faces of Christ exhibition. An exhibition of works by living artists from around the world.

I have attached below images of the conference and exhibition promotional material. To read more about the conference to go Catholic-Artists-Conference.com; and about the exhibition go  to Faces-of-Christ.com

I will be posting reminders as we get closer to the date.

Redeeming Romanticism in Literature, by Andrew Thornton-Norris

In this post, by the English poet, Andrew Thornton- Norris, he discusses the 'inculturation of the gospel into modern culture through the redemption of Romanticism'. Many who study literature will think of the Romantic poets of England - Wordsworth or Coleridge for example as perhaps the height of poetry in the English language. Thornton-Norris does not deny their brilliance, but says that we should be looking for something greater than this as we seek to transform the culture today. For him, raising Romantic poetry and literature up to something even greater, 'represents a movement back from a religion of art to a religious art which recognises the Glory of the Lord'. Romanticism and the attempt to escape it through formal Modernist strategies is the inescapable condition of modern art. This is the consequence of the spiritual individualism that is the result of the reformation, and the political and moral individualism that is its consequence. The refusal to accept the external authority of tradition or of the Magisterium means that each man is an island adrift in his own futile attempt to reconstruct a value system that re-connects him with a community and with objective reality.

This is the modern condition and its aesthetic consequence is Romanticism. The legitimate natural impulse towards transcendental beauty has no external object towards which to be directed, and so is tragically misdirected within, towards the creative impulse itself, thus becoming a religion of art. This can be seen in Wordsworth’s Prelude, Coleridge’s Rime, Beethoven’s Symphonies and Wagner’s Operas, as well as the whole movement from Impressionism towards Abstraction and Conceptualism in art.

I do not mean that these Romantic artists and the reactions to them are bad, quite the reverse, they are heroically good given the circumstances, just that they all contain a Romantic understanding of the universe, which turns art into a quasi-religious experience or act. This is damaging to both art and religion, because it expects too much of art, the replacement of religion, and thus contains flawed religious assumptions. Romanticism by the way is simply the flip-side of the Rationalism of the Enlightenment, and the endless movements that succeed them like the tides are more or less restatements of these basic positions.

The loss of the transcendent object of beauty, The Glory of the Lord ("the beauty of his Wisdom") is the central theme of the work of Hans Urs Von Balthasar and his attempt to restore it for us. This is how Romanticism may be redeemed, and the integrity of modern art restored, through the re-establishment of the proper relationship of religion and art. The recognition that neither art nor the human person are worthy objects of worship reminds us that this is the idolatry natural to those who have not been effectively schooled in religious truth. The answer and the way to practice art successfully in this context is to re-accept the Magisterium which as always is our redemption.

Andrew Thornton-Norris is a regular contributor to the Imaginative Conservative and on the faculty of Pontifex.University. His online course for Pontifex, The Romance of the Soulis a study of mystical poetry, including the work of poets such as Gerard Manley Hopkins, Dante, St John of the Cross, T.S. Eliot and John Burnside.

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The Ghent Altarpiece - What Makes it So Suited for the Liturgy?

One of the greatest masterpieces ever painted, the Ghent Altarpiece (also known as the “Adoration of the Mystic Lamb”) was created in the 15th century by Flemish brothers Hubert and Jan Van Eyck. While broad appeal is not the only necessary indicator of merit, it is, in my opinion, one of them. This being so, the Adoration of the Lamb passes the test with flying colors - it is the second most visited and viewed work of art in history (after the Mona Lisa).

My consideration of it was prompted by the publication of a book about the altarpiece. Called the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb it is published by Ignatius Press and Magnificat (the one that produces a portable Liturgy of the Hours, sent out monthly). The book is excellent resource with large (12in x 12in) reproductions of details, which are as sumptuous as I have ever seen. The commentary, written by French art historian Frabrice Hadjadj is excellent in its description of the historical background, provenance; and in the details of the content, viewing it as a pedagogical tool. Every figure is identified and every Latin inscription is translated.

In this article I want to consider additional elements that come into consideration of the altarpiece as a piece of liturgical art, focusing especially on how its design, use of medium  and gothic style are in harmony with its purpose of promoting the right worship of God. These are the things that an artist, or patron need to be aware of if creating news works of liturgical art suited to their purpose.

I was invited by Chris Carstens, the new editor of Adoremus Bulletin to write a review of the book, and what I present here is an adaptation of what I wrote for him. I would recommend, by the way that this is read in conjunction with Chris's excellent accompanying piece contained in the bulletin, called Mystagogy of the Lamb in which he explains in detail the meaning of symbol of the lamb for Christians.

Looking now at the famous reredos: when the panels are closed we see, painted largely in monochrome, white and graded tones of sepia through to black, a depiction of the Annunciation watched by a congregation of figures, including two Sybils, the prophets Zachariah and Micah, John the Baptist and John the Evangelist. Also making an anachronistic appearance in the scene are the Van Eycks’ patrons, Joos and Isabelle Vijd. To include one’s patrons in a work of art is a typical device for honoring those whose generosity helped make the work of art possible. The figures of the two Johns are of statues in stone, lifeless as well as colorless.

When the doors are opened the scene is, in contrast, in glorious and bright color. It is dominated by the two largest central panels. The lower of the two is the image which gives the whole piece its name, the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb in which the heavenly hosts adore the Lamb of God – Christ – standing ‘as if slain’ (as it is cryptically described by the Book of Revelation (Rev 5:6)). Above this is the figure of God enthroned who looks down blessing us with his right hand.

