Quick Takes: all medieval edition

There have been lots of interesting Medieval-related items in the news lately, or at least the art and history news, so I’ve gathered them together for this week’s Quick Takes.

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                    The Bentivoglio bible, c. 1270, The Walters Museum - source

The Walters Museum in Baltimore is home to an extensive collection of medieval manuscripts.  Thanks to a series of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Walters is in the midst of digitizing its rare manuscripts:

Medieval manuscripts are unique historical documents as well as works of art, and the museum’s collection includes both little-known treasures and well-known examples such as the Beaupré Antiphonal, which was made for the Cistercian convent of Beaupré in 1290 and which, as the earliest extant large-format choir book from Northern Europe, is central to the history of music.

Digitizing these rare works requires advanced technologies and preservation expertise.  The Walters Art Museum has developed an in-house process to prepare the original manuscripts, photograph them, and archive the final digital images.  You can learn more about these activities in the video above.

The museum’s Islamic collection was the first to be digitized.  Consisting of 53,000 folios, it is distinguished for its illuminated manuscripts of the Koran as well as illustrated volumes of Persian poetry that date from the ninth to the 19th century. The collection represents all major cultures and languages of the traditional Islamic world (Arabic, Persian and Turkish).

A second NEH-funded project digitized 105 manuscripts from Armenian, Byzantine, Dutch, English, central European and Ethiopian Christian cultures.

The third and current project is digitizing 112 Flemish manuscripts from northeastern France and Belgium dating from the 13th to the 16th centuries, with particular attention to 80 Books of Hours, personal devotional compilations that contain texts and images tailor-made to reflect the interests and preoccupations of their patrons. - source

more, including an informative video, on the NEH site

-  see the digital images at thedigitalwalters.org.  The images can be used for any purpose without permission

In addition to digitizing its collection of medieval manuscripts (thanks to  grants such as from the NEH) the Walters Museum is collaborating with Stanford University to hlep maintain the digital files:

More than 100,000 high-resolution images of unique medieval manuscripts will have a second home, thanks to a new agreement between the Walters Art Museum and Stanford University Libraries.

The Walters’ holdings of 850 medieval illuminated manuscripts and 150 single leaves, ranging in date from the ninth to the 19th century, are one of the most significant medieval collections in North America.

About two-thirds of the manuscript page images are already online through the Walters’ website – but the new home at the Stanford Digital Repository will add two important advantages: Stanford will give a long-term protection against file loss or corruption, and it will also provide digital handling tools that allow scholars to analyze the manuscripts and compare them with manuscripts elsewhere. The original manuscripts remain at the Walters Museum.

The digital tools will include a transcription tool, a side-by-side viewing tool, indices and other such apps. Stanford University Libraries offers access to the entire collection through its online catalog, SearchWorks.

William Noel, until recently curator of manuscripts and rare books at the museum and now at the University of Pennsylvania, was instrumental in launching the collaboration. Calling the Stanford investment “visionary,” he praised “its recognition that openly licensed, high-quality digital resources can be assets, not just for the institution that makes them, but for any institution that curates them.” - source

-  Read the whole article on the medievalists’ site, complete with lots of information about the Walters’ holdings and Stanford’s commitment to medieval history.

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Here’s a recent youtube video called “Were the Dark Ages Dark?.”  According to the video’s description:

There is no period in history more misunderstood than the Middle Ages. Providence College Professor of English, Anthony Esolen, vividly demonstrates why the “Dark Ages” would be better described as the “Brilliant Ages.”

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cross section of the soil in the Vik farm excavation in Norway - source

Archaeologists exploring the Vik farm in Norway, a large documented farm from the middle ages, have discovered a 1200-year old coin from Charlemagne’s reign - the oldest coin ever found in Norway.  The researchers can date the find from 768-793.  The farm is located not far from Trondheim, an important medieval pilgrimage destination.

The coin reads CAR LVS (Carolus) split in two lines on the front, and has Rx.F on the reverse. The Rx.F is short for Rex Francorum, the King of the Franks.

The Vikings conducted extensive raids in Frankish areas during the ninth century. In addition to looting, they held people and towns for ransom. Researchers have assumed that the reason for the relatively few coin finds in Scandinavia is that they were melted.

Most of the coins that survive were used as jewellery, usually marked with a hole or a loop for hanging.

This coin does not have any of these features, but it seems that the coin might have been gilded.  Gilding might suggest it was used for jewellery, but the Museum will have to conduct further investigations to determine certainly whether or not it was ever gilded.

“One might speculate as to how and why this coin ended up at the Vik farm in Trøndelag. The find shows very clearly that this was a great farm with international contacts,” Grønnesby says. -source

read the whole article on Science Nordic

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                                                       the Motte at Lincoln Castle   - source

William the Conqueror’s 11th century Lincoln Castle is undergoing some extensive renovation, in part to make it handicap accessible, and in the process of excavating for an elevator shaft, archaeologists have discovered evidence of a 10th century church:

A total of eight skeletons have been found thus far, all buried in the east-west alignment that is typical of Christian burials. The remains of walls and flooring suggest this was a religious structure in which people of high status would be buried rather than a cemetery. Pottery found at the same level dates to the 10th century, which means the church and burials are around a century older than Lincoln Castle, which was one of the first castles built in England by William the Conqueror in 1068.

