Choral Evensong and Symposium on Newman in Boston, October 9th

Featuring Peter Kreeft, Fr Peter Stravinskas and Dr William Fahey of Thomas More College of Liberal Arts. The Anglican Use Congregation of St. Athanasius and the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston will be sponsoring a symposium on the feast of Blessed John Henry Newman on Sunday, October 9, 2011 at 3 p.m. at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. There will be a series of well known speakers in the afternoon Peter Kreeft, Philip Crotty, Fr Peter Stravinskas and President of Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, William Fahey. There will be a reception and then Choral Evensong at 5pm. Choral Evensong is especially to be recommended for any who wish to see a model of beautiful and dignified liturgy in the vernacular.

We are incorporating Anglican chant into our liturgy at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts. Steve Cavanagh from the Anglican use congregation in Boston who is involved in the organisation of this event (and who runs a blog about the Anglican Use of the Roman Rite) visited Thomas More College over the summer. He taught us some of the fundamentals of this form of chant and gave us a fascinating talk about the development of Anglican chant (from the ancient Sarum psalter) and its preservation in the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge and the Royal Chapel at Windsor.

The speakers for the symposium are:

• Dr. Peter Kreeft on Newman as poet
• Dr. Philip Crotty on Newman as educator
• Dr. William Fahey on Newman as preacher
• Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas on Newman as convert.

The photo above is of the elevation of the chalice during Mass on the Feast of St. Joseph. Fr. Richard Bradford (of the Anglican Use Congregation of St Athanasius ), celebrant, assited by Fr. Peter Stravinskas and Deacon Michael Connolly. The photograph is taken from Steve Cavanagh's blog.

The Importance of Seeing Paintings in Context

I would like to draw readers' attention to a piece in The Catholic Herald written by Fr Anthony Symondson. He has reviewed the exhibition Devotion by Design which is at the National Gallery in London and which runs until October 2nd. The exhibition is unusual in that, commendably, altarpieces are displayed along with simulated altars so that visitors can get a feel for the setting in which they ought be placed. One of the pieces on display is Rogier van der Weyden's Exhumation of St Hubert, shown left. While the only way to get a full sense of the importance of context for such a piece is to see it in church while praying the liturgy, what the museum has done does at least indicate the intended purpose of the piece. It also makes the point that context of a painting is important and open our imaginations to what it might have been like originally. I am pleased to see a gallery thinking about this.

Good sacred art is painted so that it engages the person at precise moments in the liturgy and then directs their attention beyond the work of art to something greater – by for example making sure in the case of the reredos that there is sufficient contrast so that the host is visible when held aloft. This is something that artist should always be aware of. Even within a painting, one part in isolation looks different when viewed in relation to all the other parts. Artists are taught to consider the unified view. Once the form of a painting has been established – the basic shapes, tones and colours – then the so much of the final part of the process is subtle alteration using colour washes, glazes and scumbles so that each part speaks to the others in such way that the piece has unity.

Similarly, the artist must try to consider the wider context into which it is to be placed. Works look different when placed on dark or light backgrounds, or when there are other paintings around. Also and most importantly, the position relative to the liturgy must be considered.

Consider Caravaggio’s Calling of St Matthew. This is a great painting even when viewed in isolation, but the ideal position for this, I suggest, is in a side chapel on the left hand ie north side of the church, on an east wall so that at the point of elevation someone in the main body of the church could see both the painting, in the left hand side of their vision, and the elevated host. This would give the appearance that the source of light was the Blessed Sacrament itself - the Light calling St Matthew - thus reinforcing visually the fact that Christ is really present within it.

One of the wonders of nature for me is how each object can be beautiful and complete in itself, can also be a beautiful part of a wider landscape and, furthermore, contains within it beautiful parts in perfect relation to each other. We need only think of a rose: each petal within it is beautiful and placed so that together they form the flower; and then each bloom is placed in relation to the others, to the stems and leaves so that we have a beautiful rosebush.

When I take commissions I do my best to have this model in mind and consider carefully not just what the form of the painting itself, also where it will be placed and how it can be most beautiful in its final setting.

A Visit to a Garden in Connecticut Designed by Gertrude Jeckyll

The English garden designer who painted her ideas in plants, and thought like a 17th-century baroque artist.

I recently visited Glebe House, Woodbury, CT to see a small garden designed by the famous English garden designer and writer Gertrude Jeckyll.

Gertrude Jeckyll is an English garden designer whose long life spanned the turn of the last century. She often worked in conjunction with the architect Edwin Lutyens who was famous for his English country houses. Most of Jeckyll's gardens are in England but there were three in the US. This one has been restored, which for Jeckyll's gardens means planting as she planted as much as reproducing the shapes of the borders.

Jeckyll design principles are about harmony of colour and form through a proper understanding of beauty and a deep knowledge of her medium, plants. She studied art as a young woman and based her ideas of colour combinations upon what she learned and especially those of the artist William Turner. Luckily for us she also wrote beautifully about gardens and gardening. I am grateful to my friend Nancy Feeman who has been studying her work and her gardens for bringing Jeckyll's books to my notice.

I am just working my way through the first book, The Gardener's Essential Gertrude Jeckyll and it is a delight. She had a deep Christian faith and this is reflected in her approach to design which is that of the baroque painter, applied to gardening. So much so that her descriptions of the purpose of gardening (to bring glory to God and joy to mankind), the virtue of creating a beautiful garden to that end and the need for inspiration from the Creator in working towards it, remind me of passages that I have read from the book about baroque painting written by the great Spanish teacher of Velazquez in the 17th century, Francesco Pacheco. I would recommend every artist to read her. Especially those who wish to paint landscape.

Furthermore, her understanding of the relationships and hierarchy of God, man and nature is thoroughly Christian, and consistent with those that I wrote about in a previous article about gardening, here. I would suggest that Jeckyll should be read by all conservationists and ecologists as well in my opinion.

Glebe House is not a huge garden at all, and we saw in September when it was well past its peak. Nevertheless it was a pleasure to see (apart from the vicious biting insects!). There will be more about Gertrude Jeckyll in the coming months, but for now I will let her garden and her words speak for themselves:

‘The object of this book is to draw attention, however slightly and imperfectly, to the better ways of gardening, and to bring to bear upon the subject some consideration of that combination of common sense, sense of beauty and artistic knowledge that can make plain ground and growing things into a year-long succession of living pictures. Common sense I put first because it restrains from any sort of folly or sham or affectation. Sense of beauty is the gift from God, for which those who have received it in good measure can never be thankful enough. The nurturing of this gift through long years of study, observation and close application in any one of the ways in which fine art finds expression is the training of the artist’s brain, and heart and hand. The better a human mind is trained to the perception of beauty the more opportunities will it find of exercising this precious gift and the more directly will it be brought to bear upon even the very simplest matters of everyday life, and always to their bettering.’

'I am strongly for treating garden and wooded ground in a pictorial way, mainly with large effects, and in the second place with lesser beautiful incidents, and for so arranging plants and trees  and grassy spaces that they look happy and at home, and make no parade of conscious effort. I try for beauty and harmony everywhere, and especially for harmony of colour. A garden so treated gives the delightful feeling of repose, and refreshment, and purest enjoyment of beauty, that seems to my understanding to be the best fulfillment of its purpose; while to the diligent worker its happiness is like the offering of a hymn of praise.'

