#reference: the taking of christ by caravaggio

[lotussart]

The Taking of The Lamb

COTLtober Week 4: A Kiss

[nepentheisms]

This is it; this is the Big 'Un that's been knocking around in my head since the bookclub's inception.

When it comes to mentions of the biblical parallels in Trigun, I've seen that Wolfwood is most frequently discussed as a Judas figure. I think it's important, though, to note that carrying out the Judas role to Vash's Jesus was a job he was ordered to take, and it's one he went through the motions of following while having the ulterior motive of killing the one who gave him the order in the first place. In fact, when Wolfwood does turn traitor, it's actually Knives and the GHG he chooses to betray. He ends up Judas-ing the guys who assigned him to the Judas mission - that's some sweet irony!

And as Wolfwood's time in the story draws to an end, he takes the path completely contrary to Judas' ignominious end by suicide. He instead takes a leap of faith and dares to place his trust in Vash's vision for humanity's future. His faith remains imperfect, but in the midst of all his doubt and uncertainty, he persists anyway.

This last stand of his becomes Wolfwood's ultimate affirmation of his devotion to Vash's ideals, and he effectively becomes a martyr, which places him far outside the image of Judas. In fact, I think that when we look back on his character arc as a whole, we can see how it more neatly lines up in trajectory with the story of another apostle: Peter.

Like Peter in the gospel narratives, Wolfwood finds it difficult to have the kind of faith that is asked of him. Vash goes into his battle with Rai Dei insisting to Wolfwood that he can finish the conflict without taking a life, but Wolfwood intervenes against Vash's wishes because he was worried about Rai Dei's next move. Peter sees Jesus walking on water and goes out to join him, but with the rough winds blowing around him, Peter becomes overwhelmed by fear and begins to sink. After these failures of faith in their respective stories, Peter and Wolfwood are then chastised by the men they follow.

Matthew 14:31 (NRSV) - Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"

And it's these struggles with doubt, these moments of fear and cynicism overtaking faith that are so instrumental to the Christian perspective on salvation with its message of "You are flawed by nature, but you are loved beyond all comprehension nonetheless. Accept this love that it may save you and change you."

In Peter's case, although he is singled out multiple times for his failures (e.g. denying Jesus three times), he still holds a special place of prominence among Jesus' disciples. The 21st chapter of John features a conversation between Peter and the resurrected Jesus in which Peter affirms his love for Jesus three times (a reversal of the three times he denied Jesus), and Jesus responds by instructing Peter to care for his flock. After Jesus ascends to Heaven, Peter continues the work set out for him in building the early church until his eventual martyrdom, which, according to church tradition, occurs via upside-down crucifixion (see Caravaggio's rendition here). Interestingly, Wolfwood's martyrdom also involves lots of grievous bodily harm being dealt by crosses.

So the saint gets brought to death's doorstep, and that brings us to the infamous whiskey bottle

Others have already pointed out that "The Bride" likely refers to the Bride of Christ. This excerpt from the Catechism of the Catholic Church sums up the concept:

The unity of Christ and the Church, head and members of one Body, also implies the distinction of the two within a personal relationship. This aspect is often expressed by the image of bridegroom and bride. The theme of Christ as Bridegroom of the Church was prepared for by the prophets and announced by John the Baptist. The Lord referred to himself as the "bridegroom." The Apostle speaks of the whole Church and of each of the faithful, members of his Body, as a bride "betrothed" to Christ the Lord so as to become but one spirit with him. The Church is the spotless bride of the spotless Lamb.

Now Peter is of particular importance when talking about the Church as an institution, because in the Catholic tradition, Peter is believed to have been granted a distinguished position of authority as the very foundation of Jesus' church, and every Pope is considered a successor to Peter in their occupation of the Church's highest office.

So Peter = Pope = the head of the Bride of Christ. And if we take the reading of Wolfwood as a Peter analogue.... you see where we're going. The Bride of Christ has been sanctified through a powerful demonstration of sacrificial love and prepared for the wedding to the bridegroom, but right here Yasuhiro Nightow subverts the biblical metaphor to devastating effect. The wedding doesn't come to fruition, because Vash can't bring himself to step into the role of the heavenly bridegroom. In this moment, he just feels all too painfully human in his grief. Wolfwood ascends - celebrated across the sky by those he saved with his selfless love, but Vash descends - acting as an ordinary person mourning the loss of a loved one.

John 13:36 (NRSV) - Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now...."

[insipid-drivel]

slow inhale

Inverted crosses and crucifixes are not “iconic symbols of Satanism”!!!

The above image? 100% holy. Totally canonical. Has absolutely NOTHING to do with Satan, Lucifer, or “The Devil”. It’s called the Petrine Cross aka The Cross of Saint Peter and is a symbol of piety, humility, deference, and martyrdom particularly to Jesus Christ (not necessarily his other canonical phases of existence) and his relationship with the Pope. It’s also one of the symbols most closely associated with The Pope.

It is one of the main reasons I can’t take exorcist and demon-themed horror movies seriously ever. Not because I’m a polytheistic soul-selling Bandrui (those things are true but they’re not why), but because it’s a continuity error! A hilarious one if you think about it! The demon is just showing how much the characters really don’t understand about the religion they’re espousing in the movie!

So, why would St. Peter be associated with something that, for all intents and purposes, we visually associate with something that is backwards from Christianity or whatever “holiness” means? Because, like Jesus, St. Peter was also crucified, or at least that is the version of St. Peter’s story that is considered most canonical. In truth, stories about St. Peter that still exist date back only as late as 200 AD with the apocryphal “Acts of Peter”. Whether or not the upside down part of the story was canonical hasn’t been determined with any real certainty, but it was the version told by this guy:

Origen of Alexandria! Origen was largely considered one of the greatest early Christian luminaries, scholars, philosophers, poets, and all-around book nerds and is the primary source for the whole “St. Peter was crucified upside down” story, inspiring Renaissance masterworks like this little number by Caravaggio:

“Crucifixion Of Saint Peter”

Origen’s popularized telling of the tragic demise of St. Peter makes a big deal about the story-canonical feature that St. Peter insisted upon being crucified upside-down because he didn’t feel worthy to emulate the same, now-iconic crucifixion of Jesus.

So how did the Petrine Cross become a symbol associated with Satanism?

France.

Well, not all of it, but France was involved. In the early 19th century, a cult leader by the name of Eugène Vintras insisted that he was the reincarnation of the Prophet Elijah. Aside from that, he also practiced necromancy (which is the art of cavorting with DEMONS, not corpses for the love of my blackened, shriveled occultist heart) and was commonly seen wearing robes and symbols depicting the Petrine Cross.

In comes This Guy:

Éliphas Lévi was another famous 19th century French Occultist (after leaving the Catholic priesthood when he was in his 20′s to get drunk and listen to metal or something) who took one look at, and presumably all surviving sketches of  Eugène Vintras, saw his regalia of Petrine crosses, and wrote the literally-damning words that for wearing his inverted crosses, Vintras’ satanic leanings were obvious.

After Éliphas Lévi wrote about Vintras’ wearing of the Petrine Cross and Satanic preferences, the inverted cross gradually became more and more associated with anti-religion movements and, of course, Satanism. The final nail in the Apocryphal Iconography Crucifixion came in the 1960′s-1980′s with the dawn of the horror movie franchise and the rise of the Satanic Panic, a mass hysteria movement that had to be debunked by the FBI where young people and children were convinced by their therapists during hypnotherapy sessions that they had been the subjects of Satanic rituals at the hands of the parents/guardians at very young ages that never happened, destroyed families, left countless people traumatized. FBI agent Kenneth Lanning went on to publish what’s commonly referred to as “The Lanning Report” to debunk the claims of abuse and lambast the therapist that started the panic in the first place.

If you want to really rock like a Satanist, consider donating stuff like feminine hygiene products to your local Planned Parenthood ;)

[pumpkinpaix]

Hello! Feel free not to answer this question if it is in any way too much, but I've been wondering about something concerning the "western" mdzs fandom. Lately, i have seen multiple pieces of fanart that use what is clearly Christian symbolism and sometimes downright iconography in depicting the characters. I'm a european fan, but it still makes me vaguely uneasy. I know that these things are rarely easy to judge. I'm definitely not qualified to do so and was wondering if you have an opinion

Hi there! thank you for your patience and for the interesting question! I’ve been thinking about this since i received this ask because it?? idk, it’s difficult to answer, but it also touches on a a few things that I find really interesting.

the short answer: it’s complicated, and I also don’t know what I feel!

the longer answer:

i think that this question is particularly difficult to answer because of how deeply christianity is tied to the western art and literary canon. so much of what is considered great european art is christian art! If you just take a quick glance at wiki’s page on european art, you can see how inextricable christianity is, and how integral christian iconography has been in the history of european art. If you study western art history, you must study christian imagery and christian canon because it’s just impossible to engage with a lot of the work in a meaningful way without it. that’s just the reality of it.