The spot 10 feet under ground level was being surveyed before construction of an elevator shaft when archaeologists encountered multiple skeletons and two stone walls. Further excavation in the small space — it’s approximately 10 by 10 feet — revealed another skeleton which had once been wrapped in a finely woven fabric buried in a niche in the foundations of the oldest wall. The textile has long since disintegrated, but the imprint of it is still visible in the wall’s mortar. This unusual burial within a wall suggests the remains may be the relics of a saint or august venerated personage of some kind who was inhumed in the foundations as a votive deposit to sanctify and dedicate the building. - source

read the whole post on the History Blog

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We commonly think of workshops of monks - men - busily producing illuminated manuscripts in medieval times.  But there were also women in convents who did the same, and this article chronicles their achievements:

While a monograph on medieval women’s art is only partially completed, some conclusions can be drawn from the data collected so far.  These indicate that works from women’s convents are inclined to depict a larger number of women and female saints in their illustrations.  Certain themes such as the infant Christ (often alone), images of spiritual intimacy (nuns embracing Christ), nativity scenes with Mary wearing a crown, or crucifixion by the virtues are found more frequently in these works than elsewhere.  In illustrating saints’ lives (a favorite genre), women artists tend to insert cult images within the narrative.  In liturgical works, they often include banderoles containing phrases from the liturgy as design elements in the illustrations.  Not only do some manuscripts contain embroidery for decorative effect, but the images themselves reflect tapestry and needlework motifs in their designs.  Images of nuns often including their names kneeling in the margins of graduals and antiphonals seem to constitute a kind of pictorial necrology or anniversary book, reminding those who sing the office to remember the soul of the departed sister.  - source

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Mary Magdalen Announces the Risen Christ, St. Alban’s Psalter - source

Six windows from Canterbury Cathedral will be on display this fall at the Getty Museum along with the St. Alban’s Psalter.  This rare opportunity is a medievalist’s dream, and the exhibit will run from September 20, 2013 until February 2, 2014.  The Getty is the only museum that will display both the windows and the psalter.

According the the museum:

This exhibition brings together two masterpieces of medieval English art: stained glass from Canterbury Cathedral and the St. Albans Psalter, a splendidly illuminated Book of Psalms. Uniting monumental glass painting with the art of book illumination, this presentation explores how specific texts, prayers, and environments shaped the medieval viewer’s understanding of these pictures during the great century of art making following the Norman Conquest of England.

Another exhibit, “Miracles and Martyrs: Saints in the Middle Ages” , will be at the Getty at approximately the same time.

read more:

Getty’s future exhibitions page

article in the New York Times (might be behind the Times’ paywall)

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And in the sad current events category: A carved stone window was recently stolen from a medieval church in Ireland:.  Here’s are before and after photos from the County Leitrim location:

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For more Quick Takes, explore this week’s Quick Takes link-up, hosted by Jen at Conversion Diary.

Sagrada Familia, Barcelona - resources

On Sunday (June 10, 2013) CBS 60 Minutes aired a segment “God’s Architect: Antoni Gaudi’s glorious vision” about the design and construction of the iconic church of Sagrada Familia in Barcelona Spain.  The video presents a lot of information and does a decent job of describing, if not capturing, the impressive nature of the church.

I haven’t been able to successfully embed the clip - although I tried! - but you can see it here:

God’s Architect” video segment on 60 Minutes site

-  The 60 minutes site also has a construction zone tour video:

Tourists, architecture buffs, and even the pope have all come to Barcelona to worship in their respective ways at the altar of the Sagrada Família. It’s the life’s work of Antoni Gaudí, known as “God’s Architect,” and although his design is said to be divinely inspired, carving the church from stone required the hands of men— and 130 years later, they’re still not finished. - source

-  There are also several short “web extra videos” on the CBS site that are worth checking out:

“What Gaudi Meant to Catalonia” Notably, the video points out that the roof is dragonish, a reference to St. George (& the dragon) who is patron saint of Catalonia.

“Gaudi’s legacy today” We learn that Gaudi’s calculations from a century ago, which he carried out by longhand, are being confirmed by the latest technology today.

“Gaudi the innovator” This video shows the talent, drive, and zeal of Gaudi

- Here’s an amazing aerial photo of Barcelona, which shows Sagrada Familia rising high above the city.

- Here is an excellent website which shows the entire church, at various points in history.  You can click on any of the facades and see photos of each element in the facade.

When we visited in 2011, we spent 5 hours at the church and only began to scratch the surface, especially trying to understand the engineering feats involved in reconstructing and re-engineering Gaudi’s (lost) plans.

-  Here are my previous posts on Sagrada Familia:

The Passion Facade of Sagrada Familia

The Interior of Sagrada Familia Barcelona

Stay tuned - I’m working on another Sagrada Familia post with photos from up, down, and around (the tower, the basement models, and some outbuildings)

[photos in this post are mine, from our June 2011 visit]

Quick Takes: the Transcentals - Truth, Beauty & Goodness

I’ve never studied philosophy or theology, so I’m a little out of my league when I try to explain things like the Transcendentals of Truth, Beauty and Goodness, so I’ll let wikipedia introduce the overall topic:

In Christian theology the transcendentals are treated in relation to Theology Proper, the doctrine of God. The transcendentals, according to Christian doctrine, can be described as the ultimate desires of man. Man ultimately strives for perfection, which takes form through the desire for perfect attainment of the transcendentals. The Catholic Church teaches that God is Himself Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

Each transcends the limitations of place and time, and are rooted in being. The transcendentals are not contingent upon cultural diversity, religious doctrine, or personal ideologies, but are the objective features of all that is. - source

Today’s Quick Takes all relate to Truth, Goodness and/or Beauty.

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John William Waterhouse, Saint Cecilia, 1895 - source

Here’s a fascinating post “How does beauty save the world?” on a fairly new Tolkein-inspired blog, which quotes Augustine, Solzhenitsyn, and Dostoevsky:

In a culture that continually tries to make us believe there is nothing beyond the confines of this world, Beauty has a particular role in leading us to our true home of Heaven.

For Saint Augustine, Beauty had the added power to change a person. In his own life, his experience of Beauty eventually led him to break away from his past life of sin and to start anew,

“Late have I loved you, beauty so old, and so new: late have I loved you. And see you were within, and I was in the external world and sought for you there….”
Consequently, we see that Beauty can play a large role in society. Beautiful music can change us and urge us to live our life united to God. In a certain sense, it charges us to live not as citizens of this Earthly Realm, but to live as citizens of the Heavenly Realm. It is something that captures us and proves to be an instrument of God. It is no surprise then that Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, prophetically proclaimed the essence of this very same idea and how beauty has the capacity to change the world; even more so than Truth and Goodness:
“So perhaps that ancient trinity of Truth, Goodness and Beauty is not simply an empty, faded formula as we thought in the days of our self-confident, materialistic youth? If the tops of these three trees converge, as the scholars maintained, but the too blatant, too direct stems of Truth and Goodness are crushed, cut down, not allowed through – then perhaps the fantastic, unpredictable, unexpected stems of Beauty will push through and soar TO THAT VERY SAME PLACE, and in so doing will fulfill the work of all three? In that case Dostoevsky’s remark, “Beauty will save the world”, was not a careless phrase but a prophecy?[1]”

Read the whole post on Into the West.