'And a garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust. “Paul planteth and Apollos watereth, but God giveth the increase.” [cf 1 Cor 3:6] The good gardener knows with absolute certainty that if he does his part, if he gives the labour, the love and every aid that his knowledge of his craft, experience of the conditions of his place, and exercise of his personal wit can work together to suggest, that so surely as he does this diligently and faithfully, so sure will God give the increase. Then with the honestly earned success comes the consciousness of encouragement to renewed effort, and, as it were, an echo of the gracious words, “Well done, good and faithfull servant.” [Mt 25:23]'

PS In case anyone is wondering, she is related to the Dr Jeckyll after whom Robert Louis Stephenson named the character in his book Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde. Dr Jeckyll was the good guy!

Floored by John Quincy Adams and his Wife's Quilt Patterns

Quilt Patterns Can be a Source of Inspiration for Patterned Art Today Earlier this year I visited the house in Massachusetts that was once lived in by the second President of the United States, John Adams and his son, the sixth President, John Quincy Adams.

I was interested to see the garden (described here) but having paid the entrance fee accepted the offer of a guided tour of the house. There is a separate library, built by the grandson, Charles Francis Adams. The tiled floor was interesting. It had a geometric design that look as though it was based upon Romanesque or gothic church floor designs. The floor looked was reminiscent of those I had seen in a Victorian churches and houses in England inspired by earlier gothic designs. As the tour guide described it had echoes of the medieval: he explained how there were deliberate deviations from strict repetition of the pattern, to highlight the fact that ‘only the work of God is perfect and the work of man is always imperfect’. This was straight out of a history textbook describing the working practices of monks illuminating manuscripts.

Where had the inspiration for this come from, I asked? I expected to be told that this was part of the American neo-gothic inspired first by figures such as Pugin in England. To my surprise I was told that the inspiration came from American quilt patterns. I had been told before (though hadn’t really bothered to investigate further) that what I was looking at was similar to many traditional quilt patterns. I don’t know much about the history of these quilt patterns, but it has occurred to me that just as with Islam, a protestant society that has iconoclastic instincts is going develops its artistic expression in geometric non-fugurative areas. So perhaps we have here another source inspiration for us in trying to reestablish geometric patterned art as part of the Catholic tradition. As with all these things, it should be done (with discernment - I wouldn't always retain the colour schemes used!) but there do seem to me to be possibilities here.

From the top: the Adams Stone Library, Massachusetts; the next five are quilt designs; and the final two are Pugin designed tiles based on gothic floor patterns.

St Barnabas, St Paul and St Thomas More on Cultivating Christian Joy, Even in Suffering: speaking to us through the Liturgy of Hours

 ‘Whatever experience comes your way, accept it as a blessing, in the certainty that nothing can happen without God’ Letter attributed to Barnabas, Ch 19 I am a convert. There are of course, many reasons that I became a Catholic, but an important one was the conviction that I would lead a happier life if I did. (I’m talking about this life, the here-and-now as much as the hereafter.)

One of the most influential figures in my conversion was a man called David who insisted that Christian joy  comes as a result of the personal choices we make and is open to anyone. He taught me also how to cultivate Christian joy. David, incidentally, is the same person who gave me the vocational guidance that I have referred to before, here, and which rests so much on an assumption that God wants us to be happy. I was prepared to listen to him because he genuinely seemed a joyful person to me; and this was despite the fact that he had a heart condition that meant he could not walk without a stick and had to rest to catch his breath every 50 yards. The example of joy in adversity was powerful.

I have been reminded of David and his lessons of over 20 years ago now recently through readings from the liturgy of the hours. The things that he said to me about the joy of the Catholic life seem to me to be echoed in three readings I noticed this summer. This reinforces the for me just how powerful the liturgy is in educating and forming the person.

There are a number of aspects to cultivating joy of course, but one powerful contributor was a simple meditation  called  ‘counting my blessings’. Each day, he suggested, I should write down the good things that have happened that day – a ‘Gratitude List’ - and then as part of my daily prayers, thank God for these gifts. He was insistent that actually writing them down was important.

When I first met him I was miserable and not grateful for very much at all. He wrote out my first Gratitude List for me, which at this stage consisted of things I ought to be grateful for rather than things that I actually felt grateful for. I remember him starting with the basic necessities: he asked me first if I had eaten that day, then he wrote down ‘food’; then he looked at me and noted that I was clothed, and wrote ‘clothes’ on the list. ‘Do you have somewhere to sleep tonight?’ he asked me. When I answered yes he wrote to down, ‘Bed to sleep in’; and then he asked, is this outside or indoors? He wrote down ‘roof over my head’. Then he paused: ‘You have affirmed to me that each item on this list is true. So  here you have written proof that this morning when you asked God to look after you today, he answered your prayer.’ He also told me that these things’ put me ahead’ of a significant proportion of the world’s population who didn’t know where their next meal was to come from. ‘Therefore,’ he said, ‘You really don’t have any good reason for complaining about your lot.’

This was over 20 years ago and since then, pretty much daily, I have been writing a gratitude list. To this list of necessities, I always add half a dozen or so ‘luxuries’: the things that I have received that a more than what need. So any through this I thank God as well for any other positives in the day, major or minor. Pretty soon, perhaps after about a month or so, I noticed that I genuinely felt grateful for these things. But the benefits went further than that. The result for me has been to reinforce the faith in a loving God who is actively looking after me. There has never been a day when I haven’t been given all that I need.

This does seem to leave gaps though. It’s one thing to appreciate the good things, but another to accept the bad things and still be happy. I have had to deal with many of the setbacks and disappointments that one would expect in an ordinary life. They way I deal with these is to remember something else that David told me. That if we assume that a loving God is working in my life and wants me to be happy, then I should remember that all that happens is either willed by God directly, or if it is bad, is permitted by God for good reason. (God, who is all goodness cannot be the author of something that is bad.) This means that if I could see the bigger picture then I would be able to see what this greater good was but because I am not able to I can have faith that there is a greater good nevertheless. Perhaps it is a lesson learnt for the good of my soul, or it is directing me down a path that will reap greater rewards later. In order to help cultivate gratitude for these bad things, David used to put them on his gratitude list too and praise God for them, on the grounds that even these must be permitted by a God who had his best interests at heart. I have adopted his habit and have found this powerful in helping to intensify a faith in a loving God.

This last point was reinforced by two quotations in the Liturgy recently.

From Office of Readings, Wednesday Week 18 of the Year, Letter attributed to Barnabus, Ch 19: ‘Whatever experience comes your way, accept it as a blessing, in the certainty that nothing can happen without God.’

From Lauds, Wed, Week II, Romans 8:35, 37: 'Nothing can come between us and the love of Christ, even if we are troubled or worried, or being persecuted, or lacking food or clothes, or being threatened or even attacked. These are the trials through which we triumph, by the power of him who loved us.'