There is some ambiguity as to whether this figure is intended to be the Son or the Father (I will discuss this later). He is flanked on the left by Our Lady, as Queen of Heaven and, in contrast to the monochrome rendering of her in the Annunciation scene, in this depiction she is painted in gorgeous blue.

On the right of the enthroned figure of God is John the Baptist, now painted in living color and clothed in apple-green robes.

On each upper extreme, the stand the figures of Adam on the left and Eve on the right, looking inwards at the event in history that began the redemption of the Fall which they caused. Our first parents are depicted by the Van Eycks after the Fall, hiding their full nudity with hands and fig leaves, and in deep shadow. In accordance with tradition, the redeemed saints in the scene (not Adam and Eve), are the source of their own saintly light which means that there is minimal cast shadow around them.

The Van Eycks’ manipulation of contrasting shadow, light and color conforms to the tradition in which shadow represents the presence of evil and suffering in a fallen world, and Light represents ‘overcoming the darkness’.

Also, the lack of vegetation and life in the image when the panels are closed points us to a time prior to the historical event of the life, death and resurrection of Christ; this is contrasted with the lush garden of Paradise restored in the interior image (when the panels are opened) with plants in full bloom.

The commentary in the book tells us of the prophesies of the prophets and of the Sybils (who are present incidentally, because their prophesies in classical Roman literature were seen by the Church Fathers as anticipating the coming of the Messiah).

The themes are strongly Eucharistic (most obviously evoking the phrase of John the Baptist, ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ and connecting this phrase to the Eucharist). Nevertheless, even greater emphasis could have been placed on some more broadly liturgical aspects of the work as a whole.

Liturgical art is not intended primarily as decoration or even to teach us about the underlying theology, although it does fulfill these functions. Rather, as architectural historian Denis McNamara pointed out in his recorded presentation on this site, the liturgical art is a part of the liturgy itself, and reveals those aspects of the ritual that we cannot immediately perceive. For example, when the panels of this work are opened we are seeing the heavenly hosts who join us here on earth, in reality, through the sacred liturgy in their perpetual worship of God. At that moment ours is a temporal participation in this eternal reality.

Despite the title, the Ghent altarpiece is not only about the adoration of the Lamb, but also about the worship of the Father, through the Son – the Lamb of God - in the Spirit. When we worship God in the liturgy we are drawn into the mystery of the Trinity. The altarpiece reinforces this point.

This focus on God the Father explains also, perhaps, the ambiguity in regard to the identity of the central figure of God. As Hadjadj explains, in some respects the figure of God has the characteristics of the Son – his youth for one thing - and in other respects, for example his attire and his crown, the figure has attributes generally associated with the symbolism of God the Father.

Upon further consideration, this ambiguity seems intentional. It appears to be a depiction of the Father seen through our understanding the Son. Perhaps we are meant to take the figure as both Father and Son at once. Other things in the painting seem to point to the Trinitarian mystery. For instance,the sun is rising in the East above the horizon, which is the symbol of the risen Christ, Christ in glory. But the viewer only sees half of the sun. Its upper half is replaced by an image which is, perhaps, the Son enthroned but which we are meant to see as the ‘visible image of the invisible God’. Through Christ, the Ghent piece seems to want to make clear, we see the Father.

But further details of that semi-sun also reward study. Within the image of the risen semi-sun there is a dove, which represents the Holy Spirit. So, not only do we see the Father, through the Son, but we see him in the Spirit. To emphasize this point, we see rays of light, lines of gold leaf emanating from the Spirit that touch all of those who are gathered. We, who participate in the earthly liturgy are part of the mystical Body of Christ too, and so, like the adoring saints and angels in the painting, are in reality touched by the uncreated light of divinity.

In the Eastern Church the dominating image in a liturgical setting is that of the glorified Christ. (The suffering Christ on the cross will be there too, but less prominent). However, when the faithful address the Father in prayer, they will pray to the image of the Son, because those who ‘see the Son see the Father’. Years ago I was struck by how the family of my icon painting teacher, who is Orthodox, sang the Our Father: the entire family would turn and face an image of the risen Son as they prayed.

We do not know the exact intention of the artist here in regard to this visual personification of God, but if I was painting it, I don’t think I would allow for such ambiguity. I feel somewhat uneasy with the visual conflation of two divine persons into one. Rather, as Eastern Catholics and the Orthodox do I would have an unambiguous image of the Son through whom I could address the Father. The alternative, as the Western tradition allows, is to have two contrasting yet complementary images: one of the Christ in Glory and the other a traditional symbolic image of the Father (such as the grey-bearded Ancient of Days in the Sistine Chapel painted by Michelangelo).

How would congregations at the time of Van Eyck have engaged with this painting in the liturgy itself? The Ghent altarpiece is a reredos,a painting or program of images installed behind the altar. According to some liturgical historians, the reredos developed in the Roman Rite in the Middle Ages because of the growing liturgical emphasis on the visible elevation of the host and chalice by the priest. As a backdrop to this event, the reredos is intended to draw our attention to the elevation and to increase our understanding of what is happening.

Therefore, an artist who paints a reredos should be aware of two things in particular: first at this critical point in the Mass, the images behind the visible elevated host should illuminate the fact that Christ is really present with us. Second, the portion of the reredos which serves as backdrop for the elevated host ought to allow us to see the small white circular wafer in clear relief against the reredos. Which part of the Ghent image is designed to serve as a backdrop for the host, I wonder? Is it designed, for example, to be contrasted with the green of the foliage or with the red on the face of the altar. I like to think that the Van Eycks designed their altar so that at the elevated host appears directly in front of the rising sun, straddling the conjunction of the two panels the one featuring the sacrifical Lamb and the other, the glorified Christ/the Father. It is exciting to think that at the point of elevation the congregation would see the golden rays of the semi-sun as if they were emanating from the host itself.