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Word on Fire’s Father Robert Barron provides us with “Evangelizing through Beauty” a video commentary:

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beauty in music:

The Renaissance Street Singers - a group which focuses on a capella sacred music of the 15th and 16th centuries - play at Grand Central Terminal and other public spaces in New York City.  As they describe themselves and their music:

Since 1973, The Renaissance Street Singers of New York, directed by John Hetland, have sung 15th- and 16th-century music a cappella on the sidewalks and in the public spaces of New York City. The motivation is love for the music and the wish to share it with others. Concerts are two or three Sundays a month, usually from 2 to 4 pm, always free.

We sing polyphonic motets, hymns, magnificats, Psalms, mass sections and other sacred music by Guillaume du Fay, Jean de Ockeghem, Josquin des Prez, Ludwig Senfl, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, William Byrd, Tomás Luis de Victoria, Manuel Cardoso, and their contemporaries. - source

read more:

- Street Singers website, with photos, videos, performance schedule, and more

- blog post on the Deacon’s Bench

- April 7 story with video link at New York times article (might be behind the NYT paywall) here 

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Daniel Mitsui is one of my favorite contemporary sacred artists.  Recently he gave a lecture about religious art, especially his own art and how it is rooted in medieval art and Catholic spirituality.  The article is lengthy and is amply illustrated with examples of his art work and the medieval art that inspires him.  Here are a few brief excerpts:

Questions about art will be decided not by argument, but by art itself. Does it indeed possess those transcendental qualities of truth, beauty and goodness?

I aspire to create art that does; whether I actually do is not my place to say. But enough people like my work that I am able to support my family by drawing. Although I know all of its shortcomings, I take satisfaction in seeing it improve over time. Almost everything that I have on display here was drawn in the past three years; older drawings I am now mildly embarrassed to display, so obvious are their flaws to my eyes. I want to maintain this pace of artistic development throughout my life.

So I hope that if you like the pictures I have brought here, you will get some benefit from hearing me explain how and why I make them; and that if you do not like them, you will remember my name and look at my work in the future. Perhaps it will be more convincing then.

There is, I believe, a universality and timelessness to the principles animating this art; they are not merely a guide to recreating art as it was during certain centuries of European history; rather, they are a guide to creating art in any culture, including our own. They are broad enough to incorporate that culture’s particular genius, yet definite enough to contradict its particular flaws where they most need to be contradicted.


I hope soon to create my first drawings of Christian subjects in the style of Persian, Mughal and Rajasthani miniatures. Egyptian and Chinese painting also have my curiosity, as does the art of the cedar-carving tribes of the Pacific Northwest. But it is only by holding fast to the traditions received from the Fathers of the Church that I feel able to make these explorations without depicting a false doctrine.


I am attempting to learn this language and to use it in my own drawings. But what, you may ask, is the point in using a language that no one understands anymore? Personally, I think that it is never a bad idea to revive a dead language, especially one that has been used to say such beautiful things. It is a language so different from any we now use that learning it may broaden our manner of thinking greatly. - source

Read the whole lecture and click on his art - it’s really striking.

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Catholic blogger Ryan, who writes at Back of the World blog tells of how his 2 year old, hearing Gregorian Chant for the first time, with no prior experience identified it as “Jesus music” and was totally entranced with it.  He ties the experience in with classic Christian thought about beauty and God:

Fyodor Dostoyevsky once said: “Beauty will save the world.”

Cardinal Ratzinger once said: “The encounter with beauty can become the wound of the arrow that strikes the soul and thus makes it see clearly, so that henceforth it has criteria, based on what it has experienced, and can now weigh the arguments correctly.”

Mother Theresa once said: “You have to learn from the Heart of Jesus. That is why Jesus said ‘learn of me’–not from books.”

And somehow, in ways I will never understand, my two-year-old boy is listening to the beat of the Sacred Heart. He is encountering beauty, and listening to it with childlike ears of faith. He’s learning lessons that only the gentle notes and chords of Heaven can teach him. And all I can do is sit back and treasure up all of these things in my heart… - source

Read the whole thing: “Gregorian Chant will Save the World”

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Duncan Stroik, an architecture professor at Notre Dame University wrote a blog post on sacred architecture, adapted from the introduction to his 2012 book The Church Building as a Sacred Place: Beauty, Transcendence, and the Eternal (2012):

To design sacred buildings is to help dispose visitors to contemplating the things above, to be aware of the holy, and to embrace the eternal within the ephemeral. People should see and feel that they are entering a place out of the ordinary, a place in which the concerns of life can be seen in relation to eternity. There should be a certain mystery, or even a strangeness, expressed by the architecture. A sacred place should not be convenient to enter like a department store, comfortable like a café, or predictable like a lecture hall. Rather, as a place whose reason for existence is to foster the encounter with the divine, it must be designed in a way that helps us to focus on the Divinity. - source

read the full post.

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Here’s a topical quote by St. Augustine:

“Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air, amply spread out everywhere, question the beauty of the sky… question all these things. They all answer you: ‘Here we are, look; we’re beautiful’. Their beauty is their confession. Who made these beautiful changeable things, if not one who is beautiful and unchangeable? “(Sermons, 241, 2: PL 38, 1134).

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For more quick takes on every possible subject, check out this week’s round-up hosted by Jen of Conversion Diary.

Quick Takes: all art edition

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today, May 31, is the feast of the Visitation, located between the Annunciation on March 25 and the Birth of John the Baptist on June 24.

