Various Art Quick Takes

1.

Last week in my Quick Takes from my Brazil trip, I neglected to include the above picture.  It was taken in the Chafariz Restaurant in the town of Ouro Preto, in the old - and current, actually - mining area of the state of Minas Gerais.  There were many reasons to love this restaurant.  Its chief draw is its food, as is always best for a restaurant.  It is open only at lunchtime, and meals are fixed price and served buffet-style, featuring the regional cuisine, which is known for its flavorful preparation of meat and chicken and the wonderful thin ribbons of collard greens.  Along with my sincere appreciation of the food, I also loved the walls of the restaurant, which were covered with art, mostly religious.  I have resolved to have a similar gallery wall in my home some day, preferably sooner rather than later.

2.

In Brazil we visited several museums; one of our favorites was the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, a museum of fine arts.  One painting that I’d like to share today is the 1895 painting of Giotto’s Childhood by Brazilian painter Oscar Pereira da Silva (1865–1939).  In the 1880s he studied at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in Brazil, and was awarded a trip to Europe to study painting.  Presumably it was there that he discovered the work of Giotto.  In the painting above da Silva shows the artist Giotto as a child, drawing a lamb from nature with a piece of chalk on a nearby rock.  This painting amazed me.  This sweet little scene was so very different artistically from the work produced by the subject of the painting, Giotto, one of the giants of the history of Western art.

Giotto’s style is spare, with monumental figures and emotional intensity.  In many ways, Giotto was the first Western painter, at the beginning of the move of Italian painting away from Byzantine models.  In doing so, he ushered in the Early Renaissance. 

3.

Some of Giotto’s best works are the 700-year-old frescoes that line the walls of the Scrovegni Chapel (also known as the Arena Chapel) in Padua.  Two examples of Giotto’s frescoes from the chapel: The Lamentation, above, and his Presentation in the Temple, below.

Unfortunately, as this article from the Telegraph reports, the frescoes in the Arena Chapel are being threatened by a modern tower that is planned to be built on a site directly across the river from the chapel.  According to experts interviewed, the development is likely to endanger the priceless frescoes by disturbing the water table; the resulting increase in humidity would cause the frescoes to flake off of the wall.  On the other side of the issue, the developer and the government claim that the frescoes will be unharmed by the building process. 

4. 

The blog of the English Dominican Studentate had a lovely post about an exhibit of contemporary religious art in the Blackfriars Priory Church, Oxford, England earlier this month. There were apparently seven painters featured in the exhibit; the blog spotlighted several paintings of Mysteries of the Rosary by one of the artists, Louise Sturgis. Click on the link above to see several of her paintings. Wonderful!

5.

“Our Lady of the Space Station”

An icon of Our Lady of Kazan can be seen in the background of a photo of the crew on the International Space Station, as I learned from this post on the blog The Deeps of Time (a fascinating blog about science and the Catholic faith).  Apparently the Patriarch of Moscow sent a copy of the icon to the space station with Russian cosmonauts. 

Here’s a 16th century version of the icon of Our Lady of Kazan:

According to this 2010 article from the Catholic News Agency, there have been several icons, along with crosses, and relics - even a relic of the True Cross - on board the International Space Station.

6.

Did you know that you can do a “reverse image look-up” on Google Images?  You click the light blue camera button in the right side of the search box and you can upload one of your own photos (if you need to identify something you photographed) or link to an online image. 

I have found this feature to be quite useful in the course of organizing some of my old travel photos; I was able to identify the names of particular churches that we passed on the street, for example.  I also used the search feature to identify a Renaissance painting that had been posted on a blog without attribution.

7.

                                                           photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The National Gallery of Art in London has a room that is only open for 3.5 hours per week, 2pm-5.30pm every Wednesday.  The so-called Room A is very large and approximately 800 paintings hang on its walls.  The works are from the museum’s collection, and sometimes rotate in and out of other galleries in the museum.  To see a plan of Room A’s current contents, click here. Read more about this hidden treasure here, here, and here.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen of Conversion Diary and check out the links you find there, posted by bloggers far and wide.

Tuesday Tour: Metropolitan Cathedral of São Paulo, Brazil

This week’s Tuesday Tour is another church from my recent visit to Brazil.  The Cathedral in São Paulo, Brazil, is commonly known as Catedral da Sé de São Paulo,  that is, the cathedral of the seat of the Bishop of São Paulo.  The current cathedral is the third to occupy the site, with each previous church being demolished to accommodate a new and bigger cathedral.  Construction on this cathedral was begun in 1913, and continued for approximately 40 years.  The Cathedral was finally dedicated in 1954 to commemorate the 400 year anniversary of the founding of São Paulo, although it would take an additional 12 years to finish the towers.  The majority of the cathedral is Neo-Gothic in style, but there is a large Renaissance-style dome over the transept.