Because the reredos is no longer in it’s original location but in a side chapel and no longer services the liturgy, we do not know exactly what worshipers would have seen. We also have no information about when the reredos panels would have been opened or closed in the course of ordinary use. It was common in the middle ages for monochrome images to be be used during the penitential seasons of Advent and Lent; and then brightly colored for Easter and the rest of the year. If this was the case for the Adoration of the Lamb in Ghent, then during these periods prior to Christmas and Easter, the panels would have been closed so that congregations saw the Annunciation scene. This scene would be doubly appropriate because Advent and Lent are also periods of anticipation of the coming of Christ, and this anticipation would have been enhanced by portraying the biblical scene which inaugurated the incarnation. Nevertheless, without precise information in regard to this particular painting it is difficult for us to say exactly how the painting helped those attending Mass relate to the actual celebration of the liturgy.

It is interesting to note that the Ghent altar’s scheme contains no image of the crucifixion. But since this reredos was very likely not the only image in the church, it was probably painted to be seen in relation to all other images that were present – including that of a crucifixion elsewhere in the church. During the middle ages, altar rails were customarily expanded upwards into a chancel screen or ‘rood’ screen – which consisted of transparent tracery and was perhaps carved in wood. This screen would often be surmounted by a sculptural representation of the crucifixion (the word ‘rood’ is an old English word for cross). If there was something similar in Ghent cathedral, then the congregation would have been able to see all three: the Lamb, the enthroned figure of God and the crucifixion simultaneously. After the Council of Trent, the call for greater visibility of the celebration of the Mass resulted in many chancel screens being removed (although in fact they weren’t condemned explicitly). I believe Ghent underwent this same sort of revision.

As for the methods of the artists: the Van Eyck painted in glazes and never used painted whites. The white we see is the polished white gesso ground (a powdered chalk, or something similar, set in an animal glue) showing through. This technique is unusual for oil painters – but is similar to the way that a contemporary watercolor artist might integrate the white of the paper into the painting.

The Van Eycks built up multiple glazes of color, giving the finished product a deep, jewel-like luster with deep pearlescent colors. In order to understand how this works it is worth considering first just what paint is.

No matter which medium an artist uses, the color in all paintings is always derived from the same inert pigment. For instance in yellow ochre, the yellow comes from iron oxide dug up from the ground. In order to get the pigment to stick to the surface, the artist must apply it after suspending it in some sort of medium which can be brushed on as a liquid, is viscous enough to adhere to the surface and capable of solidifying so that the paint has permanence. If the paint is egg tempera, the medium is egg yolk; if it is oil paint, then the medium is linseed oil or some other commonly available vegetable oil; in watercolour the medium is gum arabic. It should be noted that the oil paint used by the Van Eycks was not the tube oil paint found in art shops today. In the 19th century artists mixed the oil medium with wax to give it bulk and the physical properties that would allow manufacturers to mass produce the paint in factories by putting it in tubes that might sit on shop shelves for long periods of time without degenerating.

This change in the quality of the paint – which before this would have been mixed by the artist in his studio - affected how artists painted. It is much easier for artists such as Monet or Van Gogh to use thickly brushed opaque layers of waxy oil paint in a style called impasto. In contrast, the oil paint that the Van Eycks used would have had a much more fluid quality to it than more recent sorts of oil paint; it would have been a genuinely ‘oil like’ paint. Therefore the paint used in the Ghent altarpiece had been worked into very thin, smooth and transparent layers called glazes. The deep colors that we see in this work would have been created not by a single application but by having perhaps as many as 15 or 20 layers each just a few microns thick.

Artists favored this method because it achieved a certain special optical effect. As the light hits the surface of the painting, some of the light is reflected and takes on the color of the paint and some is transmitted through the first layer of paint until it hits the interface between the second and third layers, where the process is repeated. If a strong light, such as flickering candlelight, shines onto the painting, it creates an especially jewel-like richness on the smooth surface, as if the painting itself were the light’s source, the light rays emerging from deep within its surface. The artist who knows what he is doing manipulates this effect by subtly changing the relative tone and the precise colour of each layer. It is no accident that this effect is called ‘pearlescent’. In pearls the same optical effect is created by many layers of the transluscent deposit, put down by the oyster around a irritating piece of grit.

If you read the art history books, Van Eyck’s painting style is described as part of the ‘Northern Renaissance’. Whatever we call his style, it is to my mind more a culmination of the gothic that preceeded it than it is an anticipation of the High Renaissance that followed it. Certainly it is highly naturalistic and it has this in common with the Renaissance style. But this increased interest in natural appearances and curiosity about the natural world did not begin with the Renaissance nor with Van Eyck, but began over two hundred years before (due to the influence of the newly rediscovered philosophy of Aristotle among other things).

What links Van Eyck to the Gothic stylistically is the sense of emotional distance between the figure and the observer. The whole gothic movement has this same sense of emotional distance in common with the iconographic styles that preceded them. Although sometimes we do observe some emotion in the figures, these emotions do not engage us directly; we are still in some way detached, observing from a distance.