Last year I posted the Visitation window at Pluscarden Abbey, Scotland.

Two years ago I posted seven images of the Visitation.

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- source

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has finished a major re-hang of its Old Master galleries, taking advantage of much more space:

The renovation of the galleries is long overdue, last undertaken in full in the early 1950s. When the Met’s then director Thomas Hoving inaugurated the age of the blockbuster in the early 1970s, one third of the space, then given over to Impressionism and contemporary art, was turned into galleries for temporary exhibitions. Hobbled by the contraction, for the next 30 years the Old Master galleries suffered from a lack of a unified concept: “We moved galleries around, but there was little thought about the way they would flow together,” says Keith Christiansen, the chairman of the European paintings department.

The impetus for the new, expanded galleries was the 2007 re-installation of the Met’s collection of ancient Greek and Roman art, which reclaimed space that had been taken from the collection in 1949 by the Fountain restaurant. “We felt that if [the] Greek and Roman [collection] could get [its] old space back, we hoped for an arrangement to get some of our old space back. But when we approached our director, Tom Campbell, he said: ‘Why don’t you just take it all?’” For Campbell, the increasing cost of blockbusters made them economically unfeasible, and the museum no longer needed such expanses of space for temporary shows. - source

read the whole article in  the art newspaper

see slideshow here

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The Met is not the only museum to have spruced up.  In recent quick takes we’ve seen the total rebuilt Rijksmuseum and the re-hung Tate Britain.  And for a visual tour of the newly renovated National Museum of Scotland click this link from Earthexplorer.

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 - source

The famous painting by John Constable, “Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows” was recently put on the market, which might have meant that it would leave the UK, but arrangements have been made and funds raised so that the painting will remain on public exhibit in Britain.  According to the History Blog, sufficient funds - $35 million - have been raised, so that a collaboration of British museums will share display rights to the painting.

The collector who owned the monumental six-foot canvas, Barclays Bank director Lord Ashton of Hyde, had loaned it to the National Gallery since 1983, but he died in 2008 and his heirs recently reclaimed it in order to sell it. A major US museum with its major US endowment was extremely interested, asking the sellers for right of first refusal. This was a serious threat. …

Rather than risk seeing the painting disappear into a private collection in the UK or go abroad, a group of museums raised money in grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund (£15.8 million) and the Art Fund (£1 million), from private foundations and museum members. …

This collaboration between museums is an innovative approach well suited to an era of slim budgets and empty pockets. The museums in question are national — the Tate Britain, Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, the National Galleries of Scotland — and regional — Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, Colchester and Ipswich Museums — who came together to form a partnership called Aspire. The deal is, the painting will travel between all the partner galleries. The rondelet began Thursday at the Tate Britain. Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows will be on display in the Constable room until the end of the year before hitting the road. It won’t return to London until 2018. - source

read the whole post on the History Blog

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In contemporary art news, the “Vatican announces its debut at Venice art festival”:

The Vatican is participating for the first time in a famous international art exposition in Venice under the theme “Creation, Un-Creation and Re-Creation,” with the aim of promoting modern dialogue on faith.

The 55th edition of Venice’s Biannual Art Festival, known as the “Biennale di Venezia” in Italian, will take place June 1 to Nov. 24 and will bring together exhibits from 88 different countries.

The Vatican’s contribution will use the Book of Genesis as its narrative thread.

The display will cost the private Foundation for the Heritage and Artistic Activities of the Church a total of 750,000 Euros ($970,000), and the costs will be covered entirely by donations. - source

US artist Lawrence Carroll was one of the artistes the Vatican commissioned:

American artist Lawrence Carroll was one of those commissioned by the Vatican to do an exhibit for Venice’s Biennale, one of the world’s most prestigious and cutting edge contemporary arts festivals. Carroll said he was delighted to have been commissioned by the Holy See to prepare an installment entitled “Re-Creation” for the festival.

Asked for his reaction when first approached by the Vatican to prepare an installment for the Venice festival, Carroll admitted he was “surprised” but went on to say that he was pleased that he and the other artists were allowed to let their imaginations’ run free. “I need complete freedom with my work .. I felt that if I stayed true to what I do, then it would certainly be able to fit in with what they (the Vatican) were saying.- source

Tiffany Jenkins, an atheist columnist, writing in the Scotsman newspaper approves of the Vatican’s recent move to patronize contemporary artists to participate in the Venice Biennial.  She argues that in contrast to the emptiness of most contemporary art, which tears down traditional ideals without replacing it with anything attractive, historical religious art contributed much more since it was based in truth (emphasis mine) :

The difference seems to be that religious artists, those who excelled – and I concede, a great many didn’t – were often involved in expressing something they considered to be true. The artists weren’t all perfectly pious Christians, many behaved immorally, but their art shows a belief in something higher than us, and something beyond the everyday.

It is also human. This is not art simply in thrall to an abstract divine, but art and the artists working through the Biblical narrative to transcend the everyday, to enliven and enrich lives that were for the most part difficult. We do find this in secular art, naturally, just not that recently.

Art won’t reach the great heights of the past again unless it throws away postmodern irony, and starts reflecting on the truth of the human condition. This doesn’t have to be in a Christian or any theist context. Art could redeem human experience from transience and meaninglessness simply by believing in something more than just destroying the old idols. - source

read the whole column in the Scotsman

vatican radio article about Lawrence Carroll

catholic news association article

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What makes a painting a good one for teaching the faith?  A recent post, “How to choose a painting for catechesis” answers that question, using the context of the Annunciation.  The article begins:

A picture of the annunciation is a resource par excellence for catechesis because it can illustrate so many interconnecting doctrines of the faith. Having said this, not all artists have the same degree of ecclesial depth and so some pictures will be of greater catechetical value than others. At this point it is also good to be aware that one might look at a painting of a great artist,r a very beautiful painting, or one that speaks very personally, or one helpful for prayer or meditation – none of these criteria, however, makes the painting necessarily the most appropriate to use catechetically. What, then, do we need to look for as catechists in order to choose the best art of the annunciation for our purposes? -source

and continues by considering such elements at the Trinity, Mary, the angel Gabriel, building and curtains, tabernacle, landscape.

read the whole article:

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“Catholic Art?” is the name of a blog post written by Maureen Mullarky for First Things.  She argues that kitschy Catholic art, which has been popular since the 1840’s, sacrifices power for sentimentality.

