Pentecost

Title: Pentecost
Artist: Emil Nolde
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: tbd.
Date: 1909
Location: Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin.

Acts of Apostles 2:1-4 When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all together in one place. And there was suddenly out of heaven a sound, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them dividing tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Pentecost, the Feast of the Firstfruits, was a most appropriate time for the Spirit to come. The Feast was closely connected with Passover, just as the Spirit's coming would be connected with the saving events of the Lord's crucifixion and exaltation. The divine origin and supernatural character of the event is clear: the sound is from heaven and is like a violent wind, the tongues that appear seemed to be flames of fire. In the Old Testament such a loud sound often accompanied a theophany (Ex 19:16, 19; 20:18). A violent, rushing wind symbolizes the Holy Spirit (Ezek 37:9-14). The sound fills the whole house. What has arrived is an all-encompassing divine presence, and tongues like flames of fire also symbolize the Spirit of God, especially his power.

Emil Nolde (August 1867 – April 1956) was a German painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists and a member an influential group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden. This painting, however, became the center of a row that split the Berlin Secession—one, of the most advanced exhibiting societies in Germany up until that time. Nolde’s primitivist treatment of this religious subject, rendered in glowing colors and bold, Expressionist brushwork, found little favor among the older members of the society. When Pentecost and the works of other younger artists were rejected, Nolde attacked the leadership and principles of the Secession in an open letter to its President, whereupon he was expelled from the association. Until 1912 he exhibited alongside other rejected artists in the Neue Sezession in Berlin.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 1 - The Conversion of Saul

Title: The Conversion of Saul
Artist: William Blake
Medium: Watercolor and pen drawing over pencil
Size: 40.9 x 35.8 cm
Date: c. 1800
Location: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 1

Acts of the Apostles 9:3-9 As Saul was coming near the city of Damascus, suddenly a light from the sky flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him “Saul, Saul! Why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” he asked. “I am Jesus, whom you persecute,” the voice said. “But get up and go into the city, where you will be told what you must do.” The men who were traveling with Saul had stopped, not saying a word; they heard the voice but could not see anyone.

Rather than falling to the earth as the bible describes Saul, Blake pictures him astride a great horse that has gone to ground. Saul looks up to the vision above in rapt awe and extends his arms in a cruciform gesture that foreshadows his acceptance of Christ’s crucifixion as a cornerstone of his new faith. One face on the left is turned upward to be illuminated by divine light, but the remainder of the helmeted soldiers accompanying Saul bow their heads and cover their eyes, hearing a voice but seeing no man. The single visual witness stresses the corporeality of Christ’s presence and suggests that the vision given to Saul can transfigure all but those who willfully turn from the light.

William Blake (November 1757 – August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and print maker. One of Blake’s main influences was the society in which he lived. He lived during revolutionary times and witnessed the downfall of London during Britain’s war with republican France. His disgust with society grew as he matured and 'The Songs of Innocence and Experience' depict this transition. He held radical religious ideas for the time; he did not believe in a religion of nature or reason, but thought man’s nature was imaginative and mystical. Blake’s preoccupation with good and evil as well as his strong philosophical and religious beliefs remained throughout his life and he never stopped depicting them in his poetry and engravings. He died at the age of sixty-nine in 1827. It seems his art had been too adventurous and unconventional for early nineteenth century, and he did not become widely known until 1863 with Alexander Gilchrist’s biography.

Saint Mark

Title: Saint Mark

Artist: Bicci Di Lorenzo

Medium: Tempera on wood

Size: 80 x 80cm

Date: 1398

Location: Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence.

Mark the Evangelist is the traditional name of the author of the Gospel of Mark. Tradition identifies him with the John Mark mentioned as a companion of Saint Paul in the Acts of the Apostles. John Mark accompanied Paul and Barnabas, who was Mark’s cousin, on Paul's first missionary journey. After a sharp dispute, Barnabas separated from Paul, taking Mark with him to Cyprus. Later, according to Coptic tradition, Mark made his way to Alexandria, where the people are said to have resented his efforts to turn them away from the worship of their traditional Egyptian gods. In AD 68 they placed a rope around his neck and dragged him through the streets until he was dead.

This painting was one of six wood quatrefoils representing the saints originally included on the wood baldachin which surmounted the altarpiece of the Holy Mary of the Graces. Though not attracted per se to the artistic ideals and innovations of the Renaissance, di Lorenzo still placed an importance on the realism of his figures, as this painting readily displays. Depicted on a typically grand golden background, Mark himself looks saintly, but also rather lifelike, rather human.

Bicci di Lorenzo (1373-1452) was an Italian painter and sculptor, active in Florence. He was the son of the painter, Lorenzo di Bicci, whose workshop he joined. He married in 1418, and in 1424 was registered in the Guild of Painters at Florence. Bicci di Lorenzo died in 1452, but already for some years the running of the workshop had passed to his son Bicci di Neri, who continued its fortunes for the whole of the second half of the century, by traditional methods.

Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus

Title: Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus

Artist: Frank Mason

Medium: oil on canvas

Size: 142 x 200 cm

Date: 1992

Location: Private collection

In Acts of the Apostles 22:6-9, St Paul describes his encounter with Jesus. He had been on his way to Damascus to arrest Christians, and as he approached the city around noon, a sudden a bright light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice state, “Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?” Paul replied: 'Who are you, Lord?' And the voice proclaimed: “I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,” Paul’s companions saw the light but did not hear the voice.

The sky is the dominate feature in Mason’s work, with the roiling clouds, the traces of a storm, and the opening at the top filled with “a bright light from heaven.” On the ground, almost insignificantly, are Saul and his party, stunned, bewildered, and arms at the ready. Unlike many traditional paintings of this event, Saul has not yet toppled from his horse. In Masons work he struggles, one hand on the reigns, the other trying to shield his eyes from the Heavenly glory. In the distance, illuminated by another break in the clouds, is Damascus, the city where Paul will be baptized and told “You must tell everyone what you have seen and heard.”

Frank Herbert Mason (February 20, 1921- June 16, 2009) was an American painter and teacher born in Cleveland, Ohio. He attended the Music and Arts High School in New York until he was awarded a scholarship to study at the Art Students League of New York with Frank DuMond. Mason studied with Dumond until DuMond's death in 1951, when he himself began teaching at the Art Students League. In 1964 he completed a major commission of eight large canvases on the Life of St. Anthony of Padua for the 11th Century Church of San Giovanni di Malta, Venice. In recognition of his work, the Order of Malta conferred upon him the Cross of Merit, Prima Classe. He became the first painter to receive the honor since Caravaggio.

The Ascension

Title: The Ascension

Artist: Unknown

Medium: Encaustic Icon

Size: 46 x 29.5 cm

Date: 6th century

Location: Saint Catherine's Monastery, Sinai.

As recorded in the Acts of the Apostles 1:8-9, the last time they gathered with the risen Christ he told them “[...] you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” And after saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him." On this occasion we can see the completion of Christ’s physical presence among his apostles and the consummation of the union of God and humanity as Christ ascends in his glorified human body to sit at the right hand of the Father. The Ascension is the final visible sign of Christ’s two natures, divine and human, and it shows us that redeemed humanity now has a higher state than humanity had before the fall.

The panel is split vertically and stapled together. Mary stands in the center in an orant position, signifying the Church, surrounded by the apostles including St. Paul, while Christ rises in a mandorla flanked by angels. She alone makes eye contact with us, the Church. The depiction here is clearly not historical, but highly symbolic of the nature of the Church Christ established and left, and His promise to send the Spirit and never to abandon His Church.

The iconography already seems well established by this period, as it recalls the Monza ampullae from Palestine. This icon is an encaustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, involving the use of heated beeswax to which colored pigments are added. The liquid/paste is then applied to a surface, in this case prepared wood. This icon, along with many others, is still located at Saint Catherine's Monastery at the mouth of an inaccessible gorge at the foot of Mount Sinai. The monastery is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost

Title: Gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost

Artist: Unknown

Medium: Illuminated manuscript

Size: 33.6 x 22.6 cm

Date: 586

Location: Laurentian Library, Florence.

From Acts of the Apostles 2:1-4: “When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a violent wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.”

The iconography of Pentecost is usually very consistent, with either St. Paul or St. James the Just being substituted for Judas Iscariot. One variable is the inclusion of Mary among the disciples, which is wholly reasonable as the previous chapter of Acts says that she was among the disciples who gathered in the upper room following the ascension of Jesus. Therefore, most depictions include her, and, like this one, most center on her. She is depicted with a long oval face and a bright halo; the style of the apostles belongs to a more ancient art tradition, reminiscent of Roman mosaics.

This illustration is one of several from the Rabbula Gospels, a 6th century illuminated Syriac Gospel Book. One of the finest Byzantine works produced in Asia, it is distinguished by the miniaturist's predilection for bright colors, movement, drama, and expressionism. The miniaturist obviously drew some of his inspiration from Hellenistic art (draped figures), but relied mainly on the ornamental traditions of Persia. The Gospel was completed in the monastery of ‘Beth Mar John’ at ‘Beth Zagba’, in what is now northern Syria. It was signed by its scribe, Rabbula, about whom nothing else is known. Rabbula may have belonged to a group of scribes from Edessa who worked the area in the 6th century. In a long scribal note (fol. 292r–v), he named the others responsible for preparing the manuscript, but unfortunately omitted specific mention of its illuminators.