This placement of the figures at a distance - in the middle ground rather than in the foreground - affects the dynamic of the observer’s interaction with the image. The beauty of the painting draws us in and we want to engage, but we cannot because that distance is inherent within the composition and style. It is there even if we have our noses pressed against the panel. Our desire to be part of what we see then takes our attention beyond the painting itself to the reality that it portrays, which is heaven. So the painting first pulls us in and then it sends us up to heaven. This dynamic of prayer is built into the style of the painting and is part of what makes it a skillful execution of the artist’s skills; and stylistically appropriate for the liturgy.

A Christian artist must paint man so that he is recognizably human – in short, the image must look like a person. At the same time the artist must indicate those invisible truths by deviating from a strict adherence to physical appearances. It is through a controlled partial abstraction that the artist reveals a fuller truth about the human person. It is in the way that an artist executes this abstraction,we recognize characteristic styles.

Such styles can be done well or badly. The three authentic liturgical traditions – iconographic, gothic and baroque - are described by Pope Benedict XVI as communicating this balance of naturalism and abstraction well. Good Christian art is always a controlled balance between the representation of the physical appearances of the person, and partial abstraction by which, symbolically, the soul is revealed. (Any artists or lovers of art who are interested in knowing more about this process and how Christian artists have done accomplished it in the past should read my book, the Way of Beauty.)

The process of balancing naturalism and abstraction is done badly by swinging too far in one direction or another. Either the artist renders an excessive naturalism on the one hand, or he neglects appearances, leading to a grave distortion on the other hand. While there is always room for new and fresh art, to be Christian art it must reflect this balance. Pius XII said as much in Mediator Dei (195): “Modern art should be given free scope in the due and reverent service of the church and the sacred rites, provided that they preserve a correct balance between styles tending neither to extreme realism nor to excessive "symbolism," and that the needs of the Christian community are taken into consideration rather than the particular taste or talent of the individual artist.”

The 20th century artists named painted in styles that reflected a worldview that is governed by a dualism in which the spiritual aspects of man are exaggerated at the expense of the physical. These modern artists were not reflecting a Christian anthropology, and furthermore they knew it – the explicit aim of abstract expressionists exhibited by Newman and Rothko was to represent man as pure disembodied spirit. The corollary to this is the style known as photorealism in which there is total neglect of the spiritual and only the material aspects of man are considered and represented.

As far as our understanding of the Ghent altarpiece is concerned, Van Eyck work was both naturalistic and also incorporated a symbolic element. While the surface of each object he paints is represented in exquisite and minute detail, the overall form of what he paints, the substrate to which all that detail is fused, is distorted according to gothic sensibilities so as to give a sense of the sacred.

One of these gothic aspects is compositional - that portrayal of the figures in the middle distance, (already described above) which creates a particular dynamic of interaction with the observer, especially in the context of prayer. Another gothic aspect is found in the form of the figures. In many ways the gothic is a naturalized form of the iconographic tradition that began in the early Church. You can see this gradual increase in the naturalism of surface appearances of figures if you follow a path historically from the late Romanesque/early gothic art of the 13th century (as in this illumination from the Westminster Psalter (link to example here) through later gothic art, such as the work of Duccio (link to examples here) and culminating in Flemish artists such as the Van Eycks and Van Der Weyden (below is Last Judgement altarpiece, from about 1440)

and a detail of the central section...

Gothic naturalism is very different from the naturalism of the High Renaissance which followed Van Eyck. In the High Renaissance, the figures were painted in the foreground and engage with the observer much more directly than in gothic depictions. The High Renaissance’s underlying form (to which this naturalistic surface detail is fused) is a copy of Greek and Roman (i.e. classical) art. From the High Renaissance onwards and through to the 19th century, artists such as Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael copied Greek and Roman statues as part of their training, which in turn affected their style profoundly. So when the baroque artist Rubens painted Theresa of Avila in prayer in the 17th century, the stylistic difference we see in his work emerged from his training for thousands of hours by copying Greek and Roman statues.

The Van Eycks’ did not train by copying classical statues, and so stylistically were influenced much more by the art forms that they saw around them, which were earlier gothic and Romanesque. Despite the fact this this painting is over 500 years old, the glory of what is true and good is radiating out the Van Eyck’s work, even today. When we perceive this quality in art, or anything else for that matter, we call it beautiful. And that beauty is irresistible. This is the message of John Paul II’s Letter or Artists and the numerous writing about the via pulchritudinis - the Way of Beauty - by Benedict XVI.

Thus, the lesson that artists today can learn from Van Eyck is that if people are not climbing over each other in their eagerness to see our work, the reason is simple. It is not beautiful enough. For proof of this truth, I suggest we need look no further than the Adoration of the Lamb. Hundreds of years after it was painted, this altarpiece is still the second most viewed painting in history. Modern man has voted with his feet – or to be more precise, with adoration.

Chinese Artist Converts Through Study of Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts

Some of you might already be aware of the conversion of a Chinese artist, Yan Zu, to Catholicism, as recounted on National Catholic Register and Catholic News Agency. A Dominican friar from the Western Province, who is from Taiwan originally, recently brought this story to my attention.

It was the study of European art history, and specifically medieval illuminated manuscripts that brought Yan to the Faith. She has a Chinese language blog, here, from which these images of her own work are taken.

This story is interesting to me for a couple of reasons. First, I am wondering if this is further indication of a natural affinity between Chinese and European figurative art, that allows for mutual influence to occur very easily. (I wrote about this in detail here.) The style of the traditional Chinese landscape, is formed by a Doaist worldview in which the material world directs us, through its beauty to heaven, which is a non-material realm of perfect order. Christian artists of the West might articulate just the same goal for their landscape painting, especially those painting in the baroque tradition. The difference is that for the Christian, heaven is occupied, so to speak, by God and his saints and angels.