Particularly in relation to religious subjects, even sophisticated Catholics are prone to uncritical favor toward imitations of the premodern. Whatever comes closest to Renaissance realism or the Baroque figuration of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is considered more spiritual, more authentic, than anything that reveals twentieth century authorship.

Art’s expressive power is not necessarily benign. Bad art has its own pernicious effect, working its way on religious sensibilities like corrosive salts on a fresco. Images resonate apart from their subject matter. They can mislead. An understanding of this led German writer Hermann Broch—a convert to Catholicism and major figure among the early Modernists—to declare kitsch not only a perversion of taste but also “the element of evil in the value system of art.”

Granted, that might be going some. Nevertheless, it is worth asking ourselves to what extent simpering or banal religious art drains us of the force and fortitude faith requires in a faithless world.

Read the whole article on First Things, here.

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For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary.

Tuesday Tour: Covington, Louisiana - Walker Percy, Carmelite Convent

Yesterday, May 28, was Walker Percy’s birthday.  Just a week ago I was in Covington, Louisiana, the town where he lived and where he is buried in the graveyard of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Joseph, and I walked around among the tombstones until I located his grave. Percy, one of the great 20th century Catholic writers (a friend and correspondent with fellow-Southerner Flannery O’Connor), was a Benedictine oblate, hence the burial location at the abbey to which he was attached.  The abbey is technically located in St. Benedict, Louisiana, named for the abbey, but it’s often identified as being in Covington.


Here is Percy’s unassuming grave (still wet from the previous day’s rain):

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Nearby older graves in the cemetery are more elaborate - and raised:

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The Abbey buildings are notable, especially the murals of Dom Gregory de Wit in the Abbey church and the monks’ refectory, which we explored in previous Tuesday Tours:

- St. Joseph’s Abbey - the refectory murals

- St. Joseph’s Abbey - the abbey church murals

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About a mile or two down the road from the Benedictine Abbey, there is a small Discalced Carmelite community.  Today’s Tuesday Tour brings us to their simple, and beautiful church where a group of cloistered nuns worships

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The simple interior includes a wooden ceiling.  The cloister is to the right of the altar.

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This statue of Our Lady of Carmel is above the entrance to the chapel.

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Here’s a bit of the story of the Covington Carmel:

The original New Orleans monastery was founded in 1877 on Rampart Street, in the French Quarter. The Carmelite Nuns lived there for a number of decades. During those times when religious vocation was flowering, the New Orleans Carmel was able to make two foundations — one in Lafayette, Louisiana, and another in Newport (now Barrington), Rhode Island.

With New Orleans Carmel’s changing needs, there came a time when it was deemed necessary to find a more suitable location for the monastery. After a diligent and careful search, such a place was found in Covington, Louisiana, just north of New Orleans across Lake Pontchartrain. Thus, in 1995 the New Orleans Carmel moved to the north shore and became the Covington Carmel. - source

You can join the nuns for Mass, daily at 7:15am.

the Covington Carmel website

Covington Carmel’s vocation video.

Quick Takes: Icons and Icon-ish

I spent part of this week at an icon workshop, and thoroughly enjoyed living, breathing, thinking and talking icons with like-minded artists.  In that spirit, this week’s quick takes will be icon-related.

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Through a post on New Liturgical Movement site I found out about these lovely icons in Dominican House of Studies in Lviv.  For more photos of the chapel, check the Dominican House’s photo set on facebook:

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- source

“Praying With Paint” is interesting article on the blog of the Catholic Neareast Welfare Association about a Romanian Orthodox nun, Sister Eliseea, and the icons that she paints:

“I’m very connected with God when I do this,” she said, “and God is doing everything through my hand. I can’t paint without prayer. This comes from heaven, from the words of God, and if you can’t pray you can’t call yourself an iconographer. The prayer comes in your heart from God. Through this prayer, God gives me this inspiration. It’s like I’m under his protection all the time when I paint, he’s covering me with his wings. I never know how a painting is going to be. I just start a sketch and it just comes to me.” - source

- Read the whole post on One to One

- Read more about her in A Romanian Renaissance from the January 2012 issue of ONE, a blog of the Catholic Neareast Welfare Association

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3.

Here’s an informative blog post explaining the iconostasis, the icon screen in Orthodox and Eastern churches:

Beyond the basics, liturgically, the iconostasis is equipped with three important entrances: two “deacon” doors (sometimes called “angel” doors), and one central entrance. … sometimes called the Royal Doors or Beautiful Gates, and a curtain. This doorway is used exclusively by clergy for liturgical purposes. These two doors are frequently adorned with icons of the four evangelists (Gospel writers) or of the Annunciation, displaying the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary. Since these are the gates through which the life-giving flesh and blood of God will enter the nave of the Church to be given to the people, it is fitting that the Virgin Mary is depicted on these gates (or similarly, the Gospel writers who brought us the message of God incarnate).

In a very real sense, the iconostasis and curtain separate the nave from the sanctuary—the common area from the Holy of Holies. But unlike the Holy of Holies in the Old Testament temple, this Holy of Holies is accessible. We can see it, and in fact, the icons draw our eyes toward it. And at the apex of every Liturgy, God enters the Holy of Holies in his body and his blood, and then condescends to come to us through the Beautiful Gates. And finally, he gives himself to us. - source

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4.

