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Nuit Blanche

May 12, 2011 Uncategorized Comments Off on Nuit Blanche 535

The old stories are always the best. From director and cinematographer Arev Manoukian.

Resurrection of a Painting – Part Two

April 21, 2011 Uncategorized Comments (1) 626

The painting of the Resurrection and accompanying thesis arose as a result of my reflection upon the chapter on “Art and Liturgy” in Cardinal Ratzinger’s book The Spirit of the Liturgy. Specifically, it is first a response to a statement that our Holy Father makes: “All sacred images are, without exception, in a certain sense images of the Resurrection, history read in light of the Resurrection.” Later, after a discussion of the theology of the icon he asks, “Is this theology of the icon, as developed in the East, true? Is it valid for us?

I investigated the development of early Christian art, when the Church was still unified, and studied the connections to theological and cultural developments. I researched the history of the icon in order to understand its context in the Eastern Church. From this arose the idea to combine the Orthodox and the Catholic traditions in one painting of the Resurrection, an image that could be a part of the liturgy in the same way an icon is, but one that uses the traditions and language of beauty developed by the Western masters of the past 1000 years.In my research I read many books and perused several others. Those which I found most interesting and useful were:

1. Alain Besançon, The Forbidden Image: An Intellectual History of Iconoclasm. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000. I highly recommend this book for anyone iterested in theological and philosophical influences on the development of art.

2. Paul Evidokimov, Art of Icon: A Theology of Beauty. Translated by Steven Bingham. Redondo Beach: Oakwood Publications, 1990. A beautiful (but rare and expensive) book on the meaning of the icon.

3. Michel Quenot., The Resurrection and the Icon. Crestwood: SVS Press, 1997. This is an excellent resource on the meaning of the Resurrection

4. Timothy Verdon, Il Catechismo della Carne. Siena: Cantagalli, 2009. Timothy Verdon’s books are an excellent resource. I do not know of anyone else writing art history from honestly Catholic perspective. Despite being American most of his work is in Italian.

The first image I drew was an idea that involved the design of the whole altar with the Resurrection painting as an altarpiece.

From this point I decided to work only on the altarpiece and developed a number of sketches.

Early Christian faith was anchored in Christ’s Resurrection. The actual episode of Christ’s Resurrection is not narrated in the Gospels, and for this reason we do not see it illustrated until much later in Christian art. Depictions of the Resurrection of Christ came to be represented by the descent of the Saviour into Hades. The theme of the Descent in Hell has it’s origins in the allegorical liberation images of the victorious Roman emperor who drew the defeated peoples toward him and in the god/hero of classical mythology who descends to the lower regions to bring back the dead. Called the Anastasis or Harrowing of Hell it is based on I Peter 3:18-20 and the Apostles’ Creed which states that Christ “descended into Hell” before his Resurrection.

For the early Church this came to be the icon of the Resurrection and continues to be so for the Orthodox Church today.

Hosios Loukas Phocis – Greece 11 Century

Gerdmars 2000

As the west shifted its spirituality to a focus on the cross, the old model of the Resurrection is seen less often. Pictures of the Anastasis degenerate into exercises in artistic imagination as the Resurrection seems to lose its intimate connection with the cross and an understanding of it as an essential part of our salvation. The Harrowing of Hell continued to show up every so often in the work of lesser known painters but in no image that contained the carnal force of the crucifixion or the spiritual power of the best representations in the east. The Resurrection came to be represented by Christ’s exit from the tomb and other Biblical scenes most notably the Supper at Emmaus and Doubting Thomas.

Piero della Francesca 1463

As I drew I searched for an image which would most able to combine the Eastern and Western concepts of the Resurrection. This is what I eventually came up with:

From this I developed a number of colour studies:

At this point I moved to working with models. Eventually I felt that this image was not iconic enough and so I developed this image, working with photographs and photoshop:

In part three I will outline the painting of this image and describe the interesting journey it has taken.

Godfathers of the Renaissance

March 5, 2011 Uncategorized Comments (2) 627

“Godfathers of the Renaissance” is an excellent PBS documentary on the Medici and Florence of the quatrocentro e cinquecento. You can watch it free on youtube.

A Small Splinter

March 1, 2011 Uncategorized Comments (1) 644

Painters take note. Any one of these would make a great painting.