Second, it seems to suggest that traditional Christian culture is as much universal as it is specific to particular times and places. If we were set the task in advance of dreaming up an art form that would convert Chinese people, many would say that we should adapt something that is of the Chinese culture into a form that speaks more directly of Christianity. I certainly think this approach has its place (when done with discernment). However, it is clear that this Christian art form with no Chinese connection at all, and which originated in Western Europe in the middle ages, spoke powerfully and eloquently to this Chinese lady.

While I do think that there are geographic and time-bound elements that characterize all aspects of the culture, I have never been of the view that these are the only influences. Christian culture reflects also the Faith, which is universal - that is, it is true for all people. So I would say that traditional Western European culture, for example, looks as it does because it is Christian and to a large degree would have looked the same if it had originated in the southern tip of Africa. This being so and to the degree that any art form is Christian, it will speak to people in all ages and places. This means, therefore, that exporting Western European culture (or Christian Eastern European culture, Christian Middle Eastern culture for that matter) to the rest of the world is not cultural imperialism as some might suggest. Nobody forced Yan down this route, she was attracted by it and chose to follow. She is responding to a gift, freely given. It is called evangelization!

Paul Jernberg's Music to Be Sung at Masses in Milwaukee, Pittsburg and Massachusetts

The liturgical music of composer Paul Jernberg is deservedly beginning to catch attention. In the next few weeks his Mass of St Philip Neri, which is written for the Ordinary Form celebrated in English will be sung in the Pittsburgh, St Milwaukee and St John's Clinton, MA. The details are as follows:

Tuesday, April 26, 7pm: Basilica of St. Josaphat, Milwaukee, WI - Mass of Confirmation; they will be singing Propers for the Sacrament of Confirmation composed by Jernberg as well as the Mass of St. Philip Neri.

Sunday, May 8, 5:30pm: St. Monica Parish, Methuen, MA - Mass of Confirmation; we will also be singing my Propers for the Sacrament of Confirmation as well as the Mass of St. Philip Neri (and other chant and polyphony, including music by another contempory composer of note, Roman Hurko.)

Wednesday, May 25, 5pm: St. Paul Cathedral in Oakland (Pittsburgh), PA: Mass of Ordination to the Priesthood and Diaconate for the Pittsburgh Oratory of St. Philip Neri; they will be singing the Mass of St. Philip Neri. This Ordination will be taking place on the Vigil of the Feast of St. Philip Neri!

I have no doubt that Paul's music will be beautiful and solemn occasions. Below you can hear excerpts from his Mass of St Philip Neri and his Salve Regina:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL0B821MJl4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-0r5glY104

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roxW_518SSg

Our Lady of the Mount, Anjara, Jordan - a church and a story that reveals more of charism IVE

A mission parish of Argentinian order, Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE), it commissioned four large new panel icons of the Mysteries of the Rosary; and is the place where in 2010, a statue of Our Lady wept tears of blood. IVE.3

It is funny how one story leads to another, or perhaps I should say two others. I posted a recent article about my visit to the seminary of the Argentinian order Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE) in Washington DC. First, I was contacted by English icon painter, Ian Knowles, who told me that this is the order that had commissioned him to paint icons of the Mysteries of the Rosary for a church run by them in Jordan. It is the Shrine of Our Lady of the Mount.

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This was further evidence that the order is committed to the creation of beauty to evangelize the culture, as the description of their charism says, see here, item 5. I wanted to know more about the church and started to dig around. then I found out that it is also that it is the site of a miracle validated by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, in which a statue of Our Lady wept tears of blood in 2010. The statue is old, perhaps 150-200 years old, and was purchased by the church shortly before the miracle occurred. In 2014, fellow Argentinian, Pope Francis visited the site of the Baptism of Our Lord in the Jordan and the occasion was marked by a gift from IVE of an image of Our Lady of Anjara.

Culture, beauty, prayer and devotion to Our Lady, all aspects of the charism of the order and somehow all of this is entwined in a dynamic mix for the mission of the Church in this one shrine in the Middle East.

For the icons, there are some photos below at the bottom of the blog post. Immediately below is artist Ian with one of the panels in progress (who incidentally I met several years ago when we both attended a class taught by Aidan Hart!) .

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I am so heartened to hear of IVE wanting to encourage 'eyes-open prayer' through the commission of these icons. It shows, in my opinion, a true understanding of the New Evangelization as, regardless of the miracle, the simple beauty of each in the church, will encourage a deeper prayer that engages the whole person.  This will facilitate a supernatural transformation of the person in Christ and lead, in turn, to the transformation of the culture as each person contributes to it, gracefully and beautifully by simply going about their daily business.

The same can be said of the statue. For all the headlines in connection with the miracle (which I very happy to accept occurred), it is the supernatural transformation of mankind in Christ - partaking of the divine nature - that is the truly astounding fact of the Christian faith; and this is an extraordinary privilege that is open to every single human person and leads to a life of such joy. Sometimes it needs the exceptional, headlining events such as miracles, to inspire the prayer that will engender what I think are the greater, yet so often neglected and misunderstood truths of the Faith.

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The account of the miracle is on the National Catholic Register, here. The account of the Pope's visit is on the IVE site, here. The order is devoted to Our Lady with a special devotion to the Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Lujan, a South American holy image. What struck me in the account is how Argentinian priest of the order Fr Nammat says quite matter-of-factly that he doesn't know why the miracle should have occurred, except to remark that the 'Arab spring', which began the persecution of so many Christians (and Muslims) in the region began shortly afterwards, and perhaps there is a connection.