The column capitals are decorated with native Brazilian flora and fauna.

Large mosaics of each of St. Paul and St. Anne are on opposite sides of the nave.  St. Paul is shown with a sword and a book of the Word (below).

St. Anne is shown with the child, Mary (below)

This life-sized bronze angel, (below) is one of a pair that is in front of the mosaic of St, Anne.

There is a similar pair in front of the mosaic of St. Paul, also.

Quick Takes, Brazil edition

I’ve just returned from a two week visit to Brazil.  In addition to the tropical beauty of the landscape and the warmth of the people, I was struck by the sheer size of the country (the fifth largest in the world after Russia, China, Canada, and the US).  Even though we took several long bus rides and one plane trip, we never even left what is considered the southeast of the country, where both Rio and Sao Paulo are located.

Here are some quick takes of some of my impressions of some Catholic aspects of the small slice of Brazil I saw:


1.

Church of Santa Rita, on the water in Parati.

Brazil was colonized by the Portuguese, beginning in the early 16th century, and the language and architecture reflects that history.  The the early churches were designed by Portuguese architects, and were Baroque, as was the current European style of the time, but then Brazilian builders developed their own flamboyant version of the Baroque style.  I’ve never been a huge fan of Baroque churches, but in Brazil I absolutely loved them.  They seemed to fit so well with the tropical exuberance of their surroundings.

The first weekend we were in Parati (old spelling is Paraty), a colonial port town about midway between Sao Paulo and Rio.  In the historic old part of the town there are four churches, although all were closed up tight (except for when I attended Mass at one, see below).

We spent the following weekend in Ouro Preto, an old Portuguese colonial mining town in the interior of the state of Minas Gerais.  The city is a Unesco World Heritage Site, mainly because of its profusion of 18th century Baroque churches.  Really, a town filled with churches - pretty much my idea of heaven!  Because of limited time, and unpredictable opening hours, I saw the inside of about 5 or 6 churches, and several more from the exterior.  Unfortunately, none of them permitted interior photography.

In Ouro Preto: one church at my back; three more in view.

2.
I had a bit of a hard time finding Mass times - there didn’t seem to be much information on Brazilian Mass times on the internet and the churches themselves didn’t tend to have the times posted. In Parati I asked at the hotel, and got an estimated time for the church around the corner, around 7pm.  As the hotel clerk told me, “here in Brazil, we like to go to Mass in the evening.”

After a day on the beach at a neighboring town of Trindade, we returned to Parati early on Sunday evening (it was dark because it’s late autumn in the Southern Hemisphere) to find that the large square in front of the church had been transformed into a bingo venue: the square was jam-packed with people (far more than the picture, above, indicates), and everybody had a paper bingo page and pencil.  I’m not sure if this was church-sponsored or not, but when I returned to the square a short while later, the game had ended, Mass was starting, and the church, while not empty by any means, had far fewer people than had been at bingo.

Yes, I actually pulled out my camera and took a photo during Mass.  In Brazil it seemed more natural to see the people - and the priest on the altar - wave their arms as they sang.

Church of Nossa Senhora dos Remédios, Parati, where I attended Mass.

3.
Both weeks at Mass, there were newsprint fliers with the weekly readings, along with all of the Mass prayers and responses. It seems like a perfect solution: the paper is inexpensive and everything is right there in one folded sheet.  The paper made it very easy to follow the Mass (even though I brought my handy booklet with Mass prayers in several languages, this was better)

I found it interesting to hear (and read) that the Eucharistic prayer has a fair amount of congregation participation.  After the consecration, responses sprinkled throughout the remainder of the prayer.  Also, we knelt only until the consecration, then stood.

Church of Nossa Senhora do Rosário in Ouro Preto, next to our hotel, where I attended 4pm Mass on the second Sunday

The music at both Masses was guitar/contemporary, and it seemed to me that the guitar music works pretty well in a Latin country, in those old churches.

4.

There is a Monastery of St. Benedict in Sao Paulo and one in Rio as well.  Both have 10am Masses with Gregorian Chant, and apparently they are very well attended.  Unfortunately we were not in the big cities on the weekend and missed out on these liturgies.