Christianity, of course, also has a strong presence in european colonial and imperialist history and has been used as a tool of oppression against many peoples and nations, including China. I would be lying if I said I had a good relationship with Christianity--I have always faced it with a deep suspicion because I think it did some very, very real damage, not just to chinese people, but to many cultures and peoples around the world, and that’s not a trauma that can be easily brushed aside or reconciled with.

here is what is also true: my maternal grandmother was devoutly christian. my aunt is devoutly christian. my uncle’s family is devoutly christian. my favorite cousin is devoutly christian. when I attended my cousin’s wedding, he had both a traditional chinese ceremony (tea-serving, bride-fetching, ABSURDLY long reception), and also a christian ceremony in a church. christianity is a really important part of his life, just as it’s important to my uncle’s family, and as it was important to my grandmother. I don’t think it’s my right or place to label them as simply victims of a colonialist past--they’re real people with real agency and choice and beliefs. I think it would be disrespectful to act otherwise.

that doesn’t negate the harm that christianity has done--but it does complicate things. is it inherently a bad thing that they’re christian, due to the political history of the religion and their heritage? that’s... not a question I’m really interested in debating. the fact remains that they are christian, that they are chinese, and that they chose their religion.

so! now here we are with mdzs, a chinese piece of media that is clearly Not christian, but is quickly gaining popularity in euroamerican spaces. people are making fanart! people are making A LOT of fanart! and art is, by nature, intertextual. a lot of the most interesting art (imo) makes deliberate use of that! for example (cyan art nerdery time let’s go), Nikolai Ge’s What is Truth?

I love this painting! it’s notable for its unusual depiction of christ: shabby, unkempt, slouched, in shadow. if you look for other paintings of this scene, christ is usually dignified, elegant, beautiful, melancholy -- there’s something very humanizing and humbling about this depiction, specifically because of the way it contrasts the standard. it’s powerful because we as the audience are expected to be familiar with the iconography of this scene, the story behind it, and its place in the christian canon.

you can make similar comments about Gentileschi’s Judith vs Caravaggio’s, or Manet’s Olympia vs Ingres’ Grande Odalisque -- all of these paintings exist in relation to one another and also to the larger canon (i’m simplifying: you can’t just compare one to another directly in isolation etc etc.) Gauguin’s Jacob Wrestling the Angel is also especially interesting because of how its portrayal of its content contrasts to its predecessors!

or! because i’m really In It now, one of my favorite paintings in the world, Joan of Arc by Bastien-Lepage:

I just!!! gosh, idk, what’s most interesting to me in this painting is the way it seems to hover between movements: the hyperrealistic, neoclassical-esque take on the figure, but the impressionistic brushstrokes of the background AAA gosh i love it so much. it’s really beautiful if you ever get a chance to see it in person at the Met. i’m putting this here both because i personally just really like it and also as an example of how intertextuality isn’t just about content, but also about visual elements.

anyways, sorry most of this is 19thc, that was what i studied the most lol.

(a final note: if you want to read about a really interesting painting that sits in the midst of just a Lot of different works, check out the wiki page on Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, specifically under “Interpretation and Legacy”)

this is all a really long-winded way of getting to this point: if you want to make allusory fanart of mdzs with regards to western art canon, you kind of have to go out of your way to avoid christian imagery/iconography, especially when that’s the lens through which a lot of really intensely emotional art was created. many of my favorite paintings are christian: Vrubel’s Demon, Seated, Perov’s Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, Ge’s Conscience, Judas, Bastien-Lepage’s Joan of Arc, as shown above. that’s not to say there ISN’T plenty of non-christian art -- but christian art is very prominent and impossible to ignore.

so here are a few pieces of fanwork that I’ve seen that are very clearly making allusions to christian imagery:

1. this beautiful pietà nielan by tinynarwhals on twitter

2. a lovely jiang yanli as our lady of tears by @satuwilhelmiina

3. my second gif in this set here, which I will also show below:

i’m only going to talk about mine in depth because well, i know exactly what i was thinking when I put this gif together while I can’t speak for anyone else.

first: the two lines of the song that I wanted to use for lan xichen were “baby, I’m a fighter//in the robes of a saint” because i felt that they fit him very well. of course, just the word “saint” evokes catholicism, even if it’s become so entwined in the english language that it’s taken on a secular meaning as well.

second: when I saw this scene, my immediate thought was just “PIETÀ!!” because LOOK at that composition! lan xichen’s lap! nie mingjue lying perpendicular to it! the light blue/white/silver of lan xichen in contrast to the darker robes of both nie mingjue and meng yao! not just that, but the very cool triangular structure of the image is intensely striking, and Yes, i Do love that it simultaneously ALSO evokes deposition of christ vibes. (baxia as the cross.... god..... is that not the Tightest Shit) does this make meng yao joseph of arimathea? does it make him john the evangelist? both options are equally interesting, I think when viewed in relation to his roles in the story: as a spy in qishan and as nmj’s deputy. maybe he’s both.

anyways, did I do this intentionally? yes, though a lot of it is happy accident/discovered after the fact since I’m relying on CQL to have provided the image. i wanted to draw attention to all of that by superimposing that line over that image! (to be clear: I didn’t expect it to all come through because like. that’s ridiculous. the layers you’d have to go through to get from “pretty lxc gifset” --> “if we cast nie mingjue as a christ figure, what is the interesting commentary we could do on meng yao by casting him as either joseph of arimathea or john the evangelist” are like. ok ur gonna need to work a little harder than slapping a song lyric over an image to achieve an effect like that.)

the point of this is: yes, it’s intentionally christian, yes I did this, yes I am casting these very much non-christian characters into christian roles for this specific visual work -- is this okay?

I obviously thought it was because I made it. but would I feel the same about a work that was written doing something similar? probably not. I think that would make me quite uncomfortable in most situations. but there’s something about visual art that makes it slightly different that I have trouble articulating -- something about how the visual often seeks to illustrate parallels or ideas, whereas writing characters as a different religion can fundamentally change who those characters are, the world they inhabit, etc. in a more... invasive?? way. that’s still not quite right, but I genuinely am not sure how to explain what i mean! I hope the general idea comes across. ><

something else to think about is like, what are pieces I find acceptable and why?

what makes the pieces above that reference christian imagery different than this stunning nieyao piece by @cyandemise after klimt’s kiss? (warnings for like, dead bodies and vague body horror) like i ADORE this piece (PLEASE click for fullview it’s worth it for the quality). it’s incredibly beautiful and evocative and very obviously references a piece of european art. I have no problem with it. why? because it isn’t explicitly christian? it’s still deeply entrenched in western canon. klimt certainly made other pieces that were explicit christian references.

another piece I’d like to invite you all to consider is this incredible naruto fanart of sakura and ino beheading sasuke after caravaggio’s judith. (warnings for beheading, blood, etc. you know.) i also adore this piece! i think it’s very good both technically and conceptually. the reference that it makes has a real power when viewed in relation to the roles of the characters in their original story -- seeing the women that sasuke fucked over and treated so disrespectfully collaborating in his demise Says Something. this is also!! an explicitly christian reference made with non-christian japanese characters. is this okay? does it evoke the same discomfort as seeing mdzs characters being drawn with christian iconography? why or why not?

the point is, I don’t think there’s a neat answer, but I do think there are a lot of interesting issues surrounding cultural erasure/hegemony that are raised by this question. i don’t think there are easy resolutions to any of them either, but I think that it’s a good opportunity to reexamine our own discomfort and try and see where it comes from. all emotions are valid but not all are justified etc. so I try to ask, is it fair? do i apply my criticisms and standards equally? why or why not? does it do real harm, or do i just not like it? what makes one work okay and another not?

i’ve felt that there’s a real danger with the kind of like, deep moral scrutiny of recent years in quashing interesting work in the name of fear. this morality tends to be expressed in black and white, good and bad dichotomies that i really do think stymies meaningful conversation and progress. you’ll often see angry takes that boil down to things like, “POC good, queer people good, white people bad, christianity bad” etc. without a serious critical examination of the actual issues at hand. I feel that these are extraordinarily harmful simplifications that can lead to an increased insularity that isn’t necessarily good for anyone. there’s a fine line between asking people to stay in their lane and cultural gatekeeping sometimes, and I think that it’s something we should be mindful of when we’re engaging in conversations about cultural erasure, appropriation etc.

PERHAPS IT IS OBVIOUS that I have no idea where that line falls LMAO since after all that rambling I have given you basically nothing. but! I hope that you found it interesting at least, and that it gives you a bit more material to think on while you figure out where you stand ahaha.

was this just an excuse to show off cool (fan)art i like? maybe ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(ko-fi)

[longlistshort]

Currently at Matthew Marks Gallery in New York is Julien Nguyen’s first one person show at the gallery, Julien Nguyen: Pictures of the Floating World.

From the press release-

Nguyen is known for his deftly rendered paintings that combine elements of art history, science fiction, and contemporary subjects. His interest in worldbuilding can be seen in several new paintings that use biblical and classical themes as a starting point, including Ave Maria (2019), a take on the Madonna Enthroned, and St. John the Baptist (2020), a reworking of Caravaggio’s John the Baptist featuring one of Nguyen’s friends as the model.