Below: Ian's Sorrowful Mysteries, with detail below that.

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..and the Joyful Mysteries:

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The Walled Garden - a Poetry Collection by Andrew Thornton-Norris

I want to direct your attention to a collection poems by Andrew Thornton-Norris called The Walled Garden. It has been positively reviewed by figures known on both sides of the Atlantic such Annette Kirk, Fr Aidan Nichols, Fr John Saward and Roger Scruton who said of Andrew's poems that they 'convey a gentle Christian vision, pertinent to the world in which we live.' Quarterly Review's Michael Davies hailed it as 'a return to the great tradition'. You can read his detailed review of Andrew's poems in this collection here.

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Andrew Thornton-Norris's work is accessible and noble and speaks to someone, like me, whose eye's ordinarily glaze over at the mention of poetry - honestly, read my article The Need for Beauty and Form in Poetry if you don't believe me.  I never studied literature formerly at any level (I never did an English Literature class at high school - an omission in my education for which I am profoundly grateful).

Andrew's poems have simultaneously the simplicity and the depth of a psalm, or an Ambrosian hymn. This is not surprising for he has a deep understanding of the connection between faith and the culture; and between the Faith and Western culture.   It  is because he understands both the cultural traditions of his faith, and the culture of modern man that he knows how to make the first speak within the second though his poetry.

For evidence of his understanding of the tradition, I suggest you read Andrew's book, the Spiritual History of English.  In this book he analyses the form - the underlying sentence structure and vocabulary - of the English language since the time of the Venerable Bede and he demonstrates how it has changed to reflect the culture of faith from which it emanates. As he describes modern English is less able to articulate the ideas and beauty of the faith than it was in the time of Shakespeare. You can read my review of this brilliant book in an article entitled A Book For Anyone Interested in the Evangelization of the Culture.

31zXCvZG-lL._SX311_BO1,204,203,200_As the title of my review suggests, Andrew is not pessimistic however, and is ready to try to influence the culture through his own work and restore what has been lost and, who knows help to raise it to something even greater. This is the what all who are creative must do. As he wrote so revealingly in a recent blog post on the Beauty of Catholicism blog, 'The modern artist or writer of faith has to inculturate his faith and work into the culture and the artistic forms of modern society in exactly the same way that a missionary has to inculturate his message into that of an alien culture. For that is exactly the circumstance that we face today, an alien culture, albeit one formed historically by our faith; and our challenge is to make our work “relevant,” comprehensible and attractive to the modern consumer of that work, without diluting its content or alienating ourselves.'

I recommend also Andrew's course, The Romance of the Soul, which is a study of mystical poetry, including the work of poets such as Gerard Manley Hopkins, Dante, St John of the Cross, T.S. Eliot and John Burnside, which is offered at Pontifex.University. He is also a regular contributor to the American magazine, the Imaginative Conservative.

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here

The day I wandered after dusk Across ploughed field and shadowed copse And wondered of the busied world If I should ever step there again.

For my heart was bleak as the plain ploughed field And my mind was dark as the shadowed copse, Where roosting fowl did cluck and screech And flitting bats did dart among the flies.

Darkening skies of grey and silver and blue With bursting coloured sunset nearly out of sight As India from my nation's realm withdrew And peaceful evening skies let no respite.

By Andrew Thornton-Norris - London, United Kingdom - 19 February 2012

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The painting  above is by Alan Thompson, and English artist.

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Mary as a Garden Enclosed, as alluded to in the Song of Songs, illumination by Stephan Lochner

Third Annual Catholic Literature Conference; Concord, New Hampshire, April 30th

This is an annual conference that grew out the a one-off event organized speculatively two years ago. To the surprise and delight of all involved it attracted a large and engaged crowd of people wanting to hear about and discuss Catholic literature. Now in its third year it is an established annual event. The speakers are Joseph Pearce, Gary Bouchard, William Fahey, president of Thomas More College, and Fr Michael Kerper, pastor of St Patricks's in Nashua, NH.

For more details go to the Thomas More College site, here. You save $5 if you book before April 20th, so hurry!

It is sponsored by Christ the King Parish, Concord, and Thomas More College of Liberal Arts

Call for Icon Painters by the Ukrainian National Shrine of the Holy Family

A former student of mine, a graduate of Thomas More College in New Hampshire who is now studying at Catholic University of America and attends the Ukrainian Catholic National Shrine of the Holy Family in Washington DC has contacted me about this project. The shrine has issued a call for icon painters to undertake the painting of icons for the iconostasis and for selected walls. Go here to find out more about the commission.

The Ukrainian Catholic National Shrine of the Holy Family in Washington, DC is the face of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the capital of the United States. Located adjacent to the Roman Catholic Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on the campus of CUA, and less than 4 miles from the Capitol Building of the United States of America, the Ukrainian Catholic National Shrine of the Holy Family is not only a center for worship for Ukrainian Catholics but has been built to convey information about the Ukrainian Catholic faith and about Ukrainians and their history. It has recently completed two phases of a three phases building process and are now ready to go forward with the third - the commission of sacred art for the interior.

Over 35 years, thousands of generous Ukrainian Catholics have contributed financially to the construction of the church. The shrine, designed by architect Myroslav Nimciw, was built in three phases: the lower level in 1979, the upper sanctuary shell in 1988, and the sanctuary interior in 1999. The final phase, as mentioned, is to install iconography in the sanctuary both within the structure of a new iconostas, designed by architect Larysa Kurylas, and on select walls of the sanctuary.

If you put the cursor over the lower image, above, then you will see a larger version and will be able to read the schema.