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- source

On May 4, 2013, Pope Francis joined the rosary in St. Mary Major, in front of the icon Salus Populi Romani, which was placed on a special altar for the occasion.  After the rosary, the Pope shared some thoughts about the Virgin shown in the icon:

The whole existence of Mary is a hymn to life, a hymn to love and to life: she generated Jesus the man and she accompanied the birth of the Church on Mount Calvary and in the Cenacle. The “Salus Populi Romani” is the mother that looks after our growth, she helps us face and overcome problems, she gives us freedom when we make important decisions; she is the mother who teaches us to be fruitful of good, joy, hope, to give life to others, both physical and spiritual life.

This is what we are asking of you this evening, Oh Mary, Salus Populi Romani, for the people of Rome, for all of us: give us the grace that only you can give, so that we may always be signs and tools of life. - source

more:

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5.

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Via the online Orthodox Arts Journal: iconographer Vladimir Grygorenko has finished painting the icons in the altar area in a beautiful new church in Euless, Texas.

For more photos:

- post on the Orthodox Arts Journal

-  visit Mr. Grygorenko’s website, www.orthodox-icon.com for more of his work.

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6.

Here’s a hyperlapse tour of St. Petersburg, with many of the beautiful churches and interiors with icons”

Moving through St.Petersburg from geoff tompkinson on Vimeo.

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7.

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- source

Through today’s “Seven Slow Gives” post of Angela Sealana, I learned of this Byzantine-inspired tattoo designed by Paul Soupiset.

more on Paul Soupiset’s work:

- the tattoo post with photo of the actual completed tattoo

- Patheos post

- Paul Soupiset’s site

- another Paul Soupiset tattoo: “Pantocrator Ink”

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I’m linking up with Jen Fulwiler’s Quick Takes post at Conversion Diary.  Head over there for many, many more takes.

Quick Takes: finds, sisters, Dante + more

This week’s Quick Takes are a variety of stories of art, archaeology, history, and religious life.

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1.

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                St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, Papal basilica in Rome - source

Last week, right after I wrote about the find in the Vatican fresco of what might be the earliest paintings of Native Americans, I came across a Catholic News article describing many fascinating gems found in the Vatican.  “Under soot: Spring cleaning means sometimes finding forgotten gems” covers several dramatic finds in the Vatican in the past decade - the 2009 find of a 4th century painting of St. Paul, 2010 brought discovery of early pictures of Peter, Paul, Andrew and John, and in 2007 a sketch of Michelangelo with a workman’s notes on the reverse side turned up in a Vatican storeroom. 

In 2005, the legendary tomb of St. Paul was investigated:

Archeologists had always been curious to find out what was inside an enormous marble sarcophagus — the presumed tomb of St. Paul, in Rome’s Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

Because part of the sarcophagus is wedged beneath building material and opening it would have meant demolishing the papal altar above it, it had never been opened in the 20 or 19 centuries….


Vatican engineers tried using an X-ray, but the 10-inch-thick marble was impenetrable.

Finally a very small perforation was drilled into the marble to insert a small probe and withdraw fragments of what was inside. Experts said they found traces of purple linen, a blue fabric with linen threads, grains of red incense and bone fragments that date from the time of the apostle’s death.

Pope Benedict XVI announced the historic findings to the world on the eve of the saint’s feast day saying “This seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that they are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul.” - source

Read the whole fascinating article

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2.
 - source
 
This week brought news of a rare Byzantine fresco unearthed in Israel:

The mosaic appears to have been the floor of a public building in a thriving Byzantine-era village on the site, near the modern-day kibbutz of Beit Kama. The precise role of the building in the life of the community is unknown.

The community, located along an ancient road leading north from Beersheba, also included a church, storerooms and pools for storing water. - source

Artists decorated the floor of the building with geometric patterns and depictions of birds like peacocks and doves. What makes the mosaic unique, beyond the high level of craftsmanship, is “the large number of motifs that were incorporated into one carpet,” according to the IAA [Israel Antiques Authority] statement.

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3.

A religious sister in Spain has developed a board game that has become a runaway bestseller First Communion gift:

Sr. Molina said she never imagined the game would become so popular. She made the first version of the game at home with her own printer and the help “of the sisters from my congregation in Cuenca.” “The Joy of the Faith” is intended to help players learn about Jesus and the experience of being a Christian. Players roll dice and answer questions about the Catholic faith to move along the spaces on the board. The game incorporates drawings, gestures and prayers. - source

Possible long-term plans include marketing the game in the United States and Latin America.

read more:

Catholic News Agency story

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4.

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                                             - source (Christmas 2012 newsletter, pdf)

The growing community of cloistered Catholic religious community of Norbertine Canonesses moving into their brand new monastery in Tehachapi, California:

As the construction reached the final stages, the Sisters of the mountain were put to work, laying tile and vinyl, making beds and cabinets, installing furniture, even a little plumbing.

All that on top of the daily demands of cooking, laundry, administration, gardening, and animal care. All of it is squeezed in between the the eight hours devoted to prayer each day, four hours of classwork and study, and six to seven hours of sleep at night, and even that broken by midnight prayers.

Construction superintendent Jim Wiener says his time with the Sisters, intimidating at first, has left an indelible mark. “The Sisters are phenomenal. They’re hard-working and dedicated. They show up on time. They’re quiet. They work real hard and they complete their task,” said Wiener.

But, it’s the Lord’s work that comes first, last and always for the Sisters of the mountain. - source

read more:

story and video on local news KGET Bakersfield, CA 

norbertine sisters website

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5.

image                                                     - Botticelli, Inferno, Canto XVIII - source

This week Jonathan Jones wrote a post on the Guardian’s blog, “From Dante to Dan Brown; How artists have portrayed Dante’s Divine Comedy.”  The release of Brown’s latest book, based on the Inferno by the medieval Italian poet, has shone a spotlight on all things Dante, in this case the ways the Divine Comedy has been illustrated over the years.  Jones gives examples of various artists who have illustrated Dante’s epic poetic trilogy, and particularly singles out the work of Botticelli:

When Botticelli set out to illustrate Dante in Florence in the late 15th century, he resisted the lurid imagery the poet may seem to call for. Or rather, while he meticulously records every horror, he uses a calm graphic style that gives his drawings a fresh and direct feel of eyewitness truth. His illustrations are so authoritative that the first time I saw them in an exhibition in Rome, I almost felt tempted to become a Roman Catholic.- source

read:

- the whole post on the Guardian blog

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6.