The exhibition also highlights Nguyen’s recent emphasis on portraiture, with depictions of friends, lovers, and fellow artists painted from life. He has said of his art, “Reality occurs only in the intimacy of understanding and being understood.” The Los Angeles studio where he lives and works can be seen in several paintings, including one that presents the view from a second-story window in a depiction as thoroughly detailed as it is inventive.

The exhibition’s title refers to the visual art of Edo-period Japan, a decadent period of flourishing culture. An enthusiast of history, Nguyen uses the past as a lens through which to view, analyze, and reframe our present moment. As Zack Hatfield has described in Artforum, “Some declare the end of the world; others make new worlds. Julien Nguyen does a bit of both.”

If Nguyen’s work looks familiar, it may be because he also collaborated with Ottolinger on its fall 2020 collection, which was then worn by several celebrities.

This exhibition closes on 8/13/21.

[sunny143sr]

Top 10 places to visit in Italy

Italy is a lovely country, globally loved for providing an eclectic combination of visitor attractions. Vacationers, on one hand, love to enjoy the amazing Roman ruins of Pompeii, Rome, and Herculaneum, and on the other, can’t resist traveling to Venice and Tuscany for his or her romantic appeal.

The USA is likewise regarded for its natural sights and scenic landscapes that ship you to any other world. They are spellbinding, charming, and dumbfounding to mention the least. Virtually words don’t do justice at all. You obtain to see them trust us. However, we gained will let you get lost in the maps!

Right here are the pinnacle 10 cities, which might be additionally the pinnacle hubs of vacationer locations in Italy, which are sinfully excellent. You just can’t face up to their seduction!

Earlier than we go to the information, a quick look at the grandeur of top traveler locations in Italy!

1. Tuscany – You simply can’t leave out the greens here!

Tuscany has continually been the center of enterprise, art, and politics in Europe. The various maximum lovely locations to visit in Italy, the town also received a whole lot of prominence as a primary metropolis of the Renaissance length. Great work of artwork can be seen and loved via the art fans coming to this city. Tuscany is also famous for its notable crafts. Substances used to create awesome craft gadgets are timber, metallic, leather-based, marble, and more.

Key attractions: The Gallery of Uffizi acknowledged for its extremely good museums, treasures, palaces, and churches; excellent perspectives of Siena and the Palio; the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa and Piazza Dei Miracoli for his or her particular architecture; beautiful villages; and the scenic vineyards of Chianti.

Fine time to go to September – October, and April – June

Read More: Alaska Airlines

2. Naples – You’d be Colorbound

Naples, positioned inside the Campania vicinity, is nestled amidst the Phlegraean Fields and the volcanic place of Mount Vesuvius. However, this city isn't only regarded for its beautiful locales but also famous for its wealthy history and way of life. A number of the fine tourist points of interest in Italy, the city has the most range of architecturally renowned church buildings.

Key points of interest: Capodimonte Museum for the famous Flagellation of the Christ via Caravaggio, the celebrity-formed Castel Sant’Elmo navy fort, the well-known Lungomare amphitheater, countrywide Archeological Museum, Naples Cathedral- II Duomo, the Naples Archdiocese seat, Palazzo Reale, Gothic Santa Chiara Church, and Piazza San Domenico Maggiore

High-quality time to visit: September – October, and March – might also

Read More: American Airlines

3. Italian Lake District – The metropolis of lakes and fashionistas

Positioned in Italy’s Northern area, the Italian Lake District is known for its stunning lakes. This location has been one of the well-known Italian traveler places since the Roman instances. Each year, a large variety of tourists visit this stunning destination to admire and revel in its lovely scenic locales, Lake Garda and Lake Como. The destination is likewise recognized for its actual Italian cuisine and is frequented by fashionistas to explore the boutiques.

Key attractions: Lake Garda, Lake Como, Lake, Lake Lugano, Lake Maggiore, Lake Orta, Mediaeval castles, Renaissance Palazzi, fishing villages, and the craggy peaks of Dolomites

A pleasant time to go to September and May

4. Sicily – Wandering in the ruins is amusing too!

Sicily is the most popular tourist destination in Italy for its ancient Greek ruins. The vacation spot has been ruled by Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs, and Ostrogoths. The glimpses in their rule can be still visible in the ruins. The stays of the Norman generation's notable architectural achievements additionally attract a wide variety of traffic. The duration architecture is the most important appeal inside the metropolis and is appreciated by site visitors who wish to know more about the bygone technology and its triumphs.

Key points of interest: the Aeolian Islands, Agrigento archaeological website online a.K.The Valley of Temples, the well-known cathedral Cefalu, the hilltop town Erice, Mount Etna, and the Nebrodi Mountains

5. Cinque Terre – Witness a few thoughts-blowing sunsets right here!

Referred to as “The 5 Lands”, Cinque Terre is one of the prettiest needs to see places in Italy. Beautiful vistas at the rugged coastline of Sicily are well worth admiring. The five fishing villages are related through taking walks trails and exploring them is a great concept. Furthermore, this entire region has been declared as a UNESCO international historical past website online.

Key sights: Vernazza fishing village for its cliff, twelfth Century Manarola fishing village for its Groppo and Ruins of Fortifications, Monterosso village for its church buildings and Monastery, Riomaggiore village for its craggy hills,  Corniglia for its 382 stars, and The 12 km Blue course

Fine time to go to March – July

6. Amalfi Coast – A absolutely distinctive vacation spot

Amalfi Coast is one of the most exclusive European destinations, recognized for its ecstatic coasts bordering the Mediterranean Sea. It's miles perfect for exploring nature's marvels in Italy. Positano and Fiordo of Furore are places placed close by and call for quite a time to experience its wonderful sights.

Key sights: astonishing perspectives from Ravello, an implementing and attractive cathedral of Duomo, Spiaggia di Arechi, and the 8th century Salerno citadel

Best time to go to July and August

7. Milan – A spell-binding fashion hub

Italy’s most cosmopolitan city, Milan is famous for soccer and style. The destination is likewise regarded for its herbal points of interest and fashion shows that are prepared two times a yr. The city witnesses the influx of shoppers, designers, and supermodels from all around the world at some stage in the shows. An extremely good thought to the global fashion designers, Milan is absolutely some of the locations to see in Italy.

Key sights: The famous Basilica Sant’Ambrogio devoted to Milan’s client saint, the huge Cemetery of some of the tremendous celebrities of the place, Piazza Mercanti  administrative center of Milan, pieces of artwork on the Pinacoteca di Brera, and the twelfth century Navigli Lombardi canal

Great time to go to: past due September – October, and March – might also

8. Pompeii – A walk down the lanes of records

Placed near the Mount Vesuvius foothills, Pompeii is a historical metropolis, and around 80 BC, the vacation spot became a prime port metropolis. Numerous websites offer glimpses of the Roman rule over the metropolis, that's a UNESCO World history website these days. Its discovery within the year 1748 supplied plenty of statistics about the erstwhile Roman Empire. Humans like to visit this city and explore the properly-preserved ruins to find out more about this city.

Key attractions: Antiquarium museum that gives a lot of information about this fabled metropolis, discussion board Roman metropolis square, Temple of Jupiter constructed on a raised 3-meter base, Teatro Grande, Teatro Piccolo, ancient Stabian Baths, and residence of Menander

best time to visit: April

9. Venice – The floating town

View of the Rio Marin Canal with boats and gondolas from the Ponte de la Bergami in Venice

Venice – the floating metropolis – draws a large number of travelers all-spherical the year. However, its splendor and romantic gondola rides make it the quality of most of the places to go to in Italy for a honeymoon. Many canals are crisscrossing thru the town. The time when the vacation spot witnesses a surge of travelers is throughout Carnevale. Humans sporting colorful costumes and masks are worth watching in their glory. The city is replete with loads of churches, cathedrals, theaters, and art galleries.

Key attractions: Piazza San Marco aka the Drawing Room of Europe using Napoleon, housing St Mark’s Basilica, Doge’s Palace, Torre dell Orologio clock tower, Scuola Grande di San Rocco, and the Grand Canal

Nice time to visit: late February – Early may additionally

10. Rome – The town of affection

Rome, with its stunning attractions and points of interest, is a far cherished destination amongst die-difficult romantics. It has loads of museums, artwork galleries, and theaters that provide perception into its wealthy culture and ancient past. A few of the pleasant locations to visit in Italy with your own family, Rome lets the site visitors understand more about the development of Western Civilization, the boom and progress of Christianity, and the deep-rooted history of the archeological websites.

Key sights: St Peter’s Basilica is known to be  the largest and grandest church within the globe, Roman Empire’s famous Colosseum with an ability to accommodate 55,000 spectators, Piazza Navona fountains constructed inside the seventeenth century, Pantheon built using Emperor Hadrian in the memory of Pagan Gods, and Trevi Fountain

Nice time to go to October – April

[italianartsociety]

The First Holy Thursday: A Momentous Day and Night.

The first Holy Thursday appeared to begin at a moderate pace: with Christ and his apostles sharing a Passover meal, that went on to represent the mass and illustrate the Eucharist. During this shared repast, Jesus also likely inducted the apostles into the priesthood by asking them to take communion “in remembrance of [him]” and by the act of washing their feet (below).

