St. Mary Magdalen, by Donatello.
Today is her feast day. The 15th century sculpture for the Baptistry of the Duomo in Florence looks to be rather contemporary in style, don’t you think?
You can’t even dialog with people like this.
The followers of Mohamed are demanding centuries old depictions of the Prophet and his followers be removed from churches in Europe.
Belgian police is protecting a 17th century pulpit in the Flemish town of Dendermonde. The pulpit in the Catholic church of Our Lady dates from 1685, two years after the battle of Viennawhen the Christian armies of the Polish King John III Sobieski defeated the Turks poised to overrun Europe. The sculpted wooden pulpit, made by Mattheus van Beveren, depicts a man subdued by angels and represents the triumph of Christianity over Islam. The man is generally thought to be Mohammed. He is holding a book which is generally assumed to be the Koran.
Meanwhile, radical Muslims in Italy are still demanding the destruction of an early Renaissance frescoin Bologna’s Church of San Petronio, painted by Giovanni da Modena in 1415. The fresco depicts Mohammed being tortured in Hell. - Brussels Journal
I suppose it is not only too late, but impossible to deport all of these people back to where they came from. I think they are taking over - the fall of Europe.
and an exhibit in the Austrian Cardinal’s art gallery.
When I was in 5th grade an unidentified fellow student drew an obscene picture on the back of a holy card Sr. Hiltrude distributed to the class. We never found out who did the drawing, but I had my suspicions, as did my other classmates. The drawing was crude, although it might be considered art today. Especially by the curators of the Dommuseum of Vienna, the art gallery attached to the Cathedral of St. Stephen, and adjacent to the Archbishop’s palace of Christoph Cardinal Schonborn.
The Marxist artist, Alfred Hrdlicka (no, the last name is not a joke) is featured in a one man exhibition of his work, entitled, “Religion, Flesh, and Power”. His heavy-handed, ‘Teutonic’ style is decidely homo-erotic; compositions depicting Christ and the disciples engaged in homosexual sex acts. (The ’art’ is similar to the gay grafitti a man might see in a public restroom.) Gloria Television produced a short video of the works here.
“Dommuseum Director Bernhard Böhler said visitors asked “in a more or less emotional way” why the Apostles are depicted engaged in sex with one another. According to the director, the artist responded, ‘There were no women around.’” - Religion and Spirituality.
Arrogant response.
Photo: The artist, Hrdlicka.
Links:
Or why the Lord wouldn’t waste his time.
You just can’t make this stuff up - every other week it seems someone is seeing Christ’s face in a potato chip, or hearing heavenly voices coming from their radiators or something. Today I came across a story on New Oxford about a woodsman from New Jersey or Pennsylvania, who discovered an image of Jesus in the core of a pine tree. (See photo.)
“Furniture maker Craig O’Connor said he was chopping down pine trees last year at a friend’s house in Burlington County when he discovered the image.
“We had to cut down these three trees and immediately we saw it,” O’Connor said of the image. “It was such an adrenaline rush to look on it. It was a feeling of awe.”
As beautiful as it is, O’Connor said he’s already tried to sell the log. “I tried to sell it on eBay, but the best offer I got was $500,” he said. “That cheese sandwich sold for $28,000. I think this log is worth as much.” - Bucks County Courier Times
“As beautiful as it is…”
One of the first thoughts that came into this devout man’s head is making money off the find. How holy is that. Over the centuries, when ‘real’ miraculous images were found; by woodsmen, plowmen, and other poor peasants, they were immediately shown to the local priest with veneration and awe. Many times miraculous springs accompanied the find, or numerous miracles were associated with the image, as well as apparitions of angels or other heavenly signs. The faithful normally responded with fervent devotion and amendment of life.
Yet today - if indeed these things were supernatural - the first thought on everyone’s mind is winning a jackpot auction on eBay, accompanied by tons of publicity - super-stardom for a couple of minutes. If Moses were here today, he’d crack the commandments over these idolater’s heads.
When an image is miraculous, as in the case of the Shroud of Turin, the Tilma of Guadalupe, the image of Our Lady of Good Counsel at Genazzano, the Miraculous Crucifix of Esquilpulas, or the many statues of the Blessed Virgin throughout the Hispanic world, they ALL are clearly identifiable as to whom the image represents. They are not eidolons of nature.
The private chapel of St. Rita.