Have you ever asked the question, “Why can’t we take pictures in art museums?”  If so, check out Art News for an article addressing that exact question, exploring the issues surrounding photography of art by patrons in the age of digital cameras and cell phone photography:

We’re in an age when people take pictures just about everywhere, an act that photography critic Jörg M. Colberg describes as “compulsive looking.” The phenomenon has created a unique set of challenges for art museums, many of which have historically had strict limitations on photography—either for the purpose of protecting light-sensitive works or because of copyright issues. But the ubiquity of digital cameras, along with the irrepressible urge to take pictures, has led many museums to revise their policies in recent years. - source

read the whole thing

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7.

C5483-07a[1] - Germany, 2nd half of the 12th century (London, British Library, MS Arundel 43, f. 80v). source

The British Library has a blog just for its medieval manuscripts collection.  Here’s how the Library describes why it blogs its medieval manuscripts:

Why do we blog? The simple answer is we blog in order to tell you, our readers, about our wonderful manuscripts. We are custodians of world-class collections of ancient, medieval and early modern manuscripts;…

We use this blog to promote our events and exhibitions, most recently our exhibition on Royal manuscripts. We also like to tell you about our various digitisation projects, and to draw your attention to some of our resources, most notably the British Library’s Digitised Manuscripts site and our Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts. - source

So there you have it - you can check out the blog posts, and then explore the online manuscripts of one of the finest collections of medieval manuscripts in the world.

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Check out lots more Quick Takes, hosted by Jen of Conversion Diary.

Tuesday Tour: Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh

After a brief hiatus, this week the Tuesday tour is back, continuing with the monastery theme we’ve been exploring in 2013.  Today’s tour takes us to Edinburgh, Scotland and the ruined remains of the medieval Holyrood Abbey.

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Holyrood Abbey was founded by King David 1 in 1128, legend has it, as an act of thanksgiving after the king had a vision on Holy Cross Day.  While hunting in the forests east of Edinburgh the king was thrown from his horse when it was spooked by the appearance of a hart.  Although King David was in danger of being gored by the animal, he was saved when a cross appeared between the antlers of the hart.  The word “holyrood” is an ancient term meaning holy cross.


The abbey was built around 1195-1230 for the Augustinian canons who came from the already-established nearby abbey of St. Andrews.

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In time the abbey guesthouse became a royal residence and was periodically enlarged.  It stands now, in immaculate condition, as Holyroodhouse Palace, where the Queen of England and the royal family is still in residence on occasion. 

The abbey church suffered waves of destruction in the 16th century wake of the Reformation and is now in ruins, the decline hastened by the loss of its roof in the 18th century.

image - source

 I found it jarring to leave the splendor of the palace tour and step out into the spectacular ruins which share a wall with the palace.  The picture above shows the ruins of the abbey church attached to the well-maintained wall of the palace.

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The ruined nave of the abbey church, above.

Interestingly, the church once housed a significant relic very much in keeping with its name:

The abbey church was given a fragment of the True Cross by David’s mother, St. Margaret, which came from Waltham Abbey. The relic was known thereafter as the Black Rood of Scotland. At the battle of Neville’s Cross in 1346, the relic fell into the hands of the English, and was placed in Durham Cathedral. It later disappeared during the Reformation. - source

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Note how each of the capitals of the columns above is unique in design.

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read more:

-  “Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh” on the site sacred-destinations.com

-  “Holyrood Abbey; the disappearance of a monastery” available in pdf from Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 128 (1998) from following a link, here.   Here’s the abstract:

“Abstract: Holyrood Abbey was one of the major monasteries of Scotland. Its spiritual function, the celebration of Mass and the spiritual office, stopped with the Reformation parliament of 1560, but the existing Augustinian community remained in place, each canon having a legal right to residence with the monastery and a pension. This paper examines the documentation and archaeological evidence for the structural form of the Abbey over the Reformation period, its relationship with the expanding royal palace within its precinct, and the adaptation of the Abbey church to secular use.”.

Quick Takes: Finds of all kinds

For this week’s Quick Takes the emphasis is on finds, big and small.

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1.

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A newly-discovered miniature portrait of Queen Elizabeth 1, found in a house clearance sale and acquired at auction by the National Portrait Gallery in London is going on display in London this Fall:

The piece, which was bought by the NPG for £329,000 at auction last year, will be exhibited as part of a major show, Elizabeth I and Her People, from 10 October 2013.

The portrait is a reworking of the classical story of the Judgment of Paris upon the goddesses of marriage, war and love. The Queen is presented in the guise of Paris, representing both judge and winner, retaining for herself the prize of the golden apple. - source

more:

The Independent ,

- BBC story (includes video clip)

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2.

Did you know that there’s a webcam at the tomb of St. Francis in Italy?  So just in case you can’t see the tomb in person, you can visit virtually.  As an added bonus you can submit your prayer intent via email and the friars will pray for you.

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3.

I was very excited to find this week that 370 titles of publications of the Metropolitan Museum of Art are fully available online, and you can also download them as PDF files for free!  All 370 are listed and described here. These titles are out of print and many of them are extremely expensive on the used-book market.  Subjects range from costume to manuscripts to painting to sculpture, from every era and corner of the world.

Some examples that caught my eye:

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The Art of Medieval Spain, A.D. 500–1200
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
(1993)
 

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The Cloisters Cross: Its Art and Meaning
Parker, Elizabeth C., and Charles T. Little
(1994)
 
There are many many more!

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4.

image - source

The Tate Britain museum is finishing a major re-hang of its art collection - in strict chronological order rather than by art historical movements or thematic (its previous arrangement) - so its patrons can find the historical connections among the works displayed.  The museum will re-open to the public on May 13:

The re-hang has coincided with the near completion of a long-term refurbishment of the building (the front entrance won’t reopen until November) which allows the gallery to be shaped into an outer ring of 29 galleries – containing the permanent collection – and eight inner areas, focusing on individual artists, works or subjects, that will be changed every spring and autumn. Designated space has also been made for the museum’s major bequests of work by Turner, Blake and Henry Moore.