Jesus also introduced a new commandment that instructed people to “love one another” (below).

Christ also indicated to Peter that he would, in time, have an important ecclesiastical role to fulfil. 

As Holy Thursday continued on towards Good Friday, the pace of events would soon quicken and become increasingly darker in mood.

Christ announces to Peter that he will soon deny him (below).

Following further discourse, prayer and a hymn, Christ went on to the Mount of Olives and prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane (below).

And it was while he was present in the Garden of Gethsemane, that Christ was betrayed to the authorities by Judas Iscariot, who kissed Jesus in order to identify him.

Jesus was then taken away under arrest and while en route to Pontias Pilate, Christ was said to have healed a man called Malchus, who had his ear amputated (below).

Jesus was then taken before the High Priests, Annas and Caiaphas (below) before being taken to Pilate for sentencing (below). 

Images: 

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, 1498, mixed technique, Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan. Wikimedia Commons.

Attr. Marcantonio Raimondi, Christ kneeling and Washing St Peter's Feet, c.1500-1534, engraving, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gift of Henry Walters, 1917. 

Duccio di Buoninsegna, Christ Taking Leave of His Apostles, from the Stories of the Passion on the reverse side of the Maestà, 1311, tempera on wood, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena. Wikimedia Commons.

Pietro Perugino, Christ Handing the Keys to Saint Peter, c. 1481–1482, fresco, Sistine Chapel. Rome. Wikimedia Commons.

Caravaggio, The Denial of Saint Peter, 1610, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Pietro Perugino, Agony in the Garden, c. 1483-1493, oil on panel, Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Wikimedia Commons. 

Caravaggio, The Taking of Christ, 1602, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. Wikimedia Commons. 

Fra Angelico, The Arrest of Christ, c.1450, fresco, Museo di San Marco, Cell 33, Florence.

Antonio della Corna, Christ Before Caiaphas, 1470-1475, tempera and gold leaf on wood, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Creative Commons Licence.

Duccio di Buoninsegna, Jesus Before Pilate, from the Stories of the Passion on the reverse side of the Maestà, tempera on wood, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena. Web Gallery of Art. 

References:

Matthew 26:20-46. 

Luke 22:47 - 23:56.

Posted by Samantha Hughes-Johnson.

[luckywilliams]

APPRECIATING PAINTINGS

Paintings can be complex things to appreciate in an informed fashion. Such informed appreciation can be undertaken via a number of different methods:

Firstly, the artistic methods and techniques undertaken can be examined. Thus, Jan Van Eyck was famous for his oil painting technique, which produced a characteristic luminous finish. Michelangelo was renowned for his fresco technique, and for his skill with anatomy and male nudes. Leonardo da Vinci was famous for his sfumato, and Rembrandt for his chiaroscuro. Titian and Matisse (amongst others) were distinguished by their colourism, Caravaggio for his Tenebrism, and Frank Auerbach for his impasto. These techniques, and many others, are an important feature of informed art appreciation.

Secondly, COLOUR has always been a very important aspect to consider, and often, throughout history, the use of colour has been subject to certain rules and conventions. For example, Ancient Egyptian paintings only made use of 6 colours – red, green, blue, yellow, white and black. Red was the colour of power and authority. Green was used as a colour to indicate new life and fertility. Blue was the colour of rebirth, while yellow was used to represent eternal things like the sun, and gold. White was indicative of purity, and black was the colour of death. As an extension of some of these principles, male bodies were painted in darker colours than female bodies.

Byzantine icon paintings followed similar conventions: Blue was the colour representing human life, while white became the colour used to represent the resurrection and transfiguration of Christ. In icons of Christ and the Virgin Mary, Christ was usually depicted wearing a red undergarment, together with a blue outer garment (symbolising the idea of God becoming a man). Conversely, Mary was usually depicted wearing a blue undergarment, and a red outer garment (indicative of someone starting off entirely human and mortal, but moving closer to God).

During the Renaissance, burgeoning European art academies restricted the use of bright colours, which were only to be used in the most appropriate contexts. It is only much later in European history, with the advent of the French Impressionists and the Fauvists, that colour really became utilised independently, and without restriction. Of course, the development of new colour pigments also had a significant impact on the tonal range available to painters. – After all, a Renaissance colour palette was a very different thing to the palette available to a 19th century artist.

The narrative content of a painting (How to appreciate it).

In order to make an informed judgement, we can subdivide the narrative content of a painting into 4 parts: a) The main message. b) Subsidiary messages. c) Symbolism. d) References and analogies. (At the end of this section, under Activities, you will be given the opportunity of carrying out some research, and completing an initial assessment of the narrative content of a famous Renaissance painting, using these 4 subheadings).

Interpreting Western art (c.500 – 1700).

Byzantine art, and its icons, together with other hieratic styles such as the Gothic, was packed with narrative meaning and symbolism – but all of a Christian kind. This exclusive focus on Christian symbolism makes the art somewhat easier to decode, though the fantastic imagery of Renaissance alterpiece art of the sort produced by Bosch and Pieter Brueghel the Elder can be more difficult to work out. Much baroque painting was more straightforward, as (during the era of the Counter Reformation) its focus was mostly just on the promotion of Catholicism. Its best works consisted of trompe l’oeil ceiling frescoes and other monumental religious works. Even here, there were some exceptions, such as the Realist School within Dutch Baroque art, which possessed much complex imagery and symbolism.

Dutch Realism 1630-90.

Some exceptional schools arose in the newly independent (from Spain) protestant areas of the United Provinces, such as those in Amsterdam, Delft, Utrecht and Haarlem. Dutch realism really developed as a result of the historical context. – The 17th century was the period of the Dutch ‘Golden Age’ in which trade grew with the East Indies, and other areas of the world, and Dutch merchants grew rich on the profits. These merchants were a new type of art buyer, requiring a new type of painting, and they commissioned some of the most complex still life paintings ever produced, by the likes of Vermeer, Rembrandt, Willem Kalf, van Hoogstraten and others.

The Decline of Religious Paintings from 1700.

Religious art declined elsewhere (not just in the United Provinces) because of the decline in the number of ecclesiastical patrons available, and the rise of the secular, middle class/professional patron, who wanted – and paid for – small scale portable paintings which could be displayed in their homes. Moreover, these new buyers wanted portraits, landscapes or genre paintings (rather than massive religious allegorical works) which showed off their newly acquired power and status. As a consequence, this ‘new’ type of painting lacked obscure religious symbolism, and can be easier to interpret.

Interpreting paintings from 1700 onwards.

For analytical purposes, these can be divided into 5 main types: i) HISTORY paintings ii) PORTRAITS iii) GENRE paintings (of everyday scenes) iv) LANDSCAPES v) STILL LIFE.

History Paintings:

This category of paintings can include mythological, religious and historical works with a ‘narrative’ which can be difficult to interpret when designed to convey inspirational or philosophical sentiments.

Portraits:

This category of painting is generally easier to interpret, though it must be remembered that the buyer of a painting often prefers to purchase a ‘manipulated’ image showing him/her at their best (e.g. Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portraits of the Prince Regent during the Regency period).

Genre:

These can be relatively straightforward to interpret, when the artist is focused, principally, upon portraying the social history of a particular scene. However, a genre painting can also be used to convey a philosophical message, making the interpretation more complex to determine.

Landscapes:

In the hundred years between 1700-1800, many landscape paintings were commissioned by landowners who wanted a pictorial record of their estates. Thus, such paintings can be relatively straightforward to understand and interpret. However, in the later 18th Century, as the Romantic movement began to take hold, many painters went into the countryside in order to ‘capture’ the essence and beauty of nature – adding considerably to the meaning and purpose behind such works. Impressionists like Pisarro and Monet can fall into this category. There are also landscapes with more of a philosophical message, which can be quite difficult to interpret fully.

Still Life:

Some of this type of painting can look very static when looked at in a superficial manner. Nevertheless, the best of Still Life painting can still be loaded with symbolism, and influenced by artistic traditions going back to at least the 17th Century.

How to appreciate abstract paintings.

The key principal behind a proper appreciation of abstract paintings is the realization that FORM is just as important as REPRESENTATION. Thus, a picture of a human face could be a very anatomically inaccurate, ‘bad’ one, but it could have a very effective and striking use of colours or shapes, and might therefore be adjudged to be a ‘beautiful’ picture/painting.

Thus, form is everything, and we need to look at colours, shapes and surface textures (and their relationship to each other) when assessing and interpreting a particular piece of work.

 ACTIVITIES

 Now that you have completed this introductory section, please have a go at the following activities. You can either talk to your tutor about the possible answers on the telephone, or via skype, or send written responses via email or post. Please enjoy thinking about your answers, and the initial research that this entails!

Task 1: Try and find out more about the artistic techniques of sfumato, chiaroscuro, colourism, Tenebrism and impasto. What did these techniques/skills actually involve?

Task 2: Try and have a look at the painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymous Bosch (1500-05) either on-line or in a suitable textbook, which is one of the great Renaissance paintings. Once you have looked at a copy of the painting, and maybe read a little about it, try and complete a brief assessment of the painting’s narrative content, using the 4 subheadings described earlier in this Section.

