Tag: art

Happy birthday, Albrecht Dürer!

German painter, woodcarver, engraver, mathematician, born May 21, 1471, spent much of his life in Italy and produced some of the most well known art of the Renaissance. He’s the one who did those Praying Hands that used to appear on 75% of religious art:

 

 

PIC praying hands

 

But did you know he also did praying feet?

 

 

 

PIC praying feet

 

Browse around in this wonderful gallery of his works, and you’ll find this cerebral allegory, “Melencolia I”

 

 

 

PIC Melancolia

Note that this is an engraving.  Have you ever tried to make a print?  Looked like a chimpanzee did it, didn’t it?  I almost feel like engraving with such depth and detail as the above is a supernatural talent.

But Durer also gave us homlier treasures. Here is his so-called “Great Piece of Turf”:

 

PIC great piece of turf

Juicy! You can see that the peak of summer is past, and the weeds are still going strong, but are past their first freshness.  This is a watercolor  – which, if I remember correctly, is a medium that requires even more manual control than engravings.

Happy birthday, Al. We all still dig that hair.

PIC self portrait

 

Mary said “Fanks”

PIC annunciation

From John Herreid, here’s a painting I’ve never seen before:

 

The Annunciation by Master of the Retable of the Reyes Católicos (15th century)

Here is a detail, showing the Word of God proceeding from the mouth of the Father:

Cross already in hands. Oh, Mary.

And a short interview with my daughter, who is almost 5. I am not sure why the conversation started with a discussion of her rabbit Daffodil’s  eating habits; and YES I fluffed at least two opportunities to clear up theological misunderstandings. But around 2:53, she says something that never occurred to me before, but I bet she’s right:

After the angel told her she would have a child, and He would be Son of the Most High, she said . . . “Thank you.”

Terrible craft my little kids absolutely love

A nice way to add some color to a house full of people who are pretty much tired of brown, white, brownish white, and black.  This is one of those crafts that is easy, but you have to not give a crap about your furniture or clothes.

Step 1:  sit on a bunch of coffee filters to flatten them.  Irene, 4, notes that this step is important, “although it’s a little bit vulgar.”

Step 2:  drip some water on them.

Step 3:  drip food coloring on them.  You may also do food coloring first, and then water.

Step 4:  let it dry. The end.

These dry fast and make nice marbled, stained glass effect, very cheery hanging in windows.  They look like planets.  You can experiment with different amounts and combinations of water and food coloring.  I know you can get this same effect with decent watercolors, but the kids really love squeezing the food coloring droppers.

Bonus:  you get Hulk Hands for a good week or so!

Daniel Mitsui is a treasure of the Church

. . . and he and his family have had a really terrible year. If you were thinking of buying any art prints this year, look here first, and you will help the Mistui family find their way through some of the mountain of medical bills that have piled up.

To give you a taste of his style, here is one of his magnificent drawings:  The Great Battle in Heaven

 

He also offers bookplates and other types of works, including some with secular themes.  Treat yourself by browsing through his galleries, and consider buying something wonderful for your home or parish.

At the Register: The Light of the Child

A poem, a tune, a painting for Christmas.  May the baby who brings us warmth and light bless you all!

I KNEW I should have gone with The Sinner’s Guide to Amish Vampires in Space.

I was having lots of fun scrolling through this list of Worst Christian Book Covers of 2013.  A couple of favorites:

and this:

and of course this, which should win all the prizes ever, for everything, but most of all for the most courageous use of “spray paint” tool in a professional setting:

 

“Most intelligently designed” indeed.

But then I got to #7 on the list of Worst Christian Book Covers of 2013, and what to my wondering eyes should appear but A COVER THAT LOOKS VERY, VERY FAMILIAR:

A sign your priest may be WAY too involved in your sex life.
#ConfessionalFetish(Submitted by Kimberly Roth)HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!  Oh man.  I’m on a list, I’m on a list!  Thanks, Kimberly Roth, whoever you are.  I submit, for your discering eyes, the mockup for my next book, coming out  some time in 2015:

About the cover art for SGNFP

My beloved cover

was done by the immensely talented John Herreid, who is a graphic artist for Ignatius Press.  (He also happens to be my sister’s husband’s brother, and he made the cover for me as a gift!)

Check out John’s latest blog post for Ignatius Press Novels, where he describes a few of the ingenious processes he used

while lovingly creating some of his favorite book covers.  So cool.

Gaudi and the Highlander Principle

Happy birthday to Atoni Gaudi, the mad builder of Barcelona.  When I was visiting my sister when she lived there, we toured La Sagrada Familia, which he started in 1883 and which is still unfinished.  Gaudi’s trademark style is the “sandcastle” look and feel

with mind-bending curves and Seussian angles

with bright colors and unexpected juxtapositions of heavy geometric shapes.  I don’t actually know what the conventional wisdom is about Gaudi’s architecture, especially La Sagrada Familia.  Do traditionally-minded folks recoil in horror, because it’s so . . . well, gaudy?

and really does look like some insane person built a sandcastle and then enlarged it and painted it with Prang Tempras?  Or do people easily recognize that his stuff, while weird and disorienting, is architecturally brilliant, and transmits a sensation of giddiness and exaltation?

Maybe it’s easier to tell in person how fantastic it is.  I always wonder about that, when I see pictures of some ucky new church or piece of sculpture that the Catholic internet hates.  Architecture is, after all, designed to be seen in person, in the actual light and from the actual perspective of someone who’s actually there, and photos don’t necessarily catch anything of that experience.

On the other hand, Gaudi falls under the Highlander Principle of art:  there can be only one.  It was really great one time.  But that’s it!  One guy can get away with it!  No more!  The same goes for Jackson Pollock, John Cage, and, in a way, G. M. Hopkins.  You love the experience, but you don’t necessarily want any imitators or influencees.

What do you think of Gaudi?  Have you seen his stuff in person?

Happy birthday, Ezra Jack Keats!

If you can believe it, his very first book was the exquisite The Snowy Day

I love the sense of quiet alertness conveyed with those blocks of color,

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love that giant Mama,

Peter-Mom-socks

love the simple portraits of the little sorrows and the great joys of childhood.

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This was one of the first children’s books about a black kid.

More seasonable, another of my favorites illustrated by Ezra Jack Keats is Over in the Meadow:

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My favorite counting song, so cozy and satisfying, and the pictures are intense and unforgettable.

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Happy birthday, Ezra Jack Keats!   Thanks for all the colors.

More hope for religious art

Elizabeth Scalia posted a link (on Facebook, not on her blog — but she always has tons of good stuff, so check it out!) to this sculpture of the Annunciation, by John Collier:

(photo source:  The Deacon’s Bench)

I know it’s just about impossible to make a judgment based on a photo, but what do you think?  My first thought was that it made reference to the statue of Apollo and Daphne by Bernini:

(photo source)

The artist seems to be stressing the significance of the fig tree.  Intstresting, no?  I prefer the one true God’s means of preserving his faithful daughter’s virginity!  I also thought the face of Mary in the first sculpture hearkened to the  Ecstasy of St. Theresa, also by Bernini.