St Benedict Makes the APOD

Check this link for Cosmas Damian Asam’s 1735 painting of St Benedict in Germany’s Weltenburg Abbey. The Baroque painter accurately depicts the corona of the sun which only appears during a total solar eclipse. Also depicted is the “diamond ring” effect when the sun peeks in between mountains or through valleys on the edge of the moon as seen from earth.

Here it’s imaged from the BBC:

 

Cathedrals of California

My friend Eric began a project a few months ago, Cathedrals of California, and it includes some remarkable photography from his collaborator, Francesco Curá. As I was cleaning up e-mails this morning, I found his missive, sadly neglected (sorry, Eric!) so I’ve added his site on the blogroll, too.

 

Religion and Art

The Australian blogger Peregrinus posts the first in a series of essays on the dual topic. Go to today’s post for a look at early Christian art–or the relative lack of it.

(T)ypical of early Christian art, Christ is portrayed as a contemporary figure. Another early image of Christ comes from the other end of the Roman empire, a third-century villa in Britain. It depicts Christ as a fashionably-dressed young man of the period; it is only the inscription which identifies him as Christ. Still other images from the period show him as a (pagan) Roman priest, complete with the wand which the pagan priests carried. Christ does not acquire a beard and long hair until these things come back into fashion among Christians.

Where Christ is not shown as a contemporary figure, he is shown as an archetype. For instance, there are many early images of Christ which show him as a shepherd. He was not, of course, a shepherd, but he often compared his role as Messiah to that of a shepherd, and this is what these images are referring to.

The early Christians were unconcerned with literalism. The purpose of early Christian art was catechetical in part.

(Early images) seek to tell us something about Christ — something which the artist, or the community that he comes from, wants to say; for example, that Christ is a wise teacher, that he fulfills the (priestly) role of speaking to God on our behalf, that he is the Good Shepherd.

Why don’t they just say these things? Well, no doubt they did, in preaching and teaching and writing. But it’s a universal human experience that there are many things that cannot be said easily, or effectively, or at all, in ordinary speech. That’s part of the reason why we have art, and music, and dance; they are all modes of communication.

…

(I)t’s pretty much a given that a lively Christianity is going to produce religious art. And that’s why we have all those millions of plaster reproductions of the Infant of Prague with the fingers chipped off, and Byrd’s Mass for Four Voices, and everything in between.

Any thoughts on the article?

 

Trent’s Architectural Heritage

Elizabeth Lev’s Zenit feature looks at the post-Trent building spree in Rome. She focuses on the Gesù, the mother church for the Society of Jesus. Visibility and audibility were important considerations for 16th century architects, and the Jesuits weren’t afraid of innovation appropriate to the day:

… (P)reaching became more important during this period. The Jesuits were instrumental in introducing greater emphasis on homilies and in the huge nave of the Gesù, there was space for hundreds to gather around the pulpit to hear their stirring preachers.

Cardinal Seán blogged on this church last Fall, and on the left, here’s one of his images of the pulpit. (Click his link for more pictures of the Gesù interior.)

In the more expansive shot below, you can see the pulpit halfway down the nave.

Rood screens, which separated the presbytery from the nave, were removed after Trent, to allow the congregation to see the altar and liturgy more clearly. The altar was raised up on steps and the sanctuary defined by a low rail. … For the Rome of 1585, the Gesù was a revolutionary structure while still respecting the tradition of the early Christian Church.

A form of participatio by observation resulted:

From the nave, the faithful saw the priest’s numerous gestures; 27 signs of the cross, five genuflections and most significantly, the raising of the Host amid incense and ringing bells.

The altar was a block of stone, resembling a tomb or sepulcher, vividly reminding the flock of Christ’s death and burial. …

With the same intensity of St. Ignatius’ spiritual exercises, the Tridentine churches and liturgies invoked all the senses, exhorting the faithful to ” love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).

 

The Embrace of Peter and Paul

I’ve been overlooking Elizabeth Lev’s classy essays on Zenit lately. Too much motu, I guess. Leap over to this piece covering the feast of Saints Peter and Paul:

(T)he basilicas of the two great martyrs are decked in all their finery. The freshly polished baldachin of St. Peter’s glistens, the marble floors of St. Paul‘s gleam, the bronze statue of St. Peter is adorned with a splendid tiara, ring and cope, and both churches are filled with fragrant red roses to symbolize and honor their martyrdoms.

But the origins of this grand feast day were in a far grimmer place. We find them, not in a glamorously festooned basilica, nor in a sunny piazza, but in the dark, dank, underground chamber of the Mamertine prison. The “carcer” or prison of Rome was a small underground cell, next door to the Senate building and described in 40 B.C. by Roman author Sallust as “12 feet deep, closed all around by strong walls and a stone vault. Its aspect is repugnant and fearsome from its neglect, darkness and stench.”

I don’t know about you, but reading this makes me yearn for an artist’s tour of the Eternal City.