Despite the success of this tool in my own life, it still doesn’t go far enough, I think. In many ways I have led a privileged life and haven’t had to face extreme suffering. This little technique might be good for the everyday ups and downs of everyday life, but does this idea apply to those who suffer torture, or who went through the Nazi concentration camps. This is where the study of the lives of the saints paid dividends for me. I studied the writing of saints who had been through such things and was struck by the joy they talk about even in such adversity. It seems that God’s grace really can overcome anything. I should state at the same time, I am very far from ready to volunteer for such suffering. However, the more I read passages such as the one that follows, the more it reinforces the idea that whatever the situation there is sufficient grace, if I cooperate, for me to overcome it.

From Office of Readings, June 22nd, a letter written by St Thomas More to his daughter Margaret from prison: 'Although I know well, Margaret, that because of my past wickedness I deserve to be abandoned by God, I cannot but trust in his merciful goodness. His grace has strengthened me until now and made me content to lose goods, land, and life as well, rather than to swear against my conscience. God’s grace has given the king a gracious frame of mind toward me, so that as yet he has taken from me nothing but my liberty. In doing this His Majesty has done me such great good with respect to spiritual profit that I trust that among all the great benefits he has heaped so abundantly upon me I count my imprisonment the very greatest. I cannot, therefore, mistrust the grace of God. Either he shall keep the king in that gracious frame of mind to continue to do me no harm, or else, if it be his pleasure that for my other sins I suffer in this case as I shall not deserve, then his grace shall give me the strength to bear it patiently, and perhaps even gladly.

By the merits of his bitter passion joined to mine and far surpassing in merit for me all that I can suffer myself, his bounteous goodness shall release me from the pains of purgatory and shall increase my reward in heaven besides.

I will not mistrust him, Meg, though I shall feel myself weakening and on the verge of being overcome with fear. I shall remember how Saint Peter at a blast of wind began to sink because of his lack of faith, and I shall do as he did: call upon Christ and pray to him for help. And then I trust he shall place his holy hand on me and in the stormy seas hold me up from drowning.

And if he permits me to play Saint Peter further and to fall to the ground and to swear and forswear, may God our Lord in his tender mercy keep me from this, and let me lose if it so happen, and never win thereby! Still, if this should happen, afterward I trust that in his goodness he will look on me with pity as he did upon Saint Peter, and make me stand up again and confess the truth of my conscience afresh and endure here the shame and harm of my own fault.

And finally, Margaret, I know this well: that without my fault he will not let me be lost. I shall, therefore, with good hope commit myself wholly to him. And if he permits me to perish for my faults, then I shall serve as praise for his justice. But in good faith, Meg, I trust that his tender pity shall keep my poor soul safe and make me commend his mercy.

And, therefore, my own good daughter, do not let your mind be troubled over anything that shall happen to me in this world. Nothing can come but what God wills. And I am very sure that whatever that be, however bad it may seem, it shall indeed be the best.'

Images: Nicolaes Berchem, St Paul and St Barnabas Preaching at Lystra, 17th century. St Paul, ancient wall painting; St Barnabus, Rembrandt, 17th century; St Thomas More, polychrome statue at St Thomas More parish, Pottsdown, Pennsylvania. Below: Hans Holbein' drawing of the More

Russian Geometric Patterns from the 19th Century

Last year I featured some wall paintings of the Trinity at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, in Moscow, left. This is a modern reconstruction of a 19^th century church and all the art from that time has been faithfully reproduced too (I hadn’t appreciated this until an NLM reader pointed it out to me!). As well as some striking naturalistic and iconographic art, there is some beautiful geometric and patterned art as well which I show here. This reminds me in some ways of the decoration one might see in an English 19^th century neo-gothic church designed by Pugin. Anyway, I hope that this will inspire those who are responsible for the interior decoration of our churches to consider geometric designs as an option.

Where Do Liturgy, Devotional Prayer and Meditation all Fit Together?

Shawn Tribe of the New Liturgical Movement writes about the relationship between Exposition and the Liturgy, (here). 

One of the great things about being a Catholic is how rich the traditions of prayer and worship are and just how much is on offer to us for our benefit. However, in some ways this can be daunting too. As a convert who found the idea of devotion to saints and angels a bit strange at first, I wondered what I was getting myself into. Just as I was starting to get used to one I would meet someone else with a different devotion who would passionately try to persuade me to take it on too. This came together in a picture of a dazzling, to the point of being blinding, array of prayers, devotions and practices - the Infant of Prague, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Sacred Head of Jesus (championed by Teresa Higginson, who is buried at St Winifred's Church in my home town of Neston, Cheshire), the rosary, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, the Liturgy of the Hours, novenas prayed at the drop of a hat that spanned nine hours, or nine days, or nine weeks... it just seemed to go on and on. There simply weren't enough hours in the day to adopt all of this even if I wanted to. How do I decide which to pick and what is most important?

Fortunately, I was directed to Church teaching on this and the ordering principle is the liturgy. In this regard, Shawn Tribe of the New Liturgical Movement has written an excellent article about the place of Exposition in relation to the Liturgy which I urge readers to take a look at. He is discussing just one of these devotions, but the principles he articulates can be applied to them all.

When I asked this question first, years ago, I was directed first to the Church's teaching on the liturgy in the Catechism and Sacrosanctum Concilium. In regard to Marian devotion, I later discovered an encyclical called Marialis Cultus, For the Right Ordering and Development of the Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

I took a number of points from these. First was to note that while a particular devotion might be characterised in people's minds by a particular devotional practice that is outside the liturgy - for example devotion to Mary and the rosary - this one practice might is usually not the only way of expressing devotion. Devotion to a saint, to cite an obvious example, can be expressed through the liturgy. The encyclical mentioned above, Marialis Cultus, talks at length about how the fullest devotion to Our Lady is expressed through observance of and participation in the feasts and seasons of the Church's liturgy.

Second is that traditional devotional prayers and practices although not liturgical are nevertheless good and desirable practices that always have their place in a well-balanced prayer life. I have been told that an error of some within the older liturgical movement of the first part of the 20th century was to try to get rid of these devotional practices in a desire to emphasize the importance of the liturgy. If so this was clearly a mistake. Certainly all the Catholics I have ever met whom I respect emphasise the importance of devotions in leading us to a proper liturgical piety. The Benedictines are devoted to the Opus Dei, the work of God, which is the praying of the liturgy. But the Rule of Benedict directs monks also to other practices such as lectio divina and compunction of the heart.

Third, while the sacred liturgy (that is the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours) is higher than any of them and contains a fuller expression of what the devotions point to, one should not interpret the raising of the liturgy to its proper position as an desire to diminish the importance of devotional prayers; and finally that many of the different aspects of prayer life including the meditative and the contemplative are accessible through liturgical practice.

The Church is clear of where the primacy lies. From Sacrosanctum Concilium: "...devotions should be so drawn up that they harmonize with the liturgical seasons, accord with the sacred liturgy, are in some fashion derived from it, and lead the people to it, since, in fact, the liturgy by its very nature far surpasses any of them."

Take note: derived from it, lead people to it, surpassed by it.