Task 3: Using the information supplied above about the 5 main types of paintings produced from 1700 onwards, say whether you think the following 11 paintings are either history, portrait, genre, landscapes or still life works of art: Some are more straightforward than others!

Death of Marat (1793) by Jacques-Louis David.

The Third of May 1808 by Francisco Goya

The Morning of the Execution of the Streltsy (1881) by Vasily Surikov.

Arrangement in Grey and Black: Whistler’s Mother (1871) by James Whistler.

Portrait of Madame X (1883-4) by John Singer Sargent.

Man with a Hoe (1862) by Millet.

Marilyn (1967) by A. Warhol.

At the Moulin Rouge (1890) by Toulouse-Lautrec.

Ennui (1914) by Walter Sickert.

Mr and Mrs Andrews (1750) by T. Gainsborough.

Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps (1812) by JMW Turner

  Adrian L. Bridge

[arts-dance]

Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337), Cappella Scrovegni a Padova, Life of Christ, Kiss of Judas

The kiss of Judas, also known (especially in art) as the Betrayal of Christ, is how Judas identified Jesus to the multitude with swords and clubs who had come from the chief priests and elders of the people to arrest him, according to the Synoptic Gospels. The kiss is given by Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane after the Last Supper and leads directly to the arrest of Jesus by the police force of the Sanhedrin.

Within the life of Jesus in the New Testament, the events of his identification to hostile forces and subsequent execution are directly foreshadowed both when Jesus predicts his betrayal and Jesus predicts his death.

More broadly, a Judas kiss may refer to "an act appearing to be an act of friendship, which is in fact harmful to the recipient".[1]

In art

The scene is nearly always included, either as the Kiss itself, or the moment after, in the Arrest of Jesus, or the two combined (as above), in the cycles of the Life of Christ or Passion of Jesus in various media.

Probably the best known is from Giotto's cycle in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua.

There is also a version called The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio or one of his disciples.[10]

A  sixth-century Byzantine Mosaic in Ravenna.

A fresco by Barna da Siena.

A sculpture representing the Kiss of Judas appears on the Passion façade of the Sagrada Família basilica in Barcelona.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_of_Judas

The Kiss of Judas by Lee M. Jefferson https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/people/related-articles/kiss-of-judas

[romancatholicreflections]

11th March >> Fr, Martin’s Gospel Reflections on John 3:14-21 for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle B: ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only Son’. Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle B Gospel (Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Australia & Canada) John 3:14-21 God sent his Son so that through him the world might be saved Jesus said to Nicodemus: ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved. No one who believes in him will be condemned; but whoever refuses to believe is condemned already, because he has refused to believe in the name of God’s only Son. On these grounds is sentence pronounced: that though the light has come into the world men have shown they prefer darkness to the light because their deeds were evil. And indeed, everybody who does wrong hates the light and avoids it, for fear his actions should be exposed; but the man who lives by the truth comes out into the light, so that it may be plainly seen that what he does is done in God.’ Gospel (USA) John 3:14–21 God sent his Son so that the world might be saved through him. Jesus said to Nicodemus: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God. Reflections (3) (i) Fourth Sunday of Lent We have become very aware in recent weeks of how much longer the days are getting. We are half way through the month of March and already it is bright up until after six o’clock. We have even brighter days to look forward to, especially as the clock goes forward next weekend. The brighter evenings brings everybody out. With the increase in light, there is also an increase in growth. The first blossoms of spring have already come out. Nature is coming to life after a time of hibernation. The gospel reading this morning is in keeping with what is happening in nature. It declares that ‘light has come into the world’. The light there is a reference to the light of God that has come into the world through Jesus. Both the second reading and the gospel reading make clear that the light of God is the light of love. The second reading declares that God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy; it speaks of God’s goodness towards us in Christ, the infiniteness richness of God’s grace in Christ. The gospel reading declares that God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son. In the light that Jesus brings from God we find mercy, compassion, great love, kindness, infinite grace. Sometimes we don’t like too much light. There is a certain kind of light that can expose us mercilessly, like the light of the interrogator’s lamp. However, Jesus brings a light that need hold no fear for us; it is a divine light that lifts us up, just as the Son of Man was lifted up, in the words of the gospel reading. Here is a light that assures us of our worth and that helps us to see the goodness that is within us and the good that we are capable of doing. It is a light that, in the words of the second reading, allows us to recognize that ‘we are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live a good life’. It is the light of a love that shines upon us regardless of what we have done or failed to do. As the first reading reminds us, God’s grace, God’s love, comes to us not on the basis of anything we have done. It is not something we earn by our efforts; it comes to us as a pure gift. When God gave his Son to the world, did not ask whether the world was worthy of his Son or whether the world was ready for his Son. Even when the world crucified God’s Son, God did not take back his Son from the world. Rather, God continued to give his Son to the world, raising him from the dead and sending him back into the world through the Holy Spirit, through the church. Here is a light that shines in the darkness and that the darkness cannot overcome, in the words of the gospel of John. We all long for that kind of light, a light that is strong and enduring, a light that can be found at the heart of darkness and that is more resilient than darkness. We have all experienced darkness in one shape or form. It may be the darkness of sickness, or of the death of a loved one or the darkness of failure; we may struggle from time to time with the darkness of depression, with those dark demons that tell us that we are worthless and that life is not worth living. Something of that darkness of spirit finds expression in today’s responsorial psalm. It was composed from the darkness of exile in Babylon. ‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, remembering Zion’. We may have known our own experiences of exile in its various forms, times when we felt cut off from what gives meaning and purpose to our lives. The readings this morning assure us that in all those forms of darkness, a light shines - the light of God’s enduring love that is constantly at work in our lives so that we may have life and have it to the full. In the words of the gospel reading again, ‘God gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him… may have eternal life’. Even though this wonderful light has come into the world and wants to shine upon us all, we can be reluctant to step into that light, and allow it to shine upon us. In the words of the gospel reading, ‘though the light has come into the world, people have shown that they prefer darkness to the light’. This is the mysterious capacity of human freedom to reject the light, to turn away from a faultless love and a boundless mercy. Yet, our coming to the light is often a gradual process; it can happen slowly, at our own pace. The Lord is always prepared to wait on us; he waits for our free response. We are not used to a love that is as generous, as merciful, as rich in grace and goodness as God’s love; it takes us time to receive it, to believe in it, to embrace it. Receiving God’s love and then living out of that gift is the calling and task of a life time. And/Or (ii) Fourth Sunday of Lent A painting hung for many years on a dinning room wall in the Jesuit house on Lesson Street. No one paid much attention to it until one day someone with a keen eye realized that this could be something of great value. It was further investigated by art experts, and it turned out that this painting was the work of the great Italian artist Caravaggio. The painting of the arrest of Jesus is now hangs one of the National Gallery’s great treasures. All those years it hung in the dining room of Lesson Street it was no less a treasure, but its value went unrecognized. It hung there waiting to be discovered, waiting for someone to recognize its true value as a work of art. According to the particular translation of the letter to the Ephesians we read from this evening, we are all ‘God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life’. We don’t tend to think of ourselves as works of art. Yet, like the person who spotted the painting in Lesson Street, God knows our true worth, our true value. We are works of art to God; we are of great worth and value in God’s sight. We can all think of people in our own lives whom we value greatly, whose worth to us is beyond price, because to us they are works of art. Today is Mother’s day, and most of us think of our mothers in that way, whether they are still living or are with the Lord. When someone is a treasure to us, we don’t count the cost in their regard. We will do anything we can for them. We will travel long distances to see them; we will stay up half the night to be with them if they are ill; we will protect them with all our passion when necessary. How we relate to those we value and treasure is not determined so much by how they relate to us. Even if they do something that annoys us, we tend to make all kinds of allowances for them. We say something like, ‘that’s just the way he/she is’. Their worth in our eyes is rooted in something deeper than what they do or fail to do. We value them, simply, for who they are. Our experience of how we relate to those we value, and of how people who value us relate to us, gives us a glimpse of how God relates to us. God loves us in a way that does not count the cost. The gospel reading today expresses that truth very simply: ‘God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son’. God sent his Son out of love for us and that sending became a giving when his Son was put to death on a cross. Here was a love that did not count the cost, a sending that became a costly giving when that was called for. As Paul says in the second reading, ‘God loved us so much that he was generous with his mercy’. We are of such value in God’s eyes that God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up to benefit us all. It is not surprising that the cross has become the dominant symbol of Christianity. This is not because we glorify suffering in any way, but because we recognise that the cross is a powerful sign of how much God values us, how precious we are in God’s sight; it shows the extent to which God is prepared to go to express love for us. Our love for those we value is bestowed on them for who they are more than for what they do. The same is true of God’s love for us in Christ. As Paul says in the second reading, ‘it is not based on anything you have done’. Some of us find it difficult to really believe that. We find ourselves asking, ‘how I done enough?’ Yet, when it comes to someone in our lives whom we know truly loves us, we would never think of asking them, ‘Have I done enough?’ Why should we ask such a question of God, when even the greatest of human love is only gives us a glimpse of God’s love? God loves us for who we are, people made in the image of God’s Son, and, to that extent, works of art. What God asks of us is that we receive God’s love revealed and made present in Christ, or, in the words of the gospel reading today, that we come into the light. The light of God’s love falls upon us, but we can hide from it. Children fear the darkness very often. But as adults we often fear the light, because we suspect that the light will expose us in some way. Yet, the light of God is not a harsh light, the kind of light that is trained on a suspect in an interrogation room. It is a strong, yet warm, light that brings healing and generates new life. It is an empowering light that enables us to ‘live the good life’, as Paul says in the second reading, ‘to do good works’. As the hours of day light are increasing in these days, we pray that the life-giving light of God’s love would renew us and fill us with a new desire to serve him. And/Or (iii) Fourth Sunday of Lent Children are often afraid of the dark, as the parents here in the church will know. A dim light is sometimes left on while children sleep, so that if they wake up it is not in pitch darkness. Many of us as adults find total darkness disconcerting too. Those of us who live in cities never really experience total darkness. It is different out in the country away from villages, towns and cities. I remember going on a holiday as a young person to the Arran Islands and being struck by just how dark it was at night. There was very little in the way of artificial light to dispel the darkness. The experience of near total darkness after night fell was disconcerting. Although most of us would claim to prefer light to darkness, in today’s gospel reading Jesus declares that some people ‘have shown they prefer darkness to the light because their deeds were evil’. Most crime is committed during the hours of darkness. Those who are intent on doing wrong are drawn to darkness because it provides them with cover. As today’s gospel states: ‘Everyone who does wrong hates the light and avoids it, for fear his actions should be exposed’. One of the many security measures that have become popular in recent years is an array of bright lights that come on at night whenever anyone steps into an area that is out of bounds. Light is considered, with good reason, to be a deterrent to the person who is intent on committing crime. Indeed, there is a sense in which we all fear too much light just as we do too much darkness. Many of us prefer to stay in the background, in the shadows; we don’t like the spotlight being shone on us. We all have secrets that we would wish to remain in darkness, away from the bright lights that human curiosity and inquiry might like to shine on them. There are aspects of our lives that we would prefer to remain in darkness because we are not sure how people might respond to us if a bright light were to be shone on them. We only bring our deepest selves out into the light in the presence of those we really trust. The gospel of John frequently refers to Jesus as light. On one occasion, Jesus says of himself: ‘I am the light of the world’. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus says with reference to himself: ‘Light has come into the world’. The gospel reading also declares that the light that has come into the world in the person of Jesus is the light of God’s love. In one of the most memorable statements of the New Testament, the gospel reading declares, ‘God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him… may have eternal life’. The light of Jesus is not the probing light of the grand inquisitor that seeks out failure and transgression with a view to condemnation. Indeed, the gospel reading states that God ‘sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world’. The light of Jesus, rather, is the inviting light of God’s love, calling out to us to come and to allow ourselves to be bathed in this light, and promising those who do so that they will share in God’s own life, both here and now and also beyond death. At the beginning of today’s gospel reading, Jesus speaks of himself as the Son of Man who must be lifted up. It was on the cross that Jesus was lifted up, and it was above all at that moment that the light of God’s love shone most brightly. It is a paradox that those who attempted to extinguish God’s light shining in Jesus only succeeded in making that light of love shine all the more brightly. God’s gift of his Son to us was not in any way thwarted by the rejection of his Son. God’s giving continued as Jesus was lifted up to die, and God’s giving found further expression when God raised his Son from the dead and gave him to us as risen Lord. Here indeed is a light that darkness cannot overcome, a love that human sin cannot extinguish. This is the core of the gospel. This is why the fourth Sunday of Lent is known as Guadete Sunday, Rejoice Sunday. When we are going through a difficult experience and darkness seems to envelope us, it can be tempting to think that we will never see the light again. This is the mood that is captured in today’s responsorial psalm: ‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept’. Today’s readings assure us that there is a light that shines in the darkness and that the darkness will not overcome, a light that heals and restores, in the words of today’s second reading, a light that brings us to life with Christ and raises us up with him. It shines in a special way whenever we celebrate the Eucharist. As we gather around the table of the word and the table of the Eucharist, the light of God’s love revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus shines upon whatever darkness we may be struggling with in our lives. Fr. Martin Hogan, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, D03 AO62, Ireland. Email: sjtbclontarf@eircom.net or frmartinhogan@gmail.com Parish Website: www.stjohnsclontarf.ie Please join us via our webcam. Twitter: @SJtBClontarfRC. Facebook: St John the Baptist RC Parish, Clontarf. Tumblr: Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin.