To this day, the basilicas of St. Peter’s and St. Paul Outside the Walls face each other from opposite sides of the city watching over and protecting Rome in their embrace. Halfway between the two, the Mamertine prison lies hidden under the 16th-century church of St. Joseph of the Carpenters.

 

Paleo-Future

I stumbled across this blog several weeks ago. I’ve been meaning to pass it along to you: Paleo-Future, in which the author looks at how people envisioned the future (meaning today or thereabouts) from the past. Lots of illustrations plus speculation on the future organized into the decade of the source material.

Check out this hundred-year-old painting from Harry Grant Dart depicting a woman at the wheel of a flying machine.

Also posted this past week: future real estate depicted in 1953, General Motors’ 1962 car of the future, and a 1923 speculation that future work weeks would be a mere two hours in 2022.

Well worth bookmarking and visiting regularly.

 

Cardinal Egan, Iconoclast

Regular readers know I have less love for pragmatic economizers among the episcopacy (and other pastorates) than good traditional/conservative bishops who actually appreciate the spiritual side of religion. So this little news item caught my attention today.

Bishops like this we can do without … as the presbyterate of this diocese have so aptly told us.

 

Confection

Bloggers left and right are weighing in on a chocolate Jesus without a loincloth.

Recapping the latest in the clash of art and Catholic sensitivity, this exhibit was voluntarily shut down after much protesting.

I have to say that the combination of “two rights,” as the sculptor says, chocolate and the body of Christ, making a wrong does seem far-fetched. It could hardly be classified as “one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever.” I think you would need the matter of mortal sin for that. Hard to see it, especially given that a chocolate Jesus display was likely to bring worldly wealth of any substantial amount to sculptor or gallery.

And the timing? The catechism would seem to suggest a person’s motives are not open to malicious interpretation lacking any kind of clear intent from the people responsible. I think we can sniff at the timing and wonder. But nobody from Donohue’s camp seems to have even gotten to the question.

And the protests? Sensitivities may have been outraged by portrayals of religious symbols with human wastes, but it is also true that national funding for those ill-conceived displays was little more than a myth. It sounds a little like too-loud protesting to me. But it displays that Christians in the US lack no clout when it comes to PR and getting things the way they want it.

Poor persecuted American Christians? Please.

 

Getting Vestments

Fr Fox commented on the deep gold color of the pope’s vestments for a dedication of a parish church.

I have a friend who, sadly, lacks a web page, but who acts as sort of an independent merchant in vestments and similar items. He contacts me a few times a year when he’s near Kansas City and I keep my antennae up for clergy who might appreciate his work. He will confess that he can supply cloth for a local person to sew a chasuble or something, but I think he prefers to shop vestments his associates make. One of his colleagues developed a very satisfying way to transfer digital images to cloth. It was amazing. I couldn’t use it, but I was amazed.

If a priest wishes to explore beyond the standard fare in the catalogues and the leftovers from the previous pastor, my first recommendation is to find someone who can sew and tailor vestments. Such a consultant might assist the priest in the purchase of fabrics from secular sources. Vestment cloth does come from the same animal, vegetable, or non-living sources as regular clothing.

Next step would be to peruse the many styles of liturgical vesture. My wife testifies her mother could develop sewing patterns from looking at a garment. If you have such a person at hand in your parish, great. But vestment patterns are available if you know where to find them.

As an artist, I find the notion of commissioning an artist to design and execute vestments to be a happy one. I actively discourage my friends and foes from purchasing statuary from catalogues. why should liturgical clothing be any different?

And many of the high-end liturgical goods companies might be willing to custom-design and manufacture something of your choice. If you think you’re bound to the usual ecclesiastical shades of white, red, green, and violet … you’re not. But don’t try a gold vestment during Advent unless you’re dedicating a church.

 

“Istanbul’s Dazzling Jewel”

Elizabeth Lev’s thoughtful commentary on art and architecture is well worth a weekly visit to Zenit. This week, amongst commentary on a few other items, she writes a brief history of the Hagia Sophia, once the mother church of Christian Orthodoxy.

The design of Justinian’s church was a far cry from the Latin cross style prevalent in Rome. More centralized with a length of 250 feet for a width of 230 feet, Hagia Sophia was capped by a splendid dome about 100 feet in diameter, recalling Rome’s finest pagan edifice, the Pantheon. But Justinian took only the hemispherical dome symbolizing heaven from the ancient imperial tradition; the rest of church displayed Christian ideals.

Hagia Sophia, unlike the ancient Roman temples which were grandiose on the outside but empty within, was constructed to express the Christian sense of interiority. On the outside, half-domes huddle around the central cupola, gravitating toward, yet solidly supporting, the inner sanctum. Inside the church, dozens of windows pierce the walls, and light seems to dissolve the supporting structures.

The dome itself rests on a ring of 40 arched windows that look like a collar of scalloped lace. The effect is weightlessness — a place where the rules of gravity and of the physical world no longer apply and that heaven supports of its own will.