And of course, now I am part of all this a Catholic for many years now, I am there with everyone else, enthusiastically offering my personal devotions to others with the sincerity that comes from having experienced something genuinely good. So please dear reader, I urge you to adopt.....but most of let it be ordered to the sacred liturgy.

Should Theology Govern the Process of Painting as well as the Product

  Some say if the wrong method is used, it's not a real icon even if it looks right. I was first introduced to the medium of egg tempera through a teacher at an evening class in London (this was not an icon painting class). The teacher had noticed that I liked to draw and always wanted to paint faithful to a preparatory drawing. He thought that because tempera dries quickly and with a hard edge, that I might take to the medium. He suggested that I go and look at the medieval art in the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery and the Courtauld Gallery to see if I liked the look of it. He told me to look out for an artist called Lorenzo Monaco. This was long before I was a Christian, but nevertheless I was astounded by the beauty of what I saw in his work and the others that I saw, such as Duccio, and wanted therefore use their medium.

The problem was that this tube tempera paint bought from the art shop was very difficult to handle and my work didn’t seem to have the same beautiful bright finish of Lorenzo’s. My teacher suggested a get a book called the Practice of Tempera Painting by Daniel V Thompson and published by Dover. This was first published in the 1930s and was an 20^th century description of the methods that had, in turn, been described in an Italian art text book from perhaps the early 14^th century (the exact date is not known as far as I am aware). The book is Il libro dell’arte by Cennino Cennini.

Thompson’s book is one the best textbooks on artistic method I have ever read. Written in clear prose he deals not only with the methods of making and using the paint, but also the preparation of panels, gilding, and outlines the theory of artistic techniques such as glazes and scumbles. I just followed everything he described and it transformed my work.

Some time later, when I started to learn to paint icons, I brought this book along to my first class and to my surprise was told that it wasn’t relevant. Cennino Cennini, I was informed, used methods that were inconsistent with the theology of the icon. In particular, Cennini described a method in which once the drawing is transferred to the panel requires the production of a monochrome underpainting in ink – effectively painting what my laptop call a ‘grayscale’ image of the icon. Once the monochrome underpainting was created, thin glazes of coloured paint would be applied to produce the final painting. My first icon painting teacher told me that this method had developed in the West as religious images became degenerate and it was different from the method that she was going to show me. The genuine icon painting method, she told me, involved putting a darkest layer of colour down first and then gradually adding layers of lighter colour until you finish with the highlights. This process embodied the theological point that the Light overcomes the darkness.

I was happy to be told how to paint icons, so willingly abandoned Thompson and Cennini and adopted this newly introduced, theologically driven method.

I didn’t say anything at the time, but I never really understood how the theology of method could be quite so important. Surely (assuming it didn't require anything actually immoral) you could use whatever method was best in order to produce the final image? If the final product was consistent with the theology, seemed to me, then so was the method. In other words, if you couldn’t tell once the icon was done what method had been used, why did it matter? Does it really invalidate the icon if a different method is used?

This reaction was reinforced when I read about the theology of the image developed by St Theodore the Studite, the great Eastern Father who settled the iconoclastic period in the 9th century. Theodore was clear, in my reading of him, that two things made an image worthy of veneration: one was the incorporation of the characteristics of the person, and the other was the writing of the name on the image. He attached no importance to the method used to produce such worthy images.

Fifteen years after my first icon lesson, I received a phone call from a good friend who was an Orthodox icon painter. He told me that he had just read a book A History of Icon Painting in which a number of scientific studies of very early icons were described. It turns out that the earliest icons used the Cennini method after all. The method that starts with a dark layer and then moves to light is, in fact, the more recent one. From now on, my friend said, he was going to use the Cennini method; not because it was older, but because he found that by using it he produced better icons in less time.

What about this theology of light from dark? As far as I can work out this is a modern construct applied after the fact by those who re-established the icon painting tradition in the 20^th century. I am not aware of any traditional canon that stipulates this light-out-of-dark method as being preferential (I am open to hear of any, of course).

All of this serves to reinforce a basic point: that the artist can use whatever method he likes (other things being equal) if it allows him to produce the highest quality work at the end of it. This means that the process that produces the best end result is conforming to the theology of the image as this is the end to which it is directed.

Long before I heard about this recent development, I had thought about going back to the method that uses the monochrome underpainting. I do use it selectively now (where I feel the form needs reinforcing) and sometimes use it in classes that I teach as it can be easier to use when people are just learning to use the paint for the first time (I show some examples of a series of demonstration pieces I made for such a class). However, I find that the method I prefer, ironically and unlike my Orthodox friend, especially for flesh painting in my own work is the Eastern method!

Images from top: the Coronation of the Virgin, the Flight from Egypt; and the Nativity, all by Lorenzo Monaco.

Below these are demonstration pieces that I made to show how the different stages of icon painting using the Cennino Cennini method. The image is the Mandylion.

From right: a line drawing, in pencil, is done on paper. This is transferred to the wooden, gessoed panel and the lines painted in; then a monochrome image is painted. After this, bottom, layers of translucent colour are placed over to create the final image.

 

A Recommended Book for Young Children

Here is a book introducing young children both to an aspect of the Faith and to the artistic traditions of the Church. It is not an unusual idea - there are other books for children making use of the works of Old Masters. However, this one caught my eye because it uses exclusively the art of one artist, Fra Angelico, which gives the project greater cohesion than many. Also, I love Fra Angelico, so anything that introduces his art to children is worth looking at in my opinion. Bethlehem Books, the publisher, says that this is 'a first board book in a set on the Blessed Trinity. The aim of The Saving Name of God the Son is to help guide the child listener and adult reader into the mystery of the Son of God, Jesus Christ'

There are ten described events, including The Resurrection, below, and with the front cover this makes 11 reproductions. There are very few words, perhaps two or three short sentences per picture, but they are taken from Scripture or the Catechism and it has been put together so that it runs smoothly, simply and understandably. Given the source of the text and the quality of the reproductions, I can imagine that it is likely to give the grown-ups doing the reading a resource for some pictorial lectio. At the back are comprehensive details about each picture (name, location of original etc) and the sources for the accompanying text, plus scriptural readings and sections of the Catechism that reinforce the theological point being made.

To get more information or order The Saving Name of God the Son, go to Bethlehem Books website,  here. Bethlehem Book publish this as part of their Holy Child teaching curriculum and present many ideas about how to use this book with different age groups to maximise the enjoyment and the quality of the educational experience, here.

There is an additional exercise that I would encourage. If parents encourage their older children to copy these beautiful images as best they can then it will impress the style of this wonderful artist upon their souls in some way and, who knows, it might stimulate a future Fra Angelico to realise his or her vocation!

Antonio Begarelli, A Forgotten Master: by Matthew James Collins

This is the first in an occasional series written especially for The Way of Beauty blog by my former teacher (when I was learning the academic method in Florence) Matthew James Collins. He will highlight lesser known but nevertheless great artists of the baroque and High Renaissance period. Matt is an excellent artist himself and knows more about the baroque and High Renaissance methods and artists than anyone else I know. An American he has now settled in southern Italy and his writing reflects his deep knowledge of that country and its art, as well as special insights into the artistic methods of the time. If you check out his blog you will see he has just written about his painting of Jesus Carrying the Cross which is well worth reading too. The history of art is full of benchmarks of Genius.  They are signposts used to indicate periods and style.  They encompass ideology and the zenith of human achievement.  Their names conjure dreams: Giotto, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Bernini.  However, an overemphasis on their greatness risks to isolate them from their context

Art is a continuum where generations of artists and their accumulated knowledge that create an environment where Genius can blossom.  When we look more closely at the second masters, we find a lot of terrific artists. One of these is Antonio Begarelli.

