Fourth Sunday of Advent

Title: The Presentation in the Temple

Artist: Jean Bourdichon

Medium: Tempera and gold on parchment

Size: 24 x 17 cm

Date: 1499

Location: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Luke 2:22-32: After the days required by Moses’ Teachings to make a mother clean had passed, Joseph and Mary went to Jerusalem. They took Jesus to present him to the Lord. They did exactly what was written in the Lord’s Teachings: “Every firstborn boy is to be set apart as holy to the Lord.” They also offered a sacrifice as required by the Lord’s Teachings: “a pair of mourning doves or two young pigeons.” A man named Simeon was in Jerusalem. He lived an honorable and devout life. He was waiting for the one who would comfort Israel. The Holy Spirit was with Simeon and had told him that he wouldn’t die until he had seen the Messiah, whom the Lord would send. Moved by the Spirit, Simeon went into the temple courtyard. Mary and Joseph were bringing the child Jesus into the courtyard at the same time. They brought him so that they could do for him what Moses’ Teachings required. Then Simeon took the child in his arms and praised God by saying, “Now, Lord, you are allowing your servant to leave in peace as you promised. My eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared for all people to see. He is a light that will reveal salvation to the nations and bring glory to your people Israel.”

This leaf depicting the Presentation in the Temple originally comes from a manuscript known as the Hours of Louis XII, so-called after its patron King Louis XII of France, and was one of the greatest French manuscripts of its time. Here Mary is seen in half-length, situated at the front of the space, close to the viewer who seems to peer over her shoulder at the scene of the presentation of her infant son at the altar of the priest Simeon. The purpose of compositions such as this one - which were increasingly popular in the second half of the 15th century - was to bring viewers physically closer to the narrative and actively engage them in the event being portrayed.

Jean Bourdichon (c.1457 – 1521) was a French miniature painter and manuscript illuminator at the court of France with a career that lasted nearly forty years during the reigns of Louis XI, Charles VIII, Louis XII and Francis I of France. As court painter, he designed stained glass windows, coins, gold plate, illuminated manuscripts, and executed independent paintings. Charles VIII set up a workshop for him in his castle at Plessis-lès-Tours and gave large dowries to Bourdichon's daughters, and Bourdichon himself became a wealthy landowner. Today, only one of his panel paintings is known to survive and he is therefore known primarily from his work in manuscripts. He is last recorded in 1520, receiving payment for the decoration of tents for the opulent encounter of Henry VIII and Francis I at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

Luke for Lent - Part 7 of 7

Title: Friend of the Humble (Supper at Emmaus)

Artist: Léon-Augustin Lhermitte

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 156 x 223 cm

Date: 1892

Location: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Luke 24: 28-35 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognised him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognised by them when he broke the bread.

For these disciples, their faces downcast, hope had been buried in the tomb provided by Joseph. But despite their heavy hearts, these disciples do one thing right in this story — something so apparently insignificant it would be easy to miss. They offer hospitality to Jesus: “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening.” As Jesus sits at the table, takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it and gives it to them, their eyes were opened. Jesus blesses their small act of generosity with the revelation of his presence. It is in the intimacy of fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, that they at last recognise him, and their perplexity over recent events is removed. It is through sitting with Jesus and listening to him that we get to know him.

Léon Augustin Lhermitte (1844 – 1925) was a French realist painter and etcher whose primary subject matter was rural scenes depicting peasants at work. He was a student of Lecoq de Boisbaudran, and gained recognition after his show in the Paris Salon in 1864. Lhermitte’s innovative use of pastels won him the admiration of his contemporaries, including Vincent van Gogh, and his many awards include the French Legion of Honour (1884) and the Grand Prize at the Exposition Universelle in 1889.

A Month of Miracles Part 21 - Healing the Man With Dropsy

Title: Healing of the Man With the Dropsy
Artist: Alexandre Bida
Medium: Etching
Size: 28 x 21 cm
Date: ca. 1873
Location: From Illustrations by Alexandre Bida, from Christ in Art; or, The Gospel Life of Jesus: With the Bida Illustrations. by Edward Eggleston. New York: Fords, Howard, & Hulbert, 1874.