Here is the exterior of the Monastery of Sao Bento (Benedict) in Sao Paulo:

This church made me admit that my older-is-always-better church architecture snobbery is just plain wrong at times - I was bowled over by this 1910 church.  It was built in the Beuron Art School style which includes influences of Egyptian, Byzantine, Romanesque and Celtic art. No photos were allowed inside the church, which was ultimately a good thing, as I never would have left. 

5.

Here is the Cathedral in Rio, which is nicknamed “the beehive”, made drearier by the gray, drizzly day:

The church is dedicated to St. Sebastian.  It holds 20,000 people!  We didn’t get to see the inside, although the guidebooks say that the stained glass windows are beautiful on a sunny day.

interior of Rio cathedral, above, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

6.

In many of the churches we saw a life-sized recumbent figure of Christ in the tomb (as you can see in this post), usually with real hair and quite explicit wounds.  Often, there were reverent worshipers kneeling before them, kissing the case and crossing themselves.

 7.

No post about Brazil would be complete without Christ the Redeemer, who stands tall, on a mountain in the middle of Rio:

We, of course, saw much, much more on our trip to Brazil.  I’ve posted one Brazilian church as a Tuesday Tour; look for more on future Tuesdays!

And for more Quick Takes, visit Jen of Conversion Diary and all of the links you can find there.

Tuesday Tour: Santo Antônio church (São Paulo)

The church of Saint Anthony is located in the old Centro of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and is the oldest church in the city that is still standing.  The building dates from 1592, but its current appearance reflects many updates and alterations made in the intervening years.  The exterior is staid and rather plain, giving little hint of the splendor to be found in the church’s interior.

The high altar dates from 1780, above. 

Side altar with the pieta, above.

Ceiling painting representing the Lamb and the Book with Seals from the Book of Revelation, above.

Side altar with effigy of the dead Christ, above.

Front door detail, with carved rosary, above.

Tuesday Tour: Southwark Cathedral, London

Southwark Cathedral, also known as The Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie, sits on the South Bank of the River Thames in London (although the area was traditionally in the diocese of Winchester rather than London, before becoming its own diocese in 1905).  The present building was constructed over the course of 2 centuries, from 1220 to 1420, but some of what you see today, such as most of the nave, is a 19th century reconstruction (in the style of the 13th century).

I visited Southwark in the summer of 2006 and took these photos (camera permit must be purchased at the cathedral prior to taking photographs).

above: entrance to the Cathedral from the south churchyard.

19th century reconstruction of the nave, above and below.

above: A section of Roman mosaic tile, bordered by Victorian glazed tile, is located on the floor of the south choir aisle.  The Roman tiles were discovered on the church’s site in 1833, and give evidence to the fact that many previous buildings, dating as far back as Roman times, were previously located on this part of the riverside.

above: Renaissance painting of the Annunciation, in the Lady Chapel.

above: The “Humble Monument” showing Richard Humble, who died in 1616, and his two wives, Elizabeth and Isabel, carved by Flemish refugee sculptors in London.

above: 14th century blind tracery in the retro-choir area (behind the choir)

above: Tabernacle in the Harvard Chapel was made by Augustus W. N. Pugin, c. 1849, and was originally in St. Augustine’s Church, Ramsgate, London.  It was relocated to Southwark in 1974.  The chapel commemorates John Harvard, founder of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who was born in London and baptized in the Southwark Cathedral.

above: A short stroll from Southwark along the Thames leads to the clipper ship, the Cutty Sark, built in 1869.  I took this picture about a year before the Cutty Sark was damaged by a 2007 fire.  The ship has been restored over the past 5 years and re-opened to the public just a week ago, on April 25, 2012.

Christ the Good Shepherd

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. The Gospel is from John 10:11-18

1 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hireling and not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hireling and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, 15 as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father.”

In Christian art the theme of the Good Shepherd is found as early as the catacombs in Rome.  In the earliest depictions, the shepherd was symbolic; only later does the shepherd begin to take on the actual attributes, such as the halo, dress, and other elements of the appearance of Christ, (as in the second image, below, from the 5th century.)

The Good Shepherd. Second half of the 3rd century. Catacomb of Priscilla, Italy, Rome

The Good Shepherd, mosaic in Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, 1st half of 5th century

James Tissot.  The Good Shepherd. 1886-94. Opaque watercolor over graphite on grey wove paper.  Brooklyn Museum, NY

Eric Gill. The Good Shepherd. 1926. Relief print on paper. 76 x 38 mm. Tate Museum, London

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. Christ the Good Shepherd. c. 1660. Oil on canvas, 161 x 123 cm. Museo del Prado, Madrid

Jean Auguste Dominque Ingres.  The Good Shepherd.  Graphite on paper. Musee Ingres, Montauban

And here is an image showing the Good Shepherd who has “laid down his life for his sheep.”