When one thinks of life-size sculpture, the materials that come to mind are marble and bronze.  But it is important to remember that the humble terra-cotta has been an important medium for sculpture on the Italian peninsula since the time of the Greeks.  There are some really nice pieces in the collection of the Getty Villa in Malibu, such as these, right: Poet as Orpheus with Two Sirens, circa 350BC.

Begarelli was born in the Italian town of Modena in 1499.  Very little is known about  his childhood and absolutely nothing about his artistic formation.  Yet his work is absolutely wonderful.  His first major work was the Madonna di Piazza completed in 1522.

The next image is of his Madonna di Piazza, terracotta, h. 190cm.

In 1520 the city of Modena was planning to commission a sculpture of the Madonna for a niche located in the main piazza.  Begarelli, only 21 at the time, offered the above piece that was already completed.  Originally is was colored to look like marble. This was a common

Terracotta is a tricky medium and creating such large pieces is extremely difficult. The first step was to create an internal armature for the sculpture to be completed that would support the weight of the wet clay during the modeling process.  (as the clay is not able to support its own weight)  The sculpture was completed and allowed to dry until it was leather hard.  Afterwards it was sectioned off and removed from the armature and each piece hollowed out carefully to allow an even drying.  Once completely dry, all the pieces were strategically placed within a free flame kiln and cooked.  The pieces were then reassembled, joints stuccoed and imperfections corrected.

There are a lot of potential hazards along that path.  The industrialization of ceramic production has eliminated many of those risks.  Pre-19th century artists and craftsmen required a long apprenticeship to learn all the aspects of their particular trade.  Materials were not bought in an art supply shop, they were produced.  To make the clay different types were extracted from the ground, dried, and cleaned of impurities. Once reconstituted they were then kneaded together to differing proportions depending upon the required color and handling properties.

Kilns today are of either the gas or electric variety.  They are temperature controlled and whole process is programed and guided by a computer.  Before this innovation they were basically rooms heated up with fire.  The cooking process could last over 24 hours.  All this taken into account, it is quite amazing that Begarelli was able to produce such an accomplished work at such a young age.

His career took off from that point and he worked quite steadily until his death in 1565.  Since he did not travel much, to see his work properly one must travel to Modena.  Below are several images representative of his oeuvre.

Here are some more works by him:

San Giovanni Battista, terracotta, h. 38cm

Madonna col Bambino, terra-cotta, life-size

 

 Deposition of Christ from the Cross, terra-cotta, life size, Church of San Francesco, Modena

To learn a little more about Begarelli there is a Wikipedia entry,  here.

There is also a nice video on youtube that has some nice details of his work.  It can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTsN7pt3BIE

How Do We Revive the Gothic?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Help Us to Train Catholic Artists of the Future

As announced, we are again making a weekly day of training in the academic method of drawing available to Thomas More College students as part of the Way of Beauty program and the college's art guild of St Luke. Students participating in these programs are keen to develop their artistic skills  while integrating them with an understanding of Catholic principles in art.  This is a unique opportunity for young people and the students who take this chance will be our future Catholic artists.

Each semester, many students are struggling to pay the $350 per year to study at the Ingbretson Studios.  This is extremely good value given the time and quality of training they are getting but to  our students, who have to pay for it on top of their standard tuition, room, and board at the College for the liberal arts degree, it is still a lot of money.  The $350 is coming out of their own limited funds.

I do not want money to be a barrier in the formation of Catholic artists.  Especially when it’s only $350!  This is why I—for the very first time ever—am trying to raise a little money.  I would like to secure 10 student sponsors at $350 each.  That is ten more students getting world-class training in naturalistic drawing.   If we can raise $3,500, this will fully fund these scholarships for an entire 12 months.

You can become a sponsor by donating here.  Your gift is tax-deductible.

When you make your donation, you need not worry about indicating what your donation is supporting.  Nobody ever uses my donate button anyway, so I’ll assume any donation this week is in support of these scholarships.

If you are able to sponsor two aspiring artists, please do so.  If are unable to provide for a full scholarship, please consider gifts of $100, $50, $25, or even $10.

I do not like raising money, but because 100% of it is going to help these young Catholics develop their artistic skills, I felt that it was important to send out an appeal.  I will keep you updated on student developments at Ingbretson Studios throughout the year.

Thanks for your consideration.

Thomas More College links up with Internationally Known Atelier, Ingbretson Studios, Again

Thomas More College of Liberal Arts is pleased to announce that once again that undergraduates, the college's Guild of St Luke will be able to attend a weekly, day-long course in academic drawing at Ingbretson Studio, the internationally known studio of Paul Ingbretson in Manchester, New Hampshire. This is ideal for those want to go to college and get a Catholic formation, but don’t want to leave their art behind while they study. Thomas More College of Liberal Arts continues to be the one place where you can study both. This was a course run for the first time last semester and it was so successful that we are giving up to a dozen undergraduates the chance to learn this traditional method again. Through this they will receive a training that will give them a level of skill in drawing that is greater than many leaving a conventional art school after four years' study. The photographs shown are of the drawings produced by last year's students.

Paul Ingbretson is a modern Master of the Boston school and is one of those I mentioned who was given his training by Ives Gammell in the 1970s. He has been teaching ever since. His school has an international reputation (we were all well aware of it, for example, when we were studying in Florence). He teaches the rigorous 'academic method' of drawing which can be traced back to the methods of Leonardo da Vinci and was used by figures such as Velazquez and more recently, John Singer Sargent.

By coincidence Ingbretson Studios is just 10 minutes drive from the TMC campus. Those who have a strong enough interest will also have an opportunity to train full time for three solid months each summer if they wish to do so. This is part of the college art guild of St Luke in which students are able to learn also traditional iconography and sacred geometry.

I teach a course to all freshmen who attend the college called The Way of Beauty in which students learn in depth about Catholic culture, especially art and architecture, and its connection to the liturgy.

 

Two Hearts Beat as One - An 'Original Copy' of the Sacred Heart of Jesus!

The painting of the Sacred Heart shown is painted by the Virginia-based Catholic artist, Henry Wingate. The process by which it was commissioned and painted is worth recounting as it demonstrates a number of principles.  Last February I was contacted several months ago by John Fitzpatrick, a seminarian at the Kenrick Seminary in St Louis, who has seen me speak there a couple of months before. He wanted to know if I could recommend an artist who produce a painting based upon his favourite image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by the 19^th century Mexican artist Jose Maria Ibarraran y Ponce. I recommended that he contacted Henry and passed on the contact details.