While the new Tate chronology runs strictly from the 1500s to today, the layout of the museum will allow visitors to dip into areas as they please. “It’s all part of this lighter touch that lets people choose more what they look at and how they think about it,” says [Chris] Stephens [curator of modern British art and head of displays at Tate Britain]. “Art seems to be the one domain where we still hang on to academic and historical constructs as a necessary way of it being appreciated.” He says that people are not required to know the history of literature and movements before taking a book out of the library, or require knowledge of kitchen sink realism before going to the cinema. “We still have all the historical information available, in many formats, if people want it. But whether it is useful or not, you don’t need to know it to appreciate the pictures. Your response is as valid as our knowledge, and this re-hang presents a sort of release for the artist and their work from this encumbrance of academic protocols. Interestingly, some of the people I’ve encountered who have found it hardest to get their heads round are other curators and historians. But I think the public are going to be fine.” - source

As Penelope Curtis, the Director of the Tate, explains:

A key strength for Tate Britain is that the richness of the collection means that the lens (focused on Britain) is not overly narrow. Chronology has been used as a more neutral method of selection, and by using it as a kind of search tool we have produced what we hope will be a combination of the works that viewers would expect to see, alongside those that they would not.

Such juxtapositions and mixing of genres and styles, of early and late works can be revealing in various ways. This kind of chronological hang is more unusual, as it is properly chronological, in the sense that it follows real time rather than art historical time. Our key aim here was to use chronology as the tool with which curators would make their selection, and then to set it to one side once we were in the gallery, as and when the aesthetic of the hang demanded it.

I think of the viewer as a kind of time traveller, who will alternate between the ambulant and the still, the long view and the close focus, looking and learning. Most of all I would like to think that this more holistic approach will encourage visitors to get to feel the continuities and to see the relationship of old and new as something to celebrate.

more:

- Guardian article,

- Penelope Curtis, “Time is right to rethink the chronological hang”, in the Art Newspaper

- article in the Daily Mail with several photos

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5.

Staying in the United Kingdom for the next take:

A competition is being held to find the top 10 most beautiful Christian churches built in the past 60 years there:

The Top 10 best churches competition is being held to mark the 60th anniversary of the National Churches Trust. Since 1953 the Trust has provided over 12,000 grants and loans worth £85 million to help fund the repair and modernisation of Christian places of worship.

Claire Walker, Chief Executive of the National Churches Trust said: “As a nation we are rightly proud of our magnificent heritage of historic churches. But there are also many exciting churches which have been built in the last 60 years designed for the changing nature of religious liturgy and practice which reflects modern architecture and design. The challenge of helping people catch a glimpse of heaven has always produced highly creative and imaginative architecture. It will be exciting to discover the best examples of modern church architecture and honour those responsible through the‘ National Churches Trust Diamond Jubilee Architecture’ awards.” - source

more:

Independent Catholic News article

National Churches Trust www.nationalchurchestrust.org

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6.

Here’s an app find for your iPhone or Android device: Wake Up to the Creed app by Little iApps. Available on iTunes and Google Play lets you wake up to a recitation of the creed.  Here’s the app description:

Wake up to the Nicene Creed every morning! During the Year of Faith in 2012-13, the Holy
Father Pope Benedict XVI recommended that every Catholic pray the Nicene Creed daily. The
Nicene Creed was formally established at the Council of Nicea in AD 325. For nearly 1700
years, Catholic Christians have lived and died for these powerful words!

We pray the Creed together every Sunday at Mass, and now you can make it part of your daily
prayer life. This app includes:

- An alarm clock with beautiful chiming bells
- Several reverent readings of the Creed – follow along, or simply listen and enjoy
- Readings with or without background music
- English, Spanish, French, Polish and even Latin! - source

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7.

While while the Vatican was cleaning a fresco from 1494, some background images were revealed that might just be the first European images of Native Americans:

A detail of a fresco by the Renaissance artist Pinturicchio, discovered during restoration work in the Vatican Museums, depicts men dressed only in feathered headdresses who appear to be dancing, and another on horseback.

The painting was completed in 1494, shortly after Christopher Columbus returned from the New World with a detailed description of natives who painted themselves, danced and gave gifts of parrots.

For hundreds of years, the frescoed figures were hiding in plain sight – sort of. They are part of the background in a lunette fresco titled “The Resurrection,” noted for its depiction of Pope Alexander VI, the infamous Rodrigo Borgia, who was elected in 1492.

The detail was obscured by centuries of soot and grime, and came to life only recently when the fresco underwent a careful cleaning by Museum experts. - source

more:

On John Thavis’ post

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For more quick takes visit Conversion Diary.

Ascension Thursday

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                                                       - Lorenzo Monaco, Ascension, c1410

Today, Thursday May 9, 40 days after the Resurrection, is the traditional day for the celebration of the Feast of the Ascension.  The ecclesiastical provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, and Omaha will follow tradition and celebrate the feast today, but in the rest of the United States the feast will be observed this coming Sunday, May 12.

Luke wrote two accounts of this event.  His gospel account says:

50 Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them.

51 While he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven.

52 And they returned to Jerusalem with great joy,

53 and were continually in the temple blessing God.   -Luke 24:50-53

In his second book, The Acts of the Apostles, Luke writes:

9. he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.
11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” - Acts 1: 9-11

Here are some links for the Feast of the Ascension:

- My previous posts:
- For more images and some wonderful background and fruit for meditation, check out this post on the blog Idle Speculations

- Jimmy Akins on “Seven Things Pope Francis wants you to know about the Ascension”

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Below is a painting of the Ascension by Hans Memling.  It’s one of the “feet” paintings that I wrote about here; Christ has ascended into the cloud to the point where his feet are all are still visible.

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