Craig Hamilton’s work has not gotten much airing on the internet, or even in American classical circles; yet, this handsome private chapel (Georgian Award, 2006) in northern Britain shows a remarkable freeness and ease within the architectural language chosen, quietly mingling aspects of Sir John Soane’s work with Michelangelesque pediments and a convincing surety of form. I can only hope to see more documentation on this unjustifiably-neglected architect in the future. - New Liturgical Movement
NLM is one of the very best blogs online, and Matthew Alderman is working on a series of posts focused upon contemporary ecclesial art and architecture by traditional artists and architects. Mr. Alderman writes:
One thing I would like our readers to consider over the next few days as I post other new architectural and sculptural work by outstanding traditional artists, I think many of our readers–and many Catholics of a traditional bent–are too quick to reject the work of most of the few talented artists out there because of issues of style. This is unfortunate, as often the only other option is to resort to inferior, mechanically-produced copies, a solution seized upon entirely too quickly as a viable option. This is not to say style is immaterial, but the issue of Gothic versus Classic versus Romanesque at this point in time serves to cloud the larger issue of artistic quality. Not all Gothic, or Romanesque, or Baroque, is created equal, and a partisan enthusiasm for one particular traditional style over another, whatever its legitimate merits, should not excuse faulty workmanship. -NLM
St. Rita; a bronze for a marvelously inventive private chapel done by British architect Craig Hamilton. - NLM
Mother Superior- Tamara de Lampicka
One of the foremost Art Deco painters, the Polish born Tamara de Lampicka is very collectible today, and once was one of Madonna’s favorite artists. Often dismissed for her fashionable portraits and nudes, this image of a nun is rather impressive. Although I like all of her work.
The temptation in the cloak is the most dangerous…
I’m still not writing (or painting!), but I wanted to post this piece by Claudio Bravo, it could be called a post-modern narrative on the temptation of St. Antony of Egypt - oh, I guess that is what it is. Anyway, I like it very much.
While I have you engaged viewing this work, I just want to mention something: If you endure grave temptations - be very grateful. When you are temptation free - or think you are - something may be off - you just might be living in sin, or at least in a situation the devil is not too concerned about. Beware of the temptations and sins that are “cloaked”.
I wish I could tell you how I know this - but that would be indiscreet.
The Temptation of St. Antony- Hieronymus Bosch.
One of my favorite artists in history. I found a very interesting narrative on the work shown above - and repeated off to the side here - in case the linked image is deleted. When photos are taken from another website, bandwidth is used up every time someone reads my blog. This is why I save photos to “My photos” and post them on Rome-ing Catholics - my other blog - then I take the photos from there. That way, no one’s bandwidth is gobbbled up. But Blogger would not reproduce the image large enough - so I took the original from the website I took the narrative from - I hope it stays - it is stunning in the large format.
Anyway, I’m still taking time off from the blog and the Internet. But I’ll check in to do a quick post of interest and publish any comments I may receive.
I have other things to do and I am sick of blogging and blogs - no offense to anyone. I need to rethink all of this idle time I spend writing about nothing. I read some earlier posts of mine and find my writing style embarrassing.
Anyway - for the feast of St. Antony, what follows is the narrative I found:
“Anthony averts his gaze from the witch-queen who tried to seduce him into marrying her. The witch-queen, wearing a flower-petal headdress, is pouring something out of a jug into a bowl held by a frog. The frog is winged, like the one on whose pale belly Anthony sprawls in the left panel.
Closer to Anthony, a naked woman stands in the hollow of a dead tree. Behind Anthony is a robed gryllus in a child’s walker; below him another, who has legs but no arms. In the corner, under a round tabletop, are two naked men, one with his foot in a jar, the other having his throat cut by a demon. A third man, naked except for a cape, is blowing a fantastic horn.
In the middle ground, a hero with a sword is battling a dragon in the water. The two domed buildings behind them are beacons; one has a fire kindled on top, the other has glowing coals in a bucket at the end of a pivoted arm. We can just make out that the building on the right is being assaulted by a Moorish army with lances and ladders.
These panels, in suggesting that the triptych as a whole is about the St. Anthony legend, have the same function as the radar-reflective chaff that used to be dropped by warplanes. They have little significance of their own, and merely distract us from the real message of the center panel, which we’ll come to in a moment.
Meanwhile, notice how deftly the artist has made it appear that the narrative of the three inner panels is continuous. The barren ground in all three supports this idea, and the bridge on the left is so much like the platform in the middle that we naturally think the platform is a bridge too.
Several writers have referred to the puddle as “wastewater,” and I think that’s an apt expression. This isn’t part of a natural system of flowing water, it’s the kind of grey water that is dumped out of a washtub—or perhaps, considering the dead fish, we ought to think of it as the effluent of a sewer.
In the center panel of Bosch’s triptych The Flood, the receding waters are represented by a stagnant pool in which a drowned woman and child are floating. It is this stagnant water, I believe, that turns up in other Bosch paintings to remind us that ever since the Flood we have been living in a suburb of Hell.” - Will the Real Hieronymus Bosch Please Stand Up?
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