Luke 14:1-6 - One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body. Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way. Then he asked them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?” And they had nothing to say.

As Jesus dines with the Pharisees, the religious leaders are watching him. The phrase Luke used here for ‘carefully watched’ means to watch surreptitiously – ominously - much as an undercover agent would today. It is apparent that the mood is somber, suspicion deep. At the meal is a man with dropsy, which means his limbs are swollen with excess body fluids, and Jesus asks whether it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath. Having had experience with this predicament, the leaders remain silent - and Jesus heals the man. After sending him away, Jesus notes again that they would quickly offer aid to a son or even an ox that had fallen in the ditch on the sabbath. The leaders' silence continues. Nothing has been learned; nothing has been confessed. Despite a constant barrage of divine activity, their position has not changed. The passage confirms how strong sin's stubbornness can be. It also shows how even after warnings about judgment and its consequences, God graciously still gives evidence of his presence.

Alexandre Bida (1813–1895) was born in Toulouse, France, and was a painter of the Romantic period. He specialized in Orientalism and studied under Eugene Delacroix, but soon developed his own style along with his desire for perfection. As a youth he traveled to work in Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, and Palestine, and likely used this knowledge as illustrator of ‘Bida's Les Saints Evangeles’, published in 1873. Of Bida's work, although having closely observed the costumes and people encountered overseas, his decorative arrangements and symmetry of space exemplified the theatrical aspects of his art.

A Month of Miracles Part 7 - Man With the Withered Hand

Title: The Man with the Withered Hand
Artist: James Tissot
Medium: Opaque watercolor over graphite on gray wove paper
Size: 21.9 x 16 cm
Date: c. 1890
Location: Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York.

Mark 3:1-5 - Jesus entered again into a synagogue and a man with a withered hand was there. And they were watching him carefully to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath, so they could accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Get up and step forward.” And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?” But they remained silent. And after looking around at them in anger, grieved at the hardness of their heart, he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched out his hand and it was restored.

When Jesus heals a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath, he flouts rules against work and further upsets the devout. Although Jewish law permitted the saving of lives on the holy day, Jesus defies the rigid rules of the Sabbath by extending his help to a man afflicted, but not threatened with death.

James Jacques Joseph Tissot (October 1836 – August 1902) was a French painter. After the death of his longtime companion Kathleen Newton in 1882, Tissot spent some time in Palestine. He began work on drawings of the life of Christ, which debuted In Paris in 1896. With the same meticulous attention to detail that he had applied to painting society, he strove for historical authenticity in his precisely rendered watercolors of the life of Christ. They were subsequently published by the firm of Lemercier in Paris, who paid Tissot 1,100,000 francs.

Fifth Sunday of Lent - Christ on the Cross

Title: Christ on the Cross
Artist: Eugène Delacroix
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 80 x 64.2 cm
Date: 1846
Location: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

John 19:31-37 - Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken,” and, as another scripture says, “They will look on the one they have pierced.

Sharply silhouetted against the darkened sky is the dying Christ. A couple of gesturing spectators appear at the left, and on the right are two mounted Roman soldiers with billowing banners. Other onlookers are visible in the mid-ground. Although not a practicing Christian, Delacroix painted a number of New Testament subjects. Evidently, he was attracted to the drama of Christ's Passion and was endeavoring to deal with issues of personal faith raised by Christ's human and divine nature. When this work was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1847, the critics enthusiastically praised it, noting its affinities with Crucifixion scenes by the great Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens.

Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix (April 1798 – August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as a leader of the French Romantic school. In 1815 he entered the studio of the neoclassical painter Pierre Narcisse Guérin, where he met Théodore Géricault, a romantic painter by whom he was much influenced. Delacroix took for his inspiration the art of Rubens and painters of the Venetian Renaissance, with an attendant emphasis on color and movement rather than clarity of outline and carefully modeled form. Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of color profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 18 -The Calvary

Title: The Calvary
Artist: Odilon Redon
Medium: Pastel on cardboard
Size: 69 x 53 cm
Date: c. 1895
Location: Foundation E. G. Bührle Collection, Zurich.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 18

Mark 15:25 And it was the third hour, and they crucified him.