 

Cryptozoology Comes to Town

Sunday’s Kansas City Star reports on an art exhibit that will raise eyebrows, especially those of the blogosphere’s Irish Elk. Cryptozoology describes the scientific or pseudo-scientific fascination with extinct or imaginary animals. Here are a few bits from the Star:

“Cryptozoology” keeps the viewer perpetually off balance, refusing to draw distinctions between fact and fiction. Many of the featured animals are total inventions, but you’d never know it from the serious, scientific way the artists portray them.

Some of the best fakes come from Brazilian-born Walmor Correa, who uses the conventions of scientific illustration to give conviction to his large paintings of creatures such as the half-man, half anteater “Capelobo” and the mermaid “Ondina.”

It’s about more than paintings. Some items feature … what would you call it? Sculpture?

Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermy, whose members include Sarina Brewer and Robert Marbury. Brewer’s grimacing, fetuslike “Feejee Mermaid” and “Northwoods Chimera,” which looks like a three-headed turkey with the body of a cat, are created from dead animals, including roadkill and donations from veterinarians and museums. Marbury’s “Nardog”— imagine a sheepdog turned unicorn — is one of several fanciful critters made from stuffed rather than real animals.

A final query:

“Cryptozoology” poses a question: Could a renewed sense of nature’s wonder erode the domineering anthropocentrism that underlies our destructive, perhaps disastrous, relationship with the natural world?

 

Hopkins on Comets

– I am like a slip of comet,
Scarce worth discovery, in some corner seen
Bridging the slender difference of two stars,
Come out of space, or suddenly engender’d
By heady elements, for no man knows;
But when she sights the sun she grows and sizes
And spins her skirts out, while her central star
Shakes its cocooning mists; and so she comes
To fields of light; millions of travelling rays
Pierce her; she hangs upon the flame-cased sun,
And sucks the light as full as Gideons’s fleece:
But then her tether calls her; she falls off,
And as she dwindles shreds her smock of gold
Amidst the sistering planets, till she comes
To single Saturn, last and solitary;
And then goes out into the cavernous dark.
So I go out: my little sweet is done:
I have drawn heat from this contagious sun:
To not ungentle death now forth I run.

Found on Chet Raymo’s excellent Science Musings Blog.

 

In Every Flower, With Every Thorn

Joseph Plunkett’s poem comes to mind this day:

I see his blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of his eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.

I see his face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but his voice—and carven by his power
Rocks are his written words.

All pathways by his feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree.

Christ’s reach of salvation was not limited to a single aspect, unless one can consider his embrace of all humanity a single intention. The title of the oft-maligned seamless garment approach somewhat touches upon this: the notion that people can strive to make a coherent and cohesive stand in favor of life and against death across all the issues. That we might do so imperfectly, or with reservations does not deny the stance. That we might individually or collectively succeed or fail in taking up our crosses and following Christ is irrelevant to the truth of Good Friday. The Lord still calls us. We are urged on and given a great example. We stumble and fall, yet God is there to be our Simon, our Veronica, our Mary, our John.

Have a Blessed Triduum; see you on the road.

 

Liturgical Dance

Peace, all.

I have to admit I didn’t blink when I saw the leaked “reports” of the Vatican’s new liturgical document. Just too much to be believed, even in our current ecclesiastical climate. At the risk of getting sucked into a grand debate on girl altar servers, clapping, and Communion from the cup, I want to zero in on just liturgical dance, maybe leaving the rest for another day.

Not being a dancer (my sister does that here: http://www.dance22.org) let me lay my cards on the table. I admire dance as an artform. Growing up with a dancer in the family (even a sister) engenders an appreciation for it. I have friends who are active in various folk dancing groups. I find group dancing most enjoyable and wholesome. And I don’t have much bad to say about secular dancing … but then again I don’t frequent MTV’s Bump and Grind events. I prefer ballroom dancing and jazz.

What’s least likely to come out of Rome is a ban on liturgical dancing. Not only is this not how Romans operate, but it would just be silly and ineffective. Just ask the pope’s liturgist. I can imagine a restating of curial opinion that dance suggestive of the “profane” would not be appropriate for Mass. What then are the circumstances for an authentic expression of dance in the liturgy?

1. Dance should be regarded like music is. If the primary liturgical singer is the assembly, just connect the dancing dots from there.
2. Classical dance, like conservatory music, can be art for the skilled performers, and it usually is. I can envision some role for these in liturgy, but not a primary place.
3. I’ve seen solo (or group) dance performance done well. I’ve seen it done less well just for its own sake. Like music, a dance performance inserted for its own sake in the liturgy is a bad idea. And I see far more inappropriate performance music in liturgy than inappropriate dance. But this doesn’t mean music must be banned.
4. Dance belongs in the liturgy, and the best people to determine this are in the parish. Such a determination needs to be made with sensitivity and a sense of ministry.

People will occasionally fail to make good judgments in this regard. And poor experiences of liturgical dance may continue. But that is no reason to ban dance in churches. Thinking about music, it just doesn’t follow. Better for all would be to encourage dancers and raise the bar on our expectations, applying it across the board to all art forms.