Resurrection of a Painting

February 24, 2011 Uncategorized Comments (1) 564

The overview of Christian art history and the survey of Resurrection images presented over the last few entries was a way to prepare myself to create a sacred image of the Resurrection. My goal is to take the best of the Oriental and Occidental art traditions and combine them into one painting, producing an image of the Resurrection that contains carnal force and spiritual fullness. Over the course of my research, I discovered a number of interesting points useful towards this end:

-Developments in theology have always been followed by developments in art.

-The images of the dominant or secular world were always a source for Christian artists. The church has never been afraid to appropriate what it wanted and needed from the culture at large and invest it with Christian meaning.

-The Anastasis is the original icon/image of the Resurrection. This icon continues to be at the heart of the eastern icon and feast cycle. While the dominant image of the crucifixion in the Western Church implies the Resurrection, there is still a place for the Resurrection in a cycle of liturgical images.

-The work of Michelangelo represents the high point of the infusion of spiritual with the natural. Caravaggio fully expresses the carnality of Christ.

Today’s culture, no longer having an understanding of the cross needs to be spoken to with an explanation of its fullness. An expansion of the importance and clarity of liturgical art can do this. In this world of images, the right ordering of images can help to trigger a desire to understand more fully the heavenly realities. “Everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (Jn 6,40).

Theology, ancient texts and art history have all provided wonderful sources for my development of an image that would proudly continue the tradition of Catholic art. Specifically, Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body played a huge roll in my theological understanding of the body. But to feel like I was truly carrying on this tradition I imagined myself an artist working on the walls of the catacombs. I looked extensively at the culture around me and undertook an inventory of the best figurative art of today. A lifelong exposure to pop culture has been useful in developing my picture.

From comic book heroes

John Byrne

Alex Ross

to pop culture illustration

Drew Struzan

Michael Kormack

to contemporary figurative painting

Daniel Sprick

Shane Wolf

beautiful human figures litter the contemporary cultural landscape. Many of these interpretations of the human body have their origins in traditional art. It was an artistic tradition with Catholic origins.

My painting of the Resurrection of the Son of God, called Anastasis, is a Harrowing of Hell painted in the Western style, using modern reference and designed to be a part of a larger pictorial cycle within a church.

Below it is presented in situ at San Filipo Neri church in Florence, Italy.

In upcoming posts I will share how I developed this image.

Reflections of Glory

February 23, 2011 Uncategorized Comments Off on Reflections of Glory 616

Reflections of Glory is a very good short documentary about the development of Early Christian Art and how it lead to the icon.

Make a Fine Gesture (A Post of Few Words)

February 20, 2011 Uncategorized Comments (2) 611

Look at how Bougureau interprets gesture from the model (Notice he is not using sight size):

The original painting: Le Jour

Now go back and take a look at the model he was using.

To quote a former student, “Damn, he was good!”

Iconic Developments

February 13, 2011 Uncategorized Comments Off on Iconic Developments 671

The history of the icon is the history of a unified church, of both the Catholic and Orthodox artistic traditions. The Orthodox however, cannot make claims to the Catholic tradition that developed after the Great Schism. By remaining rooted in one region and era, the icon has a rather limited artistic expression. Continually repeating canonic formulas carries with itself a certain amount of monotony. It is because of this shortcoming, the icon is easily mass produced without loss in its internal qualities.

Despite the Orthodox insistence that the icon arose independent of any influences, it has its origins in Roman sculpture and Egyptian funerary painting combined with theological developments and local veneration traditions. The enormous amount of writing that has arisen around the icon tends to create a smokescreen insisting the viewer not take the image on face value but must bring with him a whole history of theology and encyclopedic rationalizations. The existence of such texts certainly does not guarantee validity. In order to qualify the icon we must put aside these rationalizations and place it aside western paintings to be appreciated and evaluated for what they are. The canonical models evident in the icon, elongated bodies, large eyes, small mouths, etc. are meant to represent spirituality and in the best models, they do. Fra Angelico, Michelangelo, Raphael, and many others employ similar artistic distortions to express the same concept. Certainly, both Monreale and the Sistine Chapel speak of a similar beauty. Icons are not great because of what is written about them. They are great when they are beautiful. Theological validity does not carry with it aesthetical validity.