[frmartinshomiliesandreflections]

8th July >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Matthew 10:1-7 for Wednesday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time: ‘Jesus summoned his Twelve disciples’.

Wednesday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Australia & Canada)

Matthew 10:1-7

'Go to the lost sheep of the House of Israel'

Jesus summoned his twelve disciples, and gave them authority over unclean spirits with power to cast them out and to cure all kinds of diseases and sickness.

These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, the one who was to betray him. These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them as follows:

‘Do not turn your steps to pagan territory, and do not enter any Samaritan town; go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. And as you go, proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.’

Gospel (USA)

Matthew 10:1-7

Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Jesus summoned his Twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. The names of the Twelve Apostles are these: first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus; Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus.

Jesus sent out these Twelve after instructing them thus, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’“

Reflections (2)

(i) Wednesday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus has been gathering a growing number of disciples since the beginning of his public ministry. According to today’s gospel reading, from this larger group Jesus called twelve to whom he gave authority and power to share in his healing ministry. The number twelve was significant; it is a reminder of the twelve tribes of Israel. This group of twelve were to symbolize the renewed Israel that Jesus was working to form. Jesus chose these twelve very deliberately. They were to receive intensive training and instruction so as to share in his ministry in a special way. Yet, by the end of the gospel, everyone of this group had deserted him, the first mentioned of the group, Peter, had denied him publicly, and the last mentioned, Judas Iscariot, had betrayed him to his enemies. In spite of the fact that these twelve had been given special authority and power and had spent more time in his company than others, listening to him and seeing what he did, they failed him when the cross came into view. They were not faithful to their calling. In the words of today’s first reading, their hearts were divided. Although Jesus calls people, calls each one of us, he cannot force us to respond to his call. Although he has a purpose for our lives, he is somewhat helpless before our refusal to co-operate with his purpose for us. Yet, in the gospel story, the failure of the twelve was not the end of their relationship with Jesus. After he rose from the dead, he appeared to them in Galilee and renewed his relationship with them, sending them out to preach the gospel to all nations. The Lord may be helpless before our failure but he remains faithful to us in spite of our unfaithfulness to him and he is always at work to bring some good out of our failures. All he asks is that, in the words of today’s first reading, we continue to ‘go seeking the Lord’.

And/Or

(ii) Wednesday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

All of the gospels make reference to the twelve disciples that Jesus chose from among the wider group of disciples. They were called to share in his ministry in a special way. They had privileged access to Jesus; they were given much and much was expected of them. When the gospel writers name the twelve and when they come to Judas Iscariot they always refer to him as ‘the one who was to betray him’. They were, of course, writing from hindsight. They knew that one of this privileged group, one of the twelve, went on to betray Jesus to the religious authorities who, in turn, handed him over to the political authorities as a threat to the peace. The gospel writers don’t try to gloss over the stark reality that one of those specially chosen by Jesus went on to betray him. In the National Art Gallery of Dublin there is a wonderful painting by Caravaggio of the moment of Judas’s betrayal of Jesus and the resulting arrest, the ‘taking of Christ’ as it is called. This moment in the gospel story has inspired many artists and writers. The story of Judas reminds us that Jesus’ choice of us does not automatically mean our choice of him. Our baptismal calling is to keep on choosing the Lord who has chosen us. Each day we need to commit ourselves to him and to his way, as he committed himself to us forever by his life, death and resurrection.

[dailybiblelessons]

The Second Sunday of Easter

New Testament Lesson: Acts 2:14a, 22-32

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know–this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power. For David says concerning him,

‘I saw the Lord always before me,  for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken; therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;  moreover my flesh will live in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,  or let your Holy One experience corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life;  you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’¹

“Fellow Israelites, I may say to you confidently of our ancestor David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would put one of his descendants on his throne. Foreseeing this, David spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, saying,

‘He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh experience corruption.’

This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.”

¹a paraphrase of Psalm 16:8-11

Psalm 16

Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;  I have no good apart from you.”

As for the holy ones in the land, they are the noble,  in whom is all my delight.

Those who choose another god multiply their sorrows;  their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out  or take their names upon my lips.

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;  you hold my lot. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;  I have a goodly heritage.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;  in the night also my heart instructs me. I keep the Lord always before me;  because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;  my body also rests secure. For you do not give me up to Sheol,  or let your faithful one see the Pit.¹

You show me the path of life.  In your presence there is fullness of joy;  in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.²

¹Paul refers to this verse indirectly in his address to the synagogue in Antioch of Pisdia (Acts 3:13-43). ²Peter quotes the entire bolded passage in his address to the crowd on Pentecost (Acts 2:14-36).