Tuesday Tour: Sagrada Familia, interior

Back in Lent, we took a look at the Passion Facade of Sagrada Familia, and I promised that we would return to see more of the church.  Today’s Tuesday Tour will feature the interior of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia.  Although the church has not yet been completed, the interior is richly layered.  There are vignettes and details, and all of the various elements harmonize to present a message of transcendent holiness.

I expected to find Sagrada Familia interesting but I did not anticipate the extraordinary beauty of the church not the powerful spiritual affect it would have in person.  We spent 5 hours on our visit to Sagrada Familia and could have easily spent 5 more.

Coming attractions: the Nativity Facade, the view from the tower, and more of the exterior of Sagrada Familia.

St. George

                                              St. George on the coat of arms of Georgia.

Today is St. George’s Day, which is especially celebrated in those countries where he is the patron saint: England, Canada, Croatia, Portugal, Cyprus, Greece, Georgia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Republic of Macedonia.  In countries where the Orthodox Church follows the Julian calendar, the feast corresponds to May 6.

St. George was a Roman soldier in the guard of Diocletian, and died a martyr’s death on April 23, 303.  There are many stories and legends told about the saint; the most prominent being the story of his slaying of a dragon which was threatening the area of Selene (sometimes referred to as Salem), in Libya, and its princess.  Of course his victory over the dragon usually symbolizes the victory of good over evil, of God over the devil.

In honor of today’s saint, here are some images of St. George and the dragon.  Sometimes he is standing, but he is often shown on a horse (which is nearly always white).  In some, but not all, of the pictures you can see the princess.

Unknown icon painter of the Novgorod school. St. George and the Dragon. 15th c. Russian Museum, St. Petersburg:

Jacopo Tintoretto. St. George and the Dragon. c.1555. National Gallery, London:

Here’s a video from the National Gallery of London, with art and costume historian Anne Hollander discussing the impact of the expressive drapery in Tintoretto’s painting of ‘Saint George and the Dragon’.

August Macke. St. George. 1912. Kolumba Museum, Cologne, Germany:

St. George and the Dragon, medieval Danish wall painting:

Paolo Uccello. Saint George and the Dragon. 1470. National Gallery of Art, London:

Raphael. Saint George and the Dragon, c1506. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC:

St. George and the Dragon. illuminated manuscript. 13th century, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore:

And lest we forget, here is a sculpture of St. George’s martyrdom, from Stiftskirche St. Georg, Tübingen, Germany:

Quick Takes, Milestones Edition

This week presented no end of interesting things in the news, marking many different kinds of momentous occasions, anniversaries, and milestones:

1.

This week saw the sale of the Cuthbert Gospel - the oldest book in Europe, a small Anglo-Saxon bound book of the gospel of John, intact and beautifully preserved.  It was sold by the Society of Jesus (British Province) to the British Museum (where the Gospel had been on long-term loan since 1979).

The Gospel was originally placed in the tomb of St. Cuthbert in the late 7th century, a few years after his death, when his body was tranlated to Lindisfarne.

Chief Executive of the British Library, Dame Lynne Brindley, announced the acquisition, saying:

 “To look at this small and intensely beautiful treasure from the Anglo-Saxon period is to see it exactly as those who created it in the 7th century would have seen it. The exquisite binding, the pages, even the sewing structure survive intact, offering us a direct connection with our forebears 1300 years ago. Its importance in the history of the book and its association with one of Britain’s foremost saints make it unique, so I am delighted to announce the successful acquisition of the St Cuthbert Gospel by the British Library. This precious item will remain in public hands so that present and future generations can learn from it.”

2.

As part of the acquisition, the British Library will share display of the Gospel with the Durham Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage site, where the Gospel was found in St. Cuthbert’s tomb (he relics were placed in the then-new cathedral in the 12th century after resting in a variety of places) and where it was then displayed up until the Reformation.

The Very Reverend Michael Sadgrove, Dean of Durham, said:

“For the people of Durham and North East England, this is a most treasured book. Buried with Cuthbert and retrieved from his coffin, it held a place of great honour in Durham Cathedral Priory. The place in the Cathedral where it was kept in the middle ages is still the home of our unique manuscript collection.”