I had forgotten all about this until Henry arrived to teach at the summer Way of Beauty Atelier at Thomas More College in New Hampshire, this summer. He had with him the finished piece of work., which was put on show at the college for the duration of the class.

He told me about how it had worked: he wanted to do the commission but was adamant that if at all possible he wanted to work from the original. After a bit of research he found out that the original was owned by David Pappas, a collector who lives in Minnesota. He loves the image and was very happy to make it available for copying. So Henry flew out to Minnesota and copied it there. I show some photographs of the work in progress, next to the original.

I spoke to Mr Pappas who was delighted to have met Henry and to have been helpful in the project. He told me that he enjoyed meeting Henry very much. He told me a little bit about the original. As far as he knows this is the only extant work or the artist, who was the director of Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City around the turn of the last century. It was commissioned by members of the Miller brewing family, who were Catholics and devoted to the Sacred Heart and completed in 1896.

In my opinion it is a wonderful painting (the original is shown right). Although from the 19^th century, it has a 17^th century feel. The restraint in the use of colour and his careful control of focus is typical of the earlier period (as many NLM readers will have heard me describe before). Also, he has played down the features of the face by putting them partially in shadow. This way he has avoided that look of a portrait of the boy next door in historical costume (which we see in so much 19^th-century and modern naturalistic sacred art).

This process emphasizes the importance of copying the works of Masters in the preservation and transmission of any tradition. Traditionally, the training of artists always included the copying (with understanding) of the works of Masters – Sargent for example, went to Madrid and copied every Velazquez he could see. This is not to devalue the end product. Just as the copying of icons allows for the creation of a new icon worthy of veneration, so Henry has created an work of art, itself worthy of veneration (once the name is placed on it, of course, in accordance with the theology of Theodore the Studite).

John Fitpatrick was delighted with the result: “I am very happy with the finished painting. I was interested in this project for reasons: I have a personal devotion to the Sacred Heart and this is my favourite image.  Ideally, the painting will hang somewhere in my living quarters when all's said and done, maybe even adorning an altar.  

“I'm also very glad to hear you're doing a piece on the commissioning process.” He told me. “I think clerics today--as well as laymen--don't realize that direct commissioning of an artist to create worthy art for sacred use is even possible and so it is good for this to be made known. I also think it's important to remember that it is through the commissioning of artists that all the great works of sacred art came about, but that they were not cheap; when commissioning artists, we have to be ready to bleed a little bit for the product.”  

High quality reproductions of the original are available from David Pappas at his gallery Strawberry Hill Ltd. Also, the original is for sale. Thomas More College of Liberal Arts is dedicated to the Sacred of Jesus and so if any readers feel inclined to buy it and donate it to the college, we would be happy to entertain approaches!

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Henry Wingate at work

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Public Lecture Series Scheduled for the Fall in New Hampshire

I have been invited to give a series of six public lectures through the Fall on traditional forms in art at the Exhibition Gallery of the Sharon Arts Centre in downtown Peterborough, New Hampshire. This is not a Catholic or even Christian organization, but reflects a growing (if perhaps not yet burgeoning) interest from secular circles in traditional art forms including Christian forms of art and this invitation is a hopeful sign. The first lecture is on Tuesday, September 6^th at 7:15pm at the gallery space which is at 30 Grove Street in Peterborough, New Hampshire. They take place semi-monthly in September, October and November 2011. In this series I will not only discuss the form of the Christian traditions of geometric, iconographic, gothic and baroque forms. There will be lectures also, towards the end of the series on how non-Christian art such as Islamic, Hindu and Taoist art and even non-religious 20^thcentury modern art reflects their respective worldviews. This is a distilled from my course, the Way of Beauty that is taught as part of the core curriculum at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in Merrimack, NH

There will be time after each lecture for some discussion and for socialising.

For more details see here or the Upcoming Events page on this blog.

Caravaggio and His Followers - An Exhibition in Ottowa

Thanks go to a reader who told me about an exhibition of the works of Caravaggio and his followers taking place at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. It's too far away from where I live me to get to it, but it seemed such an interesting theme that I felt compelled to write about it anyway! It acknowledges the influence that this great artist had on the art of the Catholic Counter Reformation. Also, the lists of artists featured gives many familiar names but some not so familiar (ie some I hadn't heard of!) whose work is high quality and this represented a fruitful new seam of interest to me to mine. Working at the period around the beginning of the 17^th century, Caravaggio is often credited as the artist whose work marks the beginning of the baroque period. He developed the visual language of light and dark that characterizes the baroque period by imbuing with a spiritual significance. He also became the figurehead of the more naturalistic stream of artists of the 17^th century baroque, who emphasised very strongly painting what is seen directly onto the canvas. He stood against a group that saw themselves as drawing on classical themes more strongly, with Annibale Caracci as their talisman. Caracci and the classisists, who would later include figures such as Poussin, looked to the work of Raphael and had a more widely coloured and polished feel in their work. Compositionally the work of the more naturalistic group used often depicted figures in contemporary clothes, whereas the classicist stream (and here I characterise the extremes) tended to paint everything as though it was a scene out of ancient Rome. Their methods differed slightly too. Although both emphasised observation from nature very strongly, Caravaggio would paint directly onto the canvas from models, while Carracci would happily base his compositions on drawings and studies of models.

What is interesting is how many artists are listed as being ‘followers’ of Caravaggio. Many would be considered artists in their own right – Ribera, George de la Tour. These would not normally be considered followers in the sense of being in a Caravaggio school, but given that a crucial part of the training of all artists was the copying of masters, I’m guessing that at the very least, they will have copied Caravaggio’s work at some stage at the very least, and this is the reason for their inclusion. The National Gallery acknowledges this broader focus, saying that works are ‘by painters who had direct knowledge of his work, as well as those who were active in Rome during his lifetime and in the first few decades after his death.’ I think that it is all the more interesting for this.

Rubens is another example of one of these artists who would not be classified as a follower of Caravaggio in the usual sense of the word, but is worthy of consideration here. We know from his writings that he was very careful about which Masters he copied as he felt it would influence strongly the taste of the artist. For example, he implored artists not just draw casts for practice, but to consider carefully which casts they drew and only pick the most beautiful because this would influence the work they produced, which is never solely a reproduction of what is seen.

The commentary of this exhibition tells us that even Caravaggio modified what he saw to some degree: ‘He painted directly from live models posed before him in the studio, studying how the light fell over them, and observing the different textures and surfaces. He then transformed what he saw before him with his own distinct artistic vision. As one of his patrons once said his works were “painted partly from observation of reality, partly from his imagination.”’

The imagination is molded by the art we copy, hence Rubens’s concern.

The artists whose works are shown in the exhibition include many that are not household names, and not all sacred art. However, the style is all derived from that which developed as part of the sacred art and speaks of the power of Catholic culture at the time. The images shown here are works of sacred art by some of the lesser names of the exhibition. They are paintings that caught my eye as I was doing my own research and are not necessarily in the exhibition itself.

