Devotion by Design

Don’t miss this excellent exhibition at the National Gallery, which runs until 2nd October – and is free!

‘Devotion by Design’ explores the function, the original location, and the development of altarpieces in Italy during the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance.

The exhibits are all or nearly all from the Gallery’s own collections, but the curators have worked hard to lift them out of the “gallery” and recontextualise them both in sacred space (dimmed lighting, altar-like plinths, organ music) and within the altarpiece setting itself.

So many altarpieces were first re-arranged, as fashions changed from for example the tiered assemblage of smaller figures to a single larger group done in perspective, and then later simple sundered, that seeing them in an art gallery not only over-prioritises our aesthetic, art-historical response, but also denies us the “story” that makes sense of the sign.

Don’t miss the very good video showing next door which explains all this and shows works under conservation too.

Filed under: Art

Fourth Century Paintings of Apostles discovered in Roman Catacomb

The oldest known images of the apostles Peter, Andrew and John have been uncovered in the catacombs of Santa Tecla, near Rome beneath thick deposits of white calcium that had accumulated in the humid conditions over the centuries.

Professor Fabrizio Bisconti said: “It’s an exceptional discovery that was made by using a laser technique to uncover the yellow and red pigments beneath layers of calcium deposits. The tomb is believed to have belonged to a noble woman of Rome.”

Chief restorer Barbara Mazzei told Associated Press: “Using the laser, restorers were able to sear off all the layers of calcium that had been bound onto the painting because the laser beam stopped burning at the white of the calcium deposits, which when chipped off left the brilliant darker colors underneath it unscathed.”

This announcement comes after the initial discovery last year of the portrait of Saint Paul.

You can see photos of the catacomb and the icons here.

Filed under: Art, History

Do I believe in God?

“Yes, when I work,” said Matisse. He wrote the words in his famous book “Jazz”, but they perhaps came to full expression in the Rosaire Chapel at Vence that he designed and built to the nun who nursed him through a life-threatening cancer. Critic Alastair Sooke’s programme tonight was another winner, and he was moved to tears by his own encounter with the chapel, and it painting with pure light.

I loved the Paul Smith tie based on L’Escargot: can’t see it on the PS website though. Shame.

Filed under: Art

Be a Warhol Pop Hero

Did you see the excellent programme on Andy Warhol by Alastair Sooke last Sunday evening? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rrbdj). A.S. mentioned a gizmo that will Warholize your own picture. I tracked it down and you can have a go for yourself at http://bighugelabs.com/popart.php. Or if you’d rather become a Hockney collage, you can do that too. Enjoy!

Filed under: Art, photography

The Burning Bush and the Annunication

El Greco Annunciation (detail), from the Prado, Madrid

A few days ago I blogged on my Valentine’s Day Sermon on Exodus 3.1-6: The Burning bush that is not burnt up. I mentioned then that the bush was seen in rabbinic tradition as a sign of God’s “condescension” to be with humanity, and that this connected for Christians with Christ.

If I’d spent longer preparing I’d have come across the well-developed typological and iconographic tradition that explores this in the particular dimension of Christ’s presence in the Virgin Mary – which a chance reference in a caption at the Fitzwilliam Museum’s current exhibition The Angel and the Virgin: A Brief History of the Annunciation alerted me to.

St John Chrysostom (347-407) may have set the ball rolling in his Treatise on the Annunciation [Patrologia Graeco 50, 794-5] which compared the burning bush to the life of Christ being born within Mary by the fiery power of the Spirit that inspires yet without consuming her virginity.  The “bush which burned but was not yet consumed” is also cited in the text of the Great Vespers for the Feast of the Annunciation.

Depictions of the Annunciation in art don’t often show the burning bush directly, but an exception in El Greco’s (above) where a rose bush (of course) is on fire behind the Virgin.

The Fitzwilliam exhibition is curated by Lino Mannocci, whose own monoprints are on show in an adjacent gallery and which themselves reference the Annunciation – especially the painting by Veneziano that hangs nearby.

Filed under: Art

The Sacred Made Real

I had to go down to London this week, and took the opportunity to call in at the National Gallery’s exhibition of Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600-1700 called  The Sacred Made Real. It focusses on the painted sculpture of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, which combined very skilful carving with highly realistic painted surfaces to create a very direct and emotive effect. The sculptures were made for practical use in the encouragement of faith, and have remained in use ever since – with both aspects of that (their overt and emotional faith commitment and their still being in use) meaning that they have received little attention from the art world hitherto.

it is not a large exhibition, but it is an impressive one, with a good selection of high quality exhibits well hung and lit.

My reaction? I was moved; and thought that here we have a powerful reminder that both Christ and Mary on the one hand and the saints of the faith on the other were human as we are; and looking at them invited me into the real relationship between them. I would imagine that that was precisely the hope of those who made and commissioned the artworks.

So one painting I had not seen before was by Francisco Ribalta (1565–1628) and is entitled
Christ embracing Saint Bernard
of Clairvaux. Well yes, but it is both Bernard embracing both a painted statue of Christ, and also  in the Spirit knowing the real Christ embracing him: and it is that two-way-ness that is I think at the heart of this powerful art. We embrace it: and through it we are embraced.

   

Here is a link to a Video by Archbishop Vincent Nicholls talking with art critics about three of the works.

Filed under: Art, Christianity

A Touching Time at Thriplow

This week also saw me at Thriplow to institute a fellow Sheffielder, the Revd Canon Linda Church, as Rector for the benefice of Fowlmere, Foxton, Thriplow and Shepreth. She comes to us from the Hucknall Team Ministry, and one the folk ‘giving her away’ from there got us off to a cheerful start by announcing that he used to be 18 inches taller until he had to start keep up with Linda in her work. The service brought a good blend of seriousness and informality, and we enjoyed getting to know the more prayerful side of Linda as well, as you can find out about in my sermon, based on the unusual reading she chose: John’s account of Mary Magdalene anointing the feet of Jesus and washing them with her hair.

Filed under: Art, Church of England, Sermons and Talks

Burlington House Balls

‘Tall Tree and the Eye’, 2009, part of the Anish Kapoor exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, has replaced Bryan Kneale’s ‘Triton III’ which was displayed as part of the Summer Exhibition, in the Annenberg Courtyard of the Royal Academy. Anish Kapoor at the Royal Academy of Arts will be on view from the 26th September to the 11th December 2009.

Filed under: Art

Oooh la Lille

  

We popped into Lille today for a bit of atmosphere and a spot of lunch. Almost Belgian in feel (the county of Flanders straddled the modern boundary), and now the seat of an archbishop, who we entertained to dinner last night. The cathedral was built as a shrine to the Virgin, becoming first a basilica and then recently in 2008 a metropolitan cathedral. I particularly admired the stations of the cross by Jean-Luc Bonduau – more perhaps of these later.

Filed under: Art, Christianity, Travel

Summer Snaps (10): Oban

We passed through Oban on our way to Mull, and enjoyed its busy harbour, and surprisingly interesting shopping. There are quite a few art galleries there, of which our favourite was Kranenburg Fine Art, not cheap but with a well-chosen selection from a good showing of one of our favourites among what I call the new Scottish Colourists, Jolomo, to Scott Irvine’s striking fused glass bowls and sushi plates. You’ll see one on our mantelpiece at Villa Huntingdon.

Filed under: Art, photography, Travel, Scotland