Around the middle of the 1890s a religious mysticism takes the place of the dark visions of Redon’s work. Charcoal gives way to the bright pastel, and Christ figures prominently in his work. In "The Calvary" this new Redon, tense with religious hopes, tense also in the sense that he is subject to restrictive compulsions: the overemphasized "sacral" central axis of the Cross with the small crucified figure on the upper margin of the picture and the rigid, lamenting Mary in her red robe. It is to she whom the viewers eye is drawn, and we are forced to contemplate her plight, under Redon’s shimmering sky.

Bertrand-Jean Redon, better known as Odilon Redon (April 1840 – July 1916) was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist. The young Bertrand-Jean Redon acquired the nickname "Odilon" from his mother, Odile. Redon started drawing as a child, and at the age of ten he was awarded a drawing prize at school. Aged fifteen, he began the formal study of drawing, but on the insistence of his father he changed to architecture. His failure to pass the entrance exams at Paris’ École des Beaux-Arts ended any plans for a career as an architect. In the 1890s, pastel and oils became his favored media, and he produced no more noirs after 1900.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 17 - Mary Magdalene in the house of Simon the Pharisee

Title: Mary Magdalene in the house of Simon the Pharisee
Artist: Jean Beraud
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 101.2 x 131.5 cm
Date: 1891
Location: Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 17

Luke 7:36-47 When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.” Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you. Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.” Jesus said, “You have judged correctly.” Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

This interesting and technically accomplished painting pulls the event recorded in Luke into the artist’s contemporary world. Only the figure of Jesus is timeless. All the others, including the startled maid at far right, are in modern dress. The painting was controversial when it first appeared, because people rightly suspected that Beraud was trying to make them uncomfortable by confronting them with their own failings, their own hypocrisy. Many of the well-heeled men in the painting would have had mistresses. Now they were confronted with reality, with raw human suffering, and they did not particularly like it. Interestingly, each person in this work is evidently illustrated with features of a personality from of the world of political or the arts. Christ is illustrated with the features of the socialist journalist Albert Duke-Quercy and Simon the Pharisee those of the writer Ernest Renan.

Jean Beraud (January 1849 – October 1935) was a French painter and commercial artist noted for his paintings of Parisian life during the Belle Époque. He was born in St. Petersburg, son of a French sculptor. Studied law in Paris, then turned to painting after the Franco-Prussian War and studied for two years at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under Bonnat. While his Impressionist contemporaries were moving out into the country to study the changing effects of the landscape during the late nineteenth century, Beraud remained rooted in Paris, studying the city life and its people. By the 1890s Beraud had interestingly decided to pursue religious themes, although at one point they had become the antithesis of progressive artistic dictum. As noted by Art critic Gabriel P. Weisberg “...by the end of the century there were so many religious compositions – and painters – that the world of art was flooded with religious sentimentality.”

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 12 - Virgin of the Deliverance

Title: Virgin of the Deliverance
Artist: Ernest Hebert
Medium: Oil on panel
Size: 40.3 x 28.3 cm
Date: c. 1872
Location: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 12

In art, the term “The Madonna” is applied specifically to an artwork in which Mary, with or without the infant Jesus, is the focus and central figure of the picture. Mary and the infant may be surrounded by adoring angels or worshiping saints, however paintings which have a narrative content are usually given a title that reflects the scene. Half-length paintings of the Madonna and Child are also common in Italian Renaissance painting, particularly in Venice.

This painting is a variant based on a large-scale altarpiece that Hébert painted in time for the Salon of 1872 and that was finally installed in the church of his native town, La Tronche, the following year. Unlike the original altarpiece, which has a patterned background, this version is stylized to recall the conventions of Byzantine icons. The gold ground, raised haloes and Greek letters-mu, rho, theta, and upsilon: the abbreviation of "Maria Theotokos" (Mary God-bearer), often found in Byzantine mosaics-lend the painting a schematic flatness that contrasts dramatically with the otherwise convincingly three-dimensional figures.