Above, right: Simon Vouet, the Fortune Teller

Triphome Bigot, St Sebastien

Nicolas Regnier, St Matthew

Lionel Spinada, St Jerome

Gerrit van Honthorst, St Joseph in his Workshop

More Details of the Discernment Process of the Catherine of Siena

By Fr Michael Fones OP When I wrote last month, here, about the Catherine of Siena Institute and their process of discernment, Fr Michael Fones of the Institute contacted me with further information about their program. He posted it as a comment on the original, which you can read here. To summarise the first article: I described their process of examination of the past to discern if there might be special gifts that we have that indicate a charism. He wished to add more detail, about a refinement once the process of discernment once possible charims have first been first identified. I am very happy to bring this to the attention of Way of Beauty readers' attention by posting it more prominently here: "I’d like to add to your description of the discernment process, which you described in this way in the 7th paragraph: “The Catherine of Siena process of discerning charisms (and you can have more than one) involves a guided examination of one’s past experience for signs of the workings of a charism.”

While that’s true, it’s only part of the process. We recommend that after going through a workshop (either a live workshop or from a CD made of one taught by Fr. Sweeney and Sherry Weddell), an individual have an interview, as you did with me, and then select a charism for which there’s some evidence in one’s life, actively put one’s self in a situation where that charism may be called forth, and then examine the results. This would include the subjective results you mentioned – a sense of being energized during the activity, a sense of closeness to God or prayerfulness; as well as the objective results – what actually happened, and what kind of feedback from others did you receive.

So, for example, if there’s some evidence I may have a charism of teaching, I can “test” for that charism by trying to teach someone *something* – like chemistry, or how to kick a soccer ball, for example. How did I feel while I was teaching? Did the individual learn? What kind of feedback did I receive?

This is an important distinction – the active “testing” of the Holy Spirit’s working through me or not. Because if I’ve recently gone through a conversion, or just been baptized (when the charisms are given), there may well be nothing to examine in my past! This is because the charisms manifest when several important conditions have been met: 1) my faith becomes personal [and although they are given infallibly at baptism they may well not "activate" until I choose to follow Christ; the charisms are for others, and if my life is only about me... well, I'm basically telling God that He can't use me as His instrument]; 2) when I meet the persons or situations for which I have received the gift(s)"

Some Thoughts on How Criticism Might be the Basis of Constructive Dialogue

I wrote this article in response to some comments and criticism of works of art made by readers on another blog after my earlier article on the work of the Spanish artist Kiko; many of my remarks about the tone of the commentators does not apply to thewayofbeauty.org readers, who are always generous in spirit even when being critical. However, I thought that some of the points about the basis of criticism might be of interest to you, so I reproduce it here... It seems to be an aspect of human nature that criticism flows more easily than praise, and this is never more apparent in the comments at the bottom of blogs! However, some subjects particularly seem to attract the concern of readers and whenever I feature art that draws on the iconographic prototype but deviates from Russian or Greek variants, I always hold my breath. I know it will attract a hail of criticism from people who worry that it does not conform to what they believe to be the standard for all sacred art. Criticism and differing opinions are not bad things in themselves. After all, we are trying to re-establish a culture of beauty in the West and beauty by its very nature it is difficult to pin down precisely. One should expect differing reactions and ideas of what is good. So please, let’s have them. However, I would like to make some points about the nature and tone of some of the criticisms made. First, a request: if you are stating opinions, please do so in the spirit that concedes that others may have other perfectly valid opinions. Like email, blog comments seem to be a forum in which it is difficult not to express things abruptly and so appear rude. It’s not always easy I know, to make sure that what we write has a gentle manner. I would ask us all to try. Aside from discouraging the more timid to respond, for fear of getting more of the same thrown back at them, my concern here is for any contemporary artists whose work I am portraying. Artists must expect criticism of their work, but they should not have to put up with rudeness. Sometimes in embarrassment, I have had felt compelled to contact the artists to them for tone of the comments. If you can explain why you think as you do, that would be helpful, especially if you don’t like something. If you do not, then what you are giving us is just a subjective opinion. I am not suggesting that we always have to justify our opinions. After all, we’re not always sure ourselves why like or don’t like something. But if they are opinions, let’s make it clear that this is all they are rather than presenting them as indisputable truths. For example, one work of art was dismissed brusquely ‘pseudo-Byzantine fluff’. Without explanation this amounts to little more than the equivalent of blowing a raspberry at the artist (albeit elegantly articulated). The writer could have stated in addition: how the art in question deviated from the iconographic prototype (which I am assuming is what he was referring to by using the word Byzantine); why he felt that it was wrong to deviate from the iconographic prototype at all (this is not a given); and also, what does he mean by fluff – if he is saying that it is superficial and lacking in meaning? If so what is lacking? Is it possible to characterize why? Otherwise, 'I don't like his work' says it far more accurately; and less rudely. There are recurring themes on the New Liturgical Movement comments section seem to indicate assumptions about what Catholic art should be that I feel are not correct. I make the following points in respect of these:

1. The iconographic prototype: I am referring here to the art of eschatological man, the form that portrays mankind redeemed and in the heavenly state. The icon is not the only legitimate form of liturgical art and there is no basis for saying that as a form it is superior to any other tradition of liturgical art. And Catholics are not bound by the iconographic form. Therefore, it is simply not a valid criticism in itself to say only that it deviates from the iconographic prototype. If you are going to say this, say how and say why this is problematic. Furthermore, the analysis of the stylistic features of the tradition and the theological explanations for them as we most commonly hear about today didn’t happen until people started to re-establish the form in the Eastern Church in the 20^th century. This analysis is still developing. For example, I was taught certain painting methods used in Italy were never used in icons because they contravened the theology that I was told was the foundation of the Eastern method. Subsequently X-ray analysis has demonstrated that this 'Western' method was used in early Eastern icons and might well be the older method of the two. This caused a revision of the statement of allowable methods, and the theology amongst the people who originally taught me. Catholics especially should be aware that this modern analysis of icongraphic form, though largely very helpful and important, is a work in progress and can sometimes reflect the narrow focus of the predominantly Orthodox who developed it. I have spoken to many people emerge from icon painting classes with the mistaken impression that anything that differs from the form they studied (most commonly Russian and or Greek) is not an icon and not true liturgical art. This is a prejudiced view that doesn’t take into account that there are many other forms, including Western forms, that are consistent with the iconographic prototype; and that the Western artistic tradition is richer, in the sense that it includes the icon but has in addition other authentic liturgical forms that not iconographic. Archeologism: the comments of some seem to stem from an assumption that culture existed in a perfect form at some point in the past and that the work of man over time has caused it to degenerate. The main concern for those who believe this, therefore, is a strict conformity to the past glorious (sometimes arbitrarily assigned) age. Working from tradition, in contrast, is more nuanced. It respects the past and does not seek change without good reason, but always seeks to understand why something was done in a particular way. It accepts that sometimes we must develop and reapply the core principles in response to contemporary challenges or if there is a need to communicate something new. Sometimes this development will be so great that a new tradition is established. The gothic is an example of this. It developed out of the Romanesque, which is an iconographic form, and became a distinct tradition in its own right that presented a different aspect of man. Dealing with imperfection: even if something is partially wrong or in error or even just disliked, it doesn’t mean that we can’t learn something from it. Christian art has always drawn from non-Christian art forms. It has been able to do so in the past because it does have some objective criteria which it can apply in order to discern what is good and what is bad. So for example, you see the first Christian art it developed from the late classical form. Some of the styles and subject matter remained unchanged, some were rejected (for example the nude), and then some features were added that were uniquely Christian. Readers will know that I am very interested in the re-establishment geometric patterned art tradition. Islamic art is likely to be one place that we look to in order to invigorate the Christian tradition today. As a general principle, given that we are in a process of re-establishing a culture of beauty, I would generally advocate a conservative approach to what goes in our churches at the moment. However, in the context of this forum, I am always interest to look at work by Christian artists that draws on these traditions even if it steps outside the bounds of what would be ideal for the liturgy. Flexibility and adaptability underpinned by good discernment is the source of richness and vigour in Christian culture. To come back to the gothic again. At some point an artist will have added shadow to the painting and although this had not been seen before, some who saw it will have had the confidence to say that although this is new and does not conform to the existing tradition, it is good nevertheless. No doubt along the way there were innovations and experiments that were rejected as a whole, but nonetheless contributed something to what eventually became an acceptable variant. To this illustrate this piece I have given below some that probably fall into the last category. A reader recently brought the work of the Russian artist Viktor Vasnetsov to my attention. He worked in the period around the turn of the last century and died in 1926 and his work is typical of much Russian sacred art of this period. This is a late 19^th century naturalistic/iconographic hybrid and is neither baroque nor the style of Russian iconography (it makes me think of an Eastern version of the Pre Raphaelites with its highly coloured, hard-edged forms). I probably wouldn't commission such a work today but I would be a lot happier walking into a church adorned with his art, as shown below, than the vast majority built since the war. There is enough here, I would suggest, for us to benefit from looking at it. When these hybrid styles always look better when painted in fresco, rather than oil, I always feel. Fresco is a medium which tends to look flatter and less sensuous than oil and so naturally diminishes some of the excesses of a naturalistic style.