Read more at Medievalist.net.

See the entire digitized Gospel here.

3.

                                                              photo courtesy of wikimedia commons

This week marked the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.  I’ve never been one for all the Titanic hoopla - heck, I’ve never even seen the movie - but I happened to be on twitter to see a tweet marking the moment when the great ship went down 100 years previously, and I’ll have to say it was a bit odd. 

4.

Fr me the most interesting part of the Titanic coverage has been to read the accounts of the priests on the Titanic, and the inspiring witness they gave, comforting passengers, hearing confessions, praying the rosary, giving absolution to passengers, right up to the moments of their owns deaths.

Priests of the Titanic on American Catholic

Father Thomas Byles, a 42 year old English priest who was journeying to America to celebrate the marriage of his brother:

The Catholic priest who went down hearing confessions.

BBC story about Father Byles

Father Thomas Byles: www.fatherbyles.com

Father Joseph Benedikt Peruschitz, a 41 year old priest who was coming to teach at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, MN.:

http://www.kloster-scheyern.de/01-benediktiner/Titanic/Eng_schicksal_titanic.htm

Father Juozas Montvila, a 27 year old priest coming to America to minister to Ukrainian Catholic immigrants:

http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-victim/juozas-montvila.html

5.

                 German postage stamp marking Pope Benedict’s 80th birthday in 2007

This week held two big days for Pope Benedict XVI: April 16th was his 85th birthday and April 19 is the 7th anniversary of his election as Pope.  After being elected, Pope Benedict XVI’s first words to the crowd were:

“Dear brothers and sisters, after the great Pope John Paul II, the Cardinals have elected me, a simple, humble labourer in the vineyard of the Lord. The fact that the Lord knows how to work and to act even with insufficient instruments comforts me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers. In the joy of the Risen Lord, confident of his unfailing help, let us move forward. The Lord will help us, and Mary, His Most Holy Mother, will be on our side. Thank you.”

6.

Pope Benedict XVI wearing the red papal shoes

7.

Catholic University of America celebrates its 125th anniversary this month.

more quick takes at conversiondiary.com

Tuesday Tour: “Our Lord in the Attic” Church, Amsterdam

In 2010 my daughter and I spent 3 days in Amsterdam, exploring the cultural treasures of the city, especially the art and architecture.  We found that the Rijksmuseum, destination of my dreams ever since my art-history-major days 35 years ago, was under construction, with only a fraction of the collection on display.  A definite disappointment, but one that opened up more time to explore other riches of the city.

view of Amsterdam’s Old Church from the Church of Our Lord in the Attic

One of the most fascinating things I saw in Amsterdam was the so-called “Our Lord in the Attic” church - a 17th century church hidden at the top of a canal house (three houses combined, actually) in the oldest part of Amsterdam, what is now the red-light district. 

As a result of the “Alteration” of 1578, the Catholic religion was outlawed in Amsterdam, with churches, monasteries and convents seized by the civil authorities.  Catholics could generally worship in private, if their churches were not obvious and visible to the public.  Our canal-boat guide pointed out that fact as yet another example of the famous Dutch virtue of toleration for all people and views (just a bit ironic).

the back of the church and organ loft

Perhaps the largest and most famous of the hidden churches (although this term was not used until the 19th century) is the so-called Our Lord in the Attic, a church dedicated to St. Nicholas that was used for worship for neighboring Catholics for two centuries.  The property is now a museum, but there are times when the Mass is still celebrated in the church, but I don’t know the details.

looking toward the sanctuary

A steep staircase opens into a long nave, lined with galleries on two levels.  When I visited in 2010 the  church was in the early days of an ambitious restoration, and the interior was filled with scaffolding and plastic sheets. 

sanctuary, with altarpiece and altar temporarily removed

Construction is scheduled to continue through 2012.  The museum is remaining open throughout the renovation, giving a fascinating look at the work-in-progress as the craftsmen go about their tasks.  The church is being restored to the point when Mass was last celebrated regularly - the late 19th century.

visible on the walls and columns: investigation of finishes from the past 3 centuries

In addition to the spectacular church, the rest of the canal house is open to the public with period rooms of the Dutch Golden Age.

the famous drawing room (there’s a copy of this room in Japan!):

Bedroom with a cupboard-bed. My 14-year-old self would have been in heaven!

A room for visiting priests (another cupboard bed)

The newer of the two kitchens

Detail of the Dutch tile on the kitchen wall:

You can read about the church and the progress of the renovation on the museum’s web site.