Ernest Hebert (November 1817 - December 1908), sometimes known as Antoine Auguste Ernest Hebert, was a French painter and academic. Though he took drawing lessons from the age of ten from the French painter Benjamin Rolland, his father wished him to become a lawyer, and in 1834 he moved to Paris to study law. While there he also studied drawing and painting, and in 1839, the year he passed his law exams, he also won the Prix de Rome for his painting 'The Cup of Joseph Found in the Sack of Benjamin.' During his lifetime Hebert became one of the most highly regarded and decorated painters of his generation, winning medals at several "Expositions Universelles" (World's Fairs), and the Grande Croix of the Legion of Honor in 1903.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 11 - Christ in Limbo

Title: Christ in Limbo
Artist: Paul Cézanne
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 170 x 97 cm
Date: c. 1867
Location: Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 11

Christ’s Descent into Hell, or Descent into Limbo, is a legend not depicted in any of the canonical Gospels. One of the first written references can be found in the Apocryphal text, the Gospel of Nicodemus. Before his bodily Resurrection, Jesus descended into Hell and led the just, the patriarchs, the prophets of the Old Testament and Adam and Eve, into the light. Later, a clarity was introduced that they had not been in Hell at all, but in the bordering region, Limbo (from the Latin word limbus, a hem); it was taught that because they lived and died before the Christ's self-sacrifice for peoples redemption, they were put in the lower place until such time when Jesus could liberate them. the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "...Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as Savior, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there.”

During the 1860s, Cézanne turned his hand to murals to decorate the family home, Jas de Bouffan, near Aix-en-Provence. As indicated in documents from the period, this fragment, Christ in Limbo, was part of a much larger composition. Another work in the Musée d'Orsay, La Madeleine, was also part of it, although scholars attest there is no aesthetic reason to link the two. In Cézanne’s painting of Christ's descent into Limbo, the dwelling place between death and resurrection, the artist depicts the place with a careful use of color against a black background. The reds and peaches, combined with the loose brushstrokes. create a vigorous impasto intercepting light and portray a scene glimpsed through shimmering waves of heat. The souls of the Just in the Old Testament who await Redemption kneel before the Redeemer. In fact, the characters in the bottom left hand corner are probably Adam and Eve.

Paul Cézanne (January 1839 – October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavor to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th century Impressionism and the early 20th century's new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism. The line attributed to both Matisse and Picasso that Cézanne "is the father of us all" cannot be easily dismissed. Cézanne's work demonstrates a mastery of design, color, tone, composition and draftsmanship. His often sensitive and exploratory brushstrokes are highly characteristic and clearly recognizable. During his Dark Period in Paris, 1861–1870, Cézanne was given to depression, and his works of this period are characterized by dark colors and the heavy use of black. They differ sharply from his earlier watercolors and sketches at the École Spéciale de dessin at Aix-en-Provence in 1859, and the violence of expression is in contrast to his subsequent works.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 10 - Jesus Mocked by the Soldiers

Title: Jesus Mocked by the Soldiers
Artist: Edouard Manet
Medium: Oil on board
Size: 190.82 x 148.27 cm
Date: 1865
Location: The Art Institute of Chicago.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 10

Mark 15:16-18 The soldiers took Jesus into the governor's palace (called the Praetorium) and called all the other soldiers together. They put a purple robe on Jesus and used thorny branches to make a crown for his head. They began to call out to him, "Hail, King of the Jews!"

Manet depicts the moment when Christ’s captors mock the “king of the Jews” by crowning him with thorns and covering him with a purple robe. Unlike more traditional academic religious painting that portrays Jesus as a divine, other-worldly being, the figure here is not idealized. Jesus is depicted as human and vulnerable, awkwardly posed and un-heroic in demeanor. In fact, it is the soldiers themselves who reveal Christ’s divinity to the viewer. Far from being the torturers whose violent gestures populate art history, these are men who seem almost stunned in the presence of Christ. The torturer with the rod kneels in homage more than he readies himself for his cruel task; the fur-clad figure at the right holds Christ's cloak as if it were a royal robe. Because of its decidedly rebellious presentation of the subject, Jesus Mocked by the Soldiers was received at the 1865 Salon with an outburst of negative criticism.