For information about the commission follow the link here.

This is an ambitious and worthy project and a great opportunity for a good icon painter. Oh that more of our Roman Rite churches would embark on such a systematic and informed process in the commissioning of art!

 

Institute Verbo Encarnato (IVE) - the Institute of the Incarnate Word

the-ive-press-crestAn order that embodies the principles of joyful evangelization in accordance in the spirit of Pope St John Paul the Great and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. This past week, I was lucky enough to be invited to give a couple of talks on art and culture to seminarians of IVE, the Institute of the Incarnate Word. This is an order of priests, religious and of lay people (in a 3rd order) founded 32 years ago in Argentina and which has seminaries in the US (in Maryland in the Washington DC conurbation where I visited), in Italy, Brasil, Peru, the Philippines, and in Argentina. They have missions in many parts of the world including Iraq, the Gaza Strip and Papua New Guinea; and monastic foundations in Spain, Argentina, the Middle East and Italy.

My visit coincided with their 32nd anniversary on the Feast of the Annunciation (that's how I know precisely how long they have been going).It was celebrated at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC. The celebrant was Bishop Quinn of Winona, MN. He and his Vicar General who flew in for the day just to celebrate Mass for IVE (IVE has a minor seminary in Bishop Quinn’s diocese). Cardinal McCarrick, Archbishop Emeritus of Washington DC spoke at the Mass (all three attended the very festive celebration meal at the seminary afterwards). This was a beautiful and dignified Mass in which the choir of seminarians and sisters from the order chanted Gregorian Mass IX for the Ordinary of the Mass and the music included beautifully sung and moving polyphony.

Before I go on, I should declare a personal bias. I became aware of them for the first time only a few months ago, because a parishioner from one of their parishes in San Jose contacted me and said that the priest there, a member of this order, was quoting my book the Way of Beauty in his homilies and encouraging people to read it because it reflected, he said, the charism of the order. Naturally I was excited and curious and got in touch, and given this interest in my book have a natural in what they are doing.

As a result of this initial contact I was asked to speak about the Way of Beauty to the priests, seminarians and sisters who live at the seminary. I was very happy to do so, of course, but my feeling as I came away from these three days I was the one who benefited the most, through my contact with them, worshiping and praying with them and through the many conversations I had.

There are so many good things I could say about my experiences in the last few days, but rather than list them all (perhaps various aspects will come out in different blog posts in time) I encourage people to read about them in their website and especially the description of their charism. My personal impression is that the qualities of joy, vigor and dignity that come through in the description of their charism is there in each person that I met. Their liturgy is solemn and dignified, their intellectual formation is rigorous and is centered on the philosophy and theology of St Thomas, and they have a special devotion to Our Lady,

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Above: celebration of Mass by Cardinal McCarrick at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception last year. The image is  Our Lady of Lujan (see below)

I want to highlight one example of what I saw that I think says a great deal about IVE. In the seminary in Washington DC there were priests, 40 or so seminarians and perhaps a similar number of sisters. I met people from Argentina, the US, Colombia, Ireland, Mexico, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, England, and Australia that I can remember. Most were young (under 35), however, I noticed a number of men with grey hair (or very little hair) and assumed that they were long time members of the order. It was only  as I started to talk to them that I found out that some  were seminarians studying for the priesthood as well.

One whom I spoke to quite a bit was was 68 years old, currently a deacon and due to be ordained this May. He described himself not as a late vocation, but rather as a delayed vocation. He said that from the time he was a young boy he had wanted to be a priest and had tried several times but had been thwarted for various reasons at various early stages in the process. Latterly he was barred from being a diocesan priest because he was too old to start. He told me that IVE has a policy of never barring anyone whom they feel has a genuine vocation because of age. This was great for him - he told me he had never been happier. It was also good for the community at the seminary, I felt. It had a balancing effect on the spirit of the community. So that within each year, even the novice years, there were people with more life experience in other ways and this enriched community life for all. These are all good, practical and charitable reasons to have such a policy; but the most important reason for having such an open policy, it seemed to me, was something else. It comes from an understanding of what personal vocation is.

When we are fulfilling what God wants us to be then we contribute in charity, beautifully and gracefully to all around us. That man's personal vocation began the moment he entered that order and was on the path that God had set out for him. This means that in the economy of grace he is giving to all around him, as well as receiving. It would be easy for IVE to think of the training period in the seminary is one in which they make the investment of money and time in his training, and only when he is ordained they start to reap the rewards. If that were so, then it would make no sense to take on older seminarians, because they won't have time as priests to pay back the investment made in them (however you would measure such a thing). However, when the economy of grace is brought into the equation, we can see that IVE has to benefit from anyone in their presence who is living out their personal calling in life. It is an act of faith on the part of IVE that trusts in the principle that God will provide for us if we do God's will and help others to God's will too.

You can find out more information about IVE in the US by visiting iveamerica.org. If you want to see the home site for the organization based in Argentian (in Spanish) then that is iveargentina.org.

Below: Our Lady of Lujan, patroness of Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. She is the patroness of the order too. The story of the beginning of the special veneration of this image of the Immaculate Conception, dating from 1630 when a miracle occured is here. I didn't know until I saw this image that the national flags and colors of the shirts of the national soccer teams of Argentian and Uruguay are in the colors of Our Lady of Lujan. (Perhaps England could take a leaf out of Argentina's book, have their soccer team wear the color of Our Lady of Walsingham, and then we might win the World Cup again!)

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For information on the iconography of the Immaculate Conception see and article I wrote here.