New Testament Epistle Lesson: 1 Peter 1:3-9

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith–being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire–may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

New Testament Gospel Lesson: John 20:19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

Year A Easter 2 Sunday

Selections are from Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings copyright © 1995 by the Consultation on Common Texts. Unless otherwise indicated, Bible text is from New Revised Standard Version Bible (NRSV) copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Image credit: The Incredulity of St. Thomas by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio via Wikimedia Commons. This is a public domain image.

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Liverpool John Moores Level 6 Symposium at Tate Liverpool 2018

This year’s Level 6 Symposium taking place at Tate Liverpool showcased a wide variety of topics, from the environment to a range of cinema. 

Under the topic of environmental art, Susan Davies started the day with a paper on Danish artist Olafur Eliasson’s piece, Ice Watch (2014). Her interest in Scandinavian art was sparked by a trip to Copenhagen on a university bursary where she experienced the Triennial, exposing her to all kinds of Scandinavian art. The piece, 100 tons of ice from Greenland cut into 12 blocks, was to showcase the extent of climate change. Ironically, this piece has a large carbon footprint of 30 tons. This paper discussed whether the environmental impact the piece caused was worth the message it was portraying. This piece was originally exhibited in City Hall Square in Copenhagen, it was then moved to Paris after a visit from the French ambassador requested it be moved there.  This piece’s aim was to bring the consequences of the global warming to the public in an interactive setting, by presenting the melting ice in public places. Susan’s paper was informative as to how

A paper I found interesting in particular was Lucy Mcintyre’s, named Money and Murderabilia. The paper discussed how items associated with criminals can be sold for five figure sums. The morality surrounding this was the main focus of this paper. John Wayne Gacy, a renowned serial killer during the 70s produced a lot of art whilst on death row, this art is still in circulation on the art market; now that Gacy has been executed, whoever possesses the art receives the profit.

An interesting comparison that she made was that we treat great artists of the past differently despite the fact they are also criminals. Her example was Caravaggio, who was known for his short temper. He was in trouble with the authorities and arrested many times. His worst crime even includes the murder of his tennis partner after an argument, demonstrating his irrational behaviour. Despite this, Caravaggio is still presented as one of the greats and his crimes are overlooked by a lot of galleries who display his work. This paper explored the idea of whether we should separate the art from the artist because the skill that an artist possesses is regardless of their actions outside of producing art. Another point made was that criminals could produce art, but art not created by criminals could reflect crime. The disturbing piece Return of the Repressed (1997) by Jake and Dinos Chapman shows two girls conjoined together. The piece is meant to represent the Freudian theory of displaced sexual desires and also sexual attraction to children. The idea is that, the fact that the children have been sexualised has caused them to mutate into this conjoined being, creating an uncomfortable visual.

This paper’s exploration of crime and how it links to art is something that I found fascinating.

Callum Craddock’s piece also explored the idea of crime relating to art. His paper discussed the tattoos found on prisoners in USSR prisons. They are linked to paintings that most people would be surprised that these criminals had knowledge of. The prisoner had the mythical Greek character of Prometheus tattooed on his back. The original story tells that Prometheus was eventually saved from the cliff face by Heracles. However, the prisoners depiction of Prometheus shows him freeing himself from the chains put there by Zeus. This is to show that the prisoner is responsible for his own freedom and that he does not need to be freed by anyone else, like Heracles with Prometheus.

There was another tattoo shown that was inspired by Bellini’s Madonna of the Meadow (1505) which depicts a Madonna of humility. It was noted that white prisoners in USSR prisons were most likely Christian and would therefore wish to depict Christian figures on their bodies. The Madonna figure was supposedly meant to watch over the prisoner in the tattoo. Callum commented that this tattoo showed the prisoner to be of weak character because the tattoo was a coping mechanism for his imprisonment, rather than the previous tattoo which showed the prisoner taking control of his situation and depicting a symbol of his freedom. Overall, Callum’s paper showed how prisoners of the USSR used their skin as a canvas for pieces of art during their imprisonment as opposed to just receiving criminal symbols on their skin like the majority of criminals who have tattoos in prison.

Lesley White was the next speaker who I found interesting. Her paper was on the work of Zack Snyder, the director best known for the films 300 and the Superman film Man of Steel. She spoke about Snyder’s background as a classically trained painter which sheds light on his stylistic choices in film. Lesley also started to compare the religious parallels within Snyder’s work. A comparison was made between the aesthetic of the film 300 and Caravaggio’s paintings. The Spartan warriors are shown with red capes in the film, much like Caravaggio’s Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness. The lighting in the film is dramatic in the contrast between light and dark, much like the chiaroscuro in Caravaggio’s pieces.

The film Man of Steel has many religious parallels, the main one being depicting Superman as the Messiah coming to save the earth. Also in Batman vs Superman, as Superman is lowered down by Wonderwoman and Batman much like Christ’s Descent from the Cross by Rubens. A comparison was also drawn with Michelangelo’s Pieta with how Superman was lying across Wonderwoman’s lap, much like Jesus across Mary’s. These religious parallels show Snyder’s work to have a lot more thought and merit than perhaps critics have given him credit for.

Another example of a paper referring to the use of film was James Thomas’s, which explored Andy Warhol’s filmmaking. Warhol’s Screen Test Compilation shows a subversion in the filmmaking process, rather than producing a screen test before delving into making a film, the screen tests became the film. This shows Warhol’s rebellious attitude to filmmaking. His films lack pretense due to their lack of production. His piece Kitchen was created by leaving a camera rolling on purpose in order to capture the natural movements of the people on film. Warhol also included transgender stars in his later productions along with other queer ideas.

The last speaker of the symposium was Felicity Grant who presented a piece of London’s King’s Road which was home to the birth of the punk movement with Vivienne Westwood’s shop. The Chelsea Drugstore was a famous business on the road, which was home to drugstores, newsstands and bars all within the same building. The shop was a filming location in A Clockwork Orange. Vivienne Westwood opened her shop which later became known as SEX on this road, selling 50s clothes with the idea of ‘anti-fashion’. Sid Vicious even advertised for band members in the shop window to later form the Sex Pistols, the most famous Punk band in British history. Overall Felicity’s piece explored the cultural ideas that sparked on this once creative and innovative road, which is now slave to faceless brands such as McDonald's, now having lost its individuality.

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“The Taking of Christ”, Caravaggio (c. 1602) // #Inspiration #Reference

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Reads Like a Detective Mystery Jonathan Harr wrote a very intriguing book about the discovery of a long-lost Caravaggio, The Taking of Christ. If you are an art lover who also loves Italian art, this book will entertain you. I qualify. I was fascinated to learn more about Caravaggio's rather rakish life as well as the way lost art is discovered. Go to Amazon

Well Worth The Price! For it being a used book it was in great shape, had a couple of bent corners of the book, but other then that it looks new. This is a good interesting story. I actually know the priest (Father Barber) who was instrumental in finding this painting and mentioned several times throughout this book. I had previously read this book a few years ago, but it was a borrowed book and I wanted my own hard bound copy as I wanted Father Barber to sign it; but, hard bound is not being printed any longer so I decided to purchase this through Amazon. I'm glad I did. My volunteer helper, also knows Fr. Barber and wanted a book too so I ordered another one for her. Her book was a little more used looking but still in good shape; however, she received a First Edition book. She was pleased with her book also. Go to Amazon

Fascinating look inside the world of the art historian....I know I know it doesn't sound so thrilling does it? This is a real life detective mystery,at its best. Taking place in 3 countries and spanning centuries, personal dramas and age old rivalries culminate in searches through dusty castles and modern science labs to hopefully, possibly give the world back a masterpiece lost for centuries. Go to Amazon

Excellent, fast paced, engrossing read Well worth your time to read this book. Kept my interest and kept me reading until I finished the entire story. Introduced me to a world I only vaguely knew about. Wonderful information about how provenance of the art we enjoy so much in museums is verified. Go to Amazon

Art history, intrigue and Mystery--great Beach read Carrevagio's history is so full of intrigue - and the author weaves great historical research into a tale of competing paintings - each claiming the prime spot on the wall of art. Go to Amazon

A fascinating page turner As art history goes and art mystery hopes to go...this book is a fascinating insiders look at the rarified air of art scholarship and the competitive nature of discovery fueled by chance and passion. The characters are international, eccentric and well fleshed out. The art itself stays center stage, as it should, and saving images of these paintings by googling them first really helps to cross reference the story with the actual paintings if you are reading the e-book or kindle versions. Go to Amazon

A very interesting dive into art history When I selected this book I didn't realize that it was factual. It is the story of years of research and , despite this, is told in a light prose which is easy to read. I thoroughly enjoyed the mystery and academia, and can think of nothing better than spending hours in the basement of an Italian provincial villa reading through ancient accounts...(really). If you love art history, have an interest in restoration, or even just fall upon this book by chance while looking for a "good read" you won't be disappointed. Go to Amazon

Caravaggio, lost and recoverrd in your eyes I enjoyed this book a lot. A good story and real facts to understand how famous paintings get to a museum. The world of caravaggio and Rome in the XVII century at your fingertips. An ideal tale for an e-book as you can easely link to each painting and check its details in real time. I also navigated to each place mentioned in the book linking to google maps, wikipedia, you tube, etc. Go to Amazon

Okay Art History: The Murky World Of Mystery Book Five Stars Art History detail lovers will Adore this book! Two Stars Novelistic nonfiction Great I like this novel Three Stars

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Hyperallergic: John O’Reilly’s Radical Photomontages

John O’Reilly, “Eakins Posing” (2006), polaroid photomontage, gift of John O’Reilly and James Tellin (all images courtesy Worcester Art Museum)

WORCESTER, Massachusetts — It’s particularly poignant and fitting that John O’Reilly’s current retrospective at the Worcester Art Museum is titled A Studio Odyssey, as the artist’s studio for the past several decades had been his own modest home in Worcester, one shared with his partner, sculptor James Tellin, until they recently downsized to a more accessible and smaller home.