An Account and Pictures from the Way of Beauty Summer Atelier

The Way of Beauty Atelier has completed the two-week workshops in both naturalistic drawing and icon painting It was a great experience for me. What was so pleasing for me was the number of people who came who are making a serious commitment to becoming artists and in one case an architect who will serve the Church and who are rooted in her traditions. I show pictures of the classes and their work below. In response to requests from a number of these students, we are already planning a series of events through the year and also the possibility of longer, perhaps six-week, residencies at the Way of Beauty Atelier for more experienced students who will work on individual projects and receive personal direction and critiques. I can't wait to see it happen. Some pictures are below. I would encourage readers to read a very interesting and fuller account by artist Gwyneth Holsten, who attended the naturalistic drawing workshop this summer and posted it on her blog. Some of the photographs used are from her blog posting. There are still spaces on the one remaining class in the Way of Beauty summer series, our retreat in creativity and inspiration, see here. This is a long-weekend even starting on August 4th and presents the methods that artists used traditionally to develop creativity and an openness to inspiration. As such it will be of interest to anyone who wishes to be creative in any field, not just art. We will include some lectures on the artistic traditions of the church to demonstrate the principles that we are seeking to communicate. So it will be of interest to art lovers as well.

Beauty and the Renewal of Catholic Culture by New Liturgical Movement's Fr Thomas Kocik

The following is short opening address given at a symposium of working Catholic artists that recently took place at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts. It is a message of great hope for the future of Catholic culture.

Father Thomas Kocik, contributor to the New Liturgical Movement web site and former editor of Antiphon, the journal of the Society for Catholic Liturgy, chaired the discussion.  He is a priest in the diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts. In his talk he tackled the subject right at the heart of any discussion about the re-establishment of culture. As he pointed out, the word "culture" derives from the Latin cultus, meaning what we cherish or worship.  Christian culture is thus centered on Christ, the incarnate beauty of God.  The "source and summit of the Christian life," (Lumen Gentium, #11) and therefore of Christian culture, is the Liturgy: Holy Mass, the sacraments, the different Hours of prayer that sanctify the entire day.  In liturgical prayer, art and culture—indeed all human activity— finds true meaning; for at the center of the Liturgy is Christ, the source and summit of all human hope.

The full text of his talk follows here:

'The Second Vatican Council described the Sacred Liturgy as “the summit towards which the activity of the Church is directed” and “at the same time” as “the fount from which all her power flows” (SC 10).

All the power of the Church flows from the Sacred Liturgy: from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the sacraments, and the unceasing round of liturgical prayer offered each day by the Church. If one does not nourish himself from this power source at least at Sunday Mass and through regular confession, the  life of grace given him at Baptism will wither. He will risk spiritual death.

The Sacred Liturgy is the summit towards which all Christian activity — everything! — is directed. All human activity: political life, family life, social life, labor, leisure, the arts, acts of charity and compassion, even our struggles and suffering, find true meaning and fulfillment when they are offered to God and united with the sacrifice of Christ, the sacrifice of the Mass.

This, then, is why we are obliged (for our own good) to gather for liturgical prayer: to offer all aspects of our lives to God and to receive from Him all that we need to persevere in joyful service of God and our neighbor.

Now while Sunday Mass is a minimum, I would suggest that a Christian life, that any culture, that is not permeated by prayer is deficient. Another word for worship is “cult” and it is no coincidence that the word gives rise to the word “culture.” In a sense, our culture is an expression of what we worship – think of any so-called “cult figure.” And so, Christian culture is a culture in which Christ is adored, praised, loved, and worshiped.

Although it may only be possible to participate in the Sacred Liturgy once a week, we can nevertheless keep our spirit of worship alive through prayer. Some do this by praying parts of the Liturgy of the Hours, and there could be no better prayer for daily use. Others do so with prayers such as the Angelus, which raises the mind and heart to God at morning, noon, and night. There are many other ways of so doing. The point is that it is done: that, like the farmer in Millet’s famous painting L’Angelus, amidst the duties and distractions that our different states in life present, we stop and we pray. When we do that, we will have done one more thing that helps bring about a restoration of Christian culture, in ourselves and in our society.

It is very easy for us to lament the loss of Christian culture and to be weighed down by the secularism all around us, and from which at times even the Church is not immune. But we must not forget who we are: we are Christians; we have been given the gift of God the Holy Spirit through our Baptism and Confirmation. We are a people constituted by faith, hope, and charity. Yes, our times present their challenges, but what times have not presented challenges? Christian culture was slowly built up over centuries from the foundation of the faith and witness of mere handfuls of individuals who personally encountered the Risen Christ and who gave their all in proclaiming Him as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Perhaps we have lost much in recent decades; but our task is not to lament. It is to believe, to hope, to pray and to work with integrity for a renewal of all things in Christ. If the Apostles and early disciples could lay the foundations for Christian culture, so can we. For they, too, had to deal with an overwhelmingly hostile culture that did not know Christ. They too, in confessing a relationship with the person of Jesus Christ, were met with skepticism and, at times, violent hostility. And yet, with God’s help, they changed the course of history and influenced the cultures of countless peoples.

Let us therefore prefer nothing to the opus Dei, the work of God, the Sacred Liturgy. And let us ever be confident in what good following this precept can yield.'