From the 16th to 20th Centuries, while the West developed its own artistic tradition, the icon lost its appeal. Beginning in the seventeenth century, as the icon borrowed from Latin prototypes, it began to whither as a genre. In the 19th Century Russian academic artists use the artistic developments and forms of the Renaissance within the traditional arrangements of the iconic cycle. The beautiful integration that resulted is visible in two churches:

The Church of the Spilled Blood, 1883-1907 in St. Petersburg:

And the Cathedral of St Vladimir, 1862-1882 in Kyiv, Ukraine

The Russian artist Victor Vasnetsov worked on both churches but had a much greater roll in St. Vladimir’s. Below are some of his murals, which show the combination of the Eastern and Western sacred art traditions, that the art critic Vladimir Stasov labelled “a sacrilegious play with religious feelings of the Russian people.”

References:

Alain Besancon, The Forbidden Image: An Intellectual History of Iconoclasm.

TimothyVerdon, Il Catechismo della Carne.

Wikipedia

The Two Andreis

February 8, 2011 Uncategorized Comments Off on The Two Andreis 714

Andrei Rublev is considered one of the greatest icon painters and his Trinity, ca. 1410, is one of the most well known icons. This icon was painted in memory of St. Sergius, whose whole life was dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Andrei used to sit in front of the divine and venerable icons at the Monastery of the Holy Trinity and elevate his spirit to the immaterial and divine light. It was in this light that Andrei transmitted his icon.

In this icon we can distinguish three levels of reality/history. The first is the Biblical story of the three pilgrims to Abraham and Sarah (Gn 18: 1- 15) upon which this icon is based. The absence of Abraham and Sarah invites us to penetrate deeper into the icon passing into the second level, that of divine economy. The three heavenly pilgrims form the “Eternal Council”. The landscape changes meaning as well. The tent of Abraham becomes the temple-palace and the oak becomes the tree of life. The cosmos is represented by the cup.

The three angels with their wings and elongated bodies give the impression of being weightless. Inverse perspective abolishes distance and depth, bringing the figures to the fore and showing us God is everywhere. The third level, the intradivine, is hinted at. God is love himself, in his triune essence, and his love for the world is the reflection of his trinitarian love.1

The second Andrei, Tarkovsky, is one of the greatest film makers of the contemporary age.

“Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.” – Ingmar Bergman

The films of the great Russian film maker are now free to view on line. Included is his 1966 film of Andrei Rublev. Do yourself a favour and spend a couple of hours with this masterpiece.

1.Description of the Trinity icon taken from: The Art of the Icon: A Theology of Beauty, p 243 – 248

Sacred Art and Liturgy – Part Two

November 26, 2010 Uncategorized Comments (1) 718

The influence of Franciscan spirituality gave a renewed meaning to earthbound reality and triggered a major transformation in art history. Begining with Giotto, artists began to focus on created reality as a source for artistic inspiration. The artists that followed him in this development continued to paint the Resurrection, which was now imbued with a new significance as artistic developments came to be applied to old models. In the Scrovegni Chapel, Giotto’s inclusion of the sleeping soldiers in his Noli Me Tangere (above) is interesting as it suggests that Jesus has just exited the tomb. This image has its origins in the Rabbula Gospel mentioned in the last post.

The first image of the Resurrection as a “snapshot” of an actual event is in Pietro Lorenzetti’s Resurrection of 1320, followed a few years later by Ugolino di Nerio in his Santa Croce Altar piece of 1324.

Artistically influenced by Giotto, in these paintings Christ continues to be earthbound, his burial cloth hanging from his limbs as he steps up and out of his tomb. The soldiers sleeping at his feet inhabit the same realistic space. This particular scene, being non-scriptural, has been rejected in traditional Orthodox imagery. Yet, Jesus did exit from the tomb, it was an event that happened, and therefore within the canon of Occidental art it is perfectly acceptable.

Between 1300 and 1500, this new version of the Resurrection continues to be a dominant theme in the artistic oeuvre. Fra Angelico depicts the traditional themes of Resurrection in the developing western style. His Harrowing of Hell is a straightforward and rather uninteresting scene of Christ freeing Adam and others from Hades .

In Fra Angelico’s Christ Resurrected and the Maries at the Tomb, he includes the figure of Christ in a glorious mandorla hovering above the open sarcophagus.

Piero della Francesca takes Ugolino’s model and gives it new life. Piero’s figures have a very specific individuality and are set into a precise illusionistic space.

This depiction of the body of Christ, both strong and tender, exiting from his earthly tomb, becomes the model for Western artists’ depiction of the Lord for the next several hundred years.

Titian 1544

Tintoretto 1579

Cecco da Carravaggio 1619

Noyel Coypel 1700

Carl Bloch 1881

Tissot 1882

Artist and Educator