 

Way of Beauty Retreat in June in Rural Vermont

OQ I have been invited by the OQ Farm in beautiful farmland close to Woodstock, Vermont) to lead a weekend retreat centered around the traditional formation that would been given to the great Catholic artists of the past. This will certainly be of interest to artists of any creative discipline; but not just artists. It is open to anyone seeking a traditional formation in beauty and inculturation that engenders creativity and openness to inspiration. It takes place from the 3-5th June, 2016.

John Paul II said in his Letter to Artists, written in 1999, that every person has a personal vocation to contribute creatively and beautifully to the culture in some way as we go about our daily lives. In that sense we might become artists through supernatural means: by being united to Christ we are transformed and participate in the divine nature. St Athanasius was referring to this supernatural transformation in the 3rd century AD when he said that, 'God became man, so that we might become god'. Maximus the Confessor, in the 7th century AD, in reiterating this said that, 'One becomes all that God is, except an identity in being, when one is deified by grace.' Benedict XVI said that through this each of us can participate in the 'creative love of God'.

It is an extraordinary privilege, yet it is one that is offered through the Church to every single person. 

0224_pg16popeprayers_255This call to be raised up so that God works through us, and to contribute creatively and beautifully to society, is the essence of the New Evangelization. Through grace we lead a life of beauty and contribute creatively to a new culture. It is by this beauty and love in our lives that others see Christ and are drawn to the Faith. This result is described by Benedict in his paper on the New Evangelization, written in 2001; and in the same paper he gives us the method by which we can participate in this. The method of the 'New' evangelization is rooted in the one which worked so successfully for the early Church. It is a traditional pattern of prayer, which incorporates different sorts of prayer and contemplation, and has the worship of God in the sacred liturgy at its heart. This will be a journey in which together we will study this short document (under 10 pages) and try to put into practice what he describes. 

This is what formed the great evangelists of the past; and it also what enabled so many of the great painters of the past to create beauty for the greater glory of God. In many ways it is building on what was described in the book written by Leila Lawler and myself, the Little Oratory - A Beginner's Guide to Praying the Home. In this weekend we will go more deeply into the subject, learning more about how the beauty of the Catholic traditions of sacred art (as specified by Benedict XVI in his book the Spirit of the Liturgy), through form and content support the prayer life and the themes that he highlights in his paper on the New Evangelization. We will experience the methods he describes first hand the prayer that it describes, with additional insights.  

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As such it is a mini Catholic inculturation that you can benefit from and take with you to your domestic church. In fact the hope of this weekend is that what you get will not stop when you leave. Prayer at home, as well as in our parish church, is a vital component to what Benedict describes. Benedict told a synod on the family in 2008 that, 'The new evangelization depends largely on the Domestic Church. The Christian Family to the extent it succeeds in living love as communion and service as a reciprocal gift open to all, as a journey of permanent conversion supported by the grace of God, reflects the splendor of Christ in the world and the beauty of the divine Trinity.’ The point should be made here that this does not only apply to families, it is true for and open to everyone, no matter what their state in life. We all have a home, and so we can all create a domestic church! It is how we turn a house into a home.

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In the beautiful and peaceful surroundings of rural Vermont you will:

  • Learn to pray the Divine Office in English using traditional chant, so that you can do it at home or parish (no previous music training necessary)
  • Learn to engage with visual imagery in your prayer - in the liturgy and in devotional and contemplative prayer (conspectio divina).
  • Learn how to choose images, based upon traditional principle, for your own domestic church that will promote this supernatural transformation.
  • Understand why the great figurative traditions of the sacred art of the Church are formed so as to engender such a transformation, both through the content - what they portray; and style - how they portray it.

OPTIONS:
Weekend Retreat Package: $375 per person
Arrive on Friday, 6/3 by dinner, depart by noon on Sunday, 6/5
Includes semi-private lodging and all weekend meals. A limited number of private rooms are available for an additional cost. Please see Lodging,Travel and Meals (link) for more information.

Saturday Commuter Package: $125 per person
Arrive by 8am Saturday, joining for all daytime activities and shared lunch -- departing before dinner

To book, and for more information please contact the Director of Arts Initiatives, Keri Wiederspahn: keri@oqfarm.org; 802.230.7779 or got to http://www.oqfarm.org/workshops-overview/

 

Below a beautiful icon of the transfiguration, painted by monks at Mt St Angel Abbey, Oregon. This is a painting of the event that anticipated Christ in glory in heaven. It is also a painting of the mystical body of Christ, the Church. When we are transformed, in Christ, in this life, we can be a pixel of light in his body, drawing people to the Faith.

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Making People Smile in the Cry Room!

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I am looking for ideas for making the church cry room  - that sound proof room where you can take children and which usually has an array of toys and books.

This has been inspired by photographs sent to me by friends who spent Easter at St. William's parish in Greenville, Texas. They were struck by the effort that the priest, Fr Paul Weinberger had made to make the cry room holy.

As Sherri wrote to me: 'The cry room is pretty small, but Fr. Paul has managed to fit in a lot for the little ones to examine, and it really adds a sense of holiness to the room.

'How simple but clever to put everything behind locked glass storm doors, so it is both accessible to the kids for viewing and yet safe from little hands.  It's like a tiny museum!  Besides the items behind glass, there are wooden statues of saints and Angels on the top of each cabinet, keeping a watchful eye on the kids.'

George and Katy Rose are the boy and girl in photos. It takes something pretty powerful to keep young George quiet, I know, so Fr Paul must be getting something right. So, if anyone has anything interesting from their cry room, send the photos along!