Although currently represented by Tibor De Nagy in New York, Miller Yezerski in Boston, and Hosfeldt in San Francisco, O’Reilly remained somewhat “undiscovered” until his inclusion in the 1995 Whitney Biennial. He has spent most of his professional career working away from art centers, and within the confines of a small space — both the upstairs bedroom in which he worked as well as the works themselves, all of them 3-by-3 feet or far smaller. As he told me, he “makes do” with what he has, not what might be.

I have visited John’s home studio several times over the past ten years. My partner, Robert Flynt, is also a photographer, O’Reilly has been something of a mentor to him, and we own several of his works. So I brought some familiarity, with the photographer, his imagery, and his studio, to this retrospective.

O’Reilly’s process and imagery reflects the accumulation, layering, and shifting perspectives that accompany a long career of looking while crafting a world in miniature. He understands, quite brilliantly, the optics of the small, the miniature, the literally cut-down-to size. His own works are assembled with images sliced-in from a variety of found sources, including found photos, art books, porn, and vintage coloring books. Truly the master of the Exacto knife, this work is meticulous and detailed, yet never gnomic. There is always something more to see, to discover, to associate.

John O’Reilly, “Two as Three” (1988) polaroid photomontage (courtesy the artist)

In A Studio Odyssey, the works are arranged in groupings of four to six, some paired with complementary works by artists such as William Hogarth. Just as the individual images within each montage communicate with one another, the pieces in these groupings let us mix and reassemble a larger body of work. This work reflects and refracts the history of art, as well as the history of looking, scanning, reading an image. Did John Berger ever see John O’Reilly’s work? I hope so.

What is the primary image? Is there one? This changes the longer you look, but not through optical tricks. The most intact or least deconstructed figures may initially seem central. Then you realize that the seamless background is itself composed of several cut up, ripped apart and reassembled images. All these surfaces create a vortex pulling you in. O’Reilly’s meticulous mixes of photographs and drawings are complex narratives. Although they presage digital photography, they are entirely analog — he owns neither a computer nor cell phone and works with found materials, Polaroid imagery, and his own “drugstore” prints.

In O’Reilly’s work, the “hand” is more about scissors than shutters; what is snipped away, re-shaped, selected and layered. His “Scissors” (2016), an assemblage of drawings and a child’s coloring book with a large flat drawing of scissors, is a kind of guide to his process and principles. Found images of wildly diverse aesthetic and narrative power can be snuggled up next to each other and violently cut into each other in the same image.

O’Reilly’s work is an accumulation, or montage (his preferred term), that transmits something larger than its parts. It prompts us to foreground not the process (as in the “cut-up” approach of artist Bryon Gysin, for instance), but the totality of the image. Looking at “The Seer” (1979), I see in the young man’s face — probably torn from a porn magazine — tension, intimacy and surprising clarity.

John O’Reilly, “In a Dutch Dream” (1990), polaroid photomontage, Eliza S. Paine Fund

For “In a Dutch Dream” (1990) — a horizontal composition that feels almost like a triptych — O’Reilly (are those his arms too?) shares the foreground with a naked youth, whose own arm may be a cut-in of Caravaggio, while a Pierrot figure near a tiny duck toy in the bottom right corner stretches its arms diagonally. The work is dynamic and alive and emotional, yet it only hints at narrative. O’Reilly’s work can send the viewer on a chase after narrative closure. The photomontage “French Youth” (2005) has no readily identifiable “youth,” but rather shadows and a statue that could have been a young person but is so damaged that it now resembles a death mask — a youth no longer young. In O’Reilly’s work there is an intimate, uneasy oscillation across the ages.

In much of the artist’s work death and life are piled on top of one another, like a spatial compression of a Godard film sequence, associated and disassociated. In “War Series #44, PFC Killed in Action, Germany, 1945, Age 18” (1992), the cutting serves to carve away anything extraneous. A Polaroid photomontage, the violence of collision echoes throughout the composite image and its constituent parts. Negative space, darks and lights, surround the naked body, the erect penis, the extended club, a dying or dead head turned away from us and falling down into the earth. A pushpin at the very bottom creates a violent pin-up portrait of an everyman now drained of life.

Likewise, in “Of Cavafy-Ring Bearer” (2008) a small child in a gender-ambiguous outfit is perched atop a cut-out of a chair resting against a medieval soldier’s helmet. Near the bottom, beneath the helmet, is a 20th-century photo of a dead soldier. A much smaller figure is turned away from us, his age indecipherable. This wreckage of masculinity and humanity is surrounded by the blackness of what I take to be unexposed Polaroid prints.

John O’Reilly, “Linnet” (2010), collage with found printed material (courtesy the artist)

For “With Chardin” (1981), “With Bonnard” (1985) and work directly referencing Genet, connections to past artists are more explicit, and require less of the viewer. While I am not as drawn to these images, “Marat with Eros” (1983) is tonic and iconic. In this work, a winged cherub (Caravaggio’s “Amor Vincit Omnia,” 1602) leers — sympathetically? victoriously? — at David’s renowned image of the revolutionary, dead in his bath. The merging is so simple, so graphically on-target, that any doubts I have about such blatant juxtapositions vanish. I can’t imagine a better image for Eros.

Along with Cavafy, Jean Genet, and Henry James to provoke his curious intellect and self-interrogation, O’Reilly has “Nijinksy,” created through a 2014 assemblage of found prints.

This work has a timely charge, as word has leaked out of Russia that the Bolshoi Ballet’s new work about Rudolph Nureyev, Vaslav Nijinsky’s heir, has been indefinitely postponed, quite possibly due to outlawed “gay content.” In O’Reilly’s work, a naked cherub is haloed by the cut-out negative space of the central figure, a red-cheeked paper doll of ambiguous gender, holding a toy soldier. Below is a small reclining figure. Arms, hands and feet surround all. As in so much of the artist’s work, the eroticism is radical; Eros is life, death, sex, childhood, aging, intake and outflow. Mobile and morbid yet also full of life, red-cheeked but also red-handed, everything moves toward dismemberment —dissociation and thus new association.

John O’Reilly, “Nijinsky” (2014), collage of found prints with board and tape, collection of the Artist (courtesy Tibor de Nagy Gallery, NY)

O’Reilly’s eroticism reflects desire, fear, the death incubated within life. Thus, “A French Birth,” in which a man appears to be giving birth while the head of Christ glances over, reminds me of a comment by musician Lucinda Williams: while her work is infused with religious references, she does not believe in God, at least as commonly conceived. It’s just everywhere, infused in life.

Decades into his practice, O’Reilly continues to experiment with process and materials. His most recent pieces are assembled primarily from found drawings in children’s coloring books or simple line drawings, and include little to no photographic material. They have a similar quality to his earlier works, of being torn and repositioned and juxtaposed, yet a sense of whimsy comes through. “I don’t tend to get stuck. I’m open to what comes along,” he told me. Where in some other artists’ collage-like work we are given a storm, chaos (which can be glorious), O’Reilly settles his fragments in a most exacting way, to create a multileveled landscape, turbulent but absorbing.

John O’Reilly, “Apparition” (2014), collage with found printed material (courtesy the artist)

On my initial visit to A Studio Odyssey, I questioned why the wall text for many of the images foregrounds the artist’s sexuality as something he’s “struggled” with. This is often the critical context imposed on work by LGBTQ artists whose sexuality is in any way overt. Framing sexuality as a struggle implies a problem. I recently attended an exhibition of Anselm Kiefer’s watercolors and artist books at Gagosian in Chelsea, and saw a room full of female nudes, yet Kiefer’s subject matter is not problematized or seen as a “struggle.”

On my second viewing of A Studio Odyssey, I found the wall commentary more appropriate and nuanced. Really, the work is so seductive, so inviting, so suffused with imagery, that commentary fades, as it should, into background. Gay artist, struggling soul, sure, but John O’Reilly is above all a relentless examiner of the depth of an image, and the deceptively flat plane of what we call a drawing or photograph.

John O’Reilly: A Studio Odyssey continues at the Worcester Art Museum (55 Salisbury Street, Worcester, Massachusetts) through August 13.

The post John O’Reilly’s Radical Photomontages appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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