Édouard Manet (January 1832 – April 1883) was a French painter. As one of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. His early masterworks, The Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe) and Olympia, engendered great controversy and served as rallying points for the young painters who would create Impressionism. Today, these are considered watershed paintings that mark the genesis of modern art. Although his own work influenced and anticipated the Impressionist style, he resisted involvement in Impressionist exhibitions, partly because he did not wish to be seen as the representative of a group identity, and partly because he preferred to exhibit at the Salon.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 8 - The Disciples at Emmaus

Title: The Disciples at Emmaus
Artist: Eugène Delacroix
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 55.2 x 47 cm
Date: 1853
Location: Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 8

Luke 24:28-35 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.

Delacroix has located this miraculous apparition in a darkened interior, which becomes dramatically illuminated by Christ’s golden halo. Jesus stands with a powerful backward stance, echoing the diagonal line of the staircase, breaking the bread with his large hands. The casual posture of the disciple on the right conveys the relaxation of a meal shared among friends, whereas the disciple on the left registers the wonder of the moment. The surprised disciple’s face is turned toward Jesus, Delacroix preferring the use of a bodily gesture—an up-flung left hand—rather than facial expression to convey amazement. In addition to shrewd compositional strategies and theatrical lighting, the artist’s characteristically loose paint handling of his later compositions adds a further note of dramatic energy to the work.

Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix (April 1798 – August 1863) was a French painter regarded from the outset of his career as a leader of the French Romantic school. In 1815 he entered the studio of the neoclassical painter Pierre Narcisse Guérin, where he met Théodore Géricault, a romantic painter by whom he was much influenced. Delacroix took for his inspiration the art of Rubens and painters of the Venetian Renaissance, with an attendant emphasis on color and movement rather than clarity of outline and carefully modeled form. Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of color profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 7 Christ's Entry into Jerusalem

Title: Christ's Entry into Jerusalem
Artist: Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin
Medium: Fresco
Size: tbd
Date: 1846
Location: Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 7

Matthew 21:1-9 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.” This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: “Say to Daughter Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’” The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”.

The wall panels throughout the nave and choir of Saint-Germain-des-Prés are work of Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin, from 1842-1849. It is apparent from contemporary criticism that Flandrin's mural scheme attracted much attention for its abstracted forms, and flattened frieze like compositions running the length of the choir. Christ's Entry into Jerusalem, in the Sanctuary on the left of the high altar, is a fine example in this outstanding series of frescos. Christ, majestic though he rides a humble donkey, is surrounded by an adoring throng. Men and women bow down before him, the excitement so great that to the right a man even lifts a child to glimpse “the Son of David.” The compression of depth that Flandrin achieved creates an even further sense of being part of a packed throng.

Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin (March 1809 – March 1864) was a 19th-century French painter. He was the second of three sons, all of whom were painters in some aspect. Hippolyte and Paul, his younger brother, spent some time at Lyon, saving to leave for Paris in 1829 and study under Louis Hersent. Eventually, they settled in the studio of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, who became not only their instructor but their friend for life. At first, Hippolyte reportedly struggled as a poor artist. However, in 1832, he won the Prix de Rome for his painting Recognition of Theseus by his Father. This prestigious art scholarship meant that he was no longer limited by his poverty. Though Flandrin painted a great number of portraits, he is much more known today for his monumental decorative paintings, such as those at St Germain des Prés in Paris.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 5 - Christus Consolator

Title: Christus Consolator
Artist: Ary Scheffer
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 184 x 248 cm
Date: 1836-37
Location: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 5

Luke 4:18: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, I have come to heal those who are brokenhearted and to announce to the prisoners their deliverance; to liberate those who are crushed by their chains.”

At the center of the composition is the figure of Christ, surrounded by the afflicted and oppressed. A kneeling woman mourns her dead child, while in the background we see an exile with his walking stick, a castaway with a piece of the wreckage in his hand, and a suicide with a dagger. Placed near these groups are Torquato Tasso (crowned with laurel), a brilliant 16th-century poet imprisoned as a madman, and figures representing the three ages of women. To the right of Christ are the oppressed of both the past and present, among them a Polish independence fighter, a Greek Souliote warrior, a Roman slave, and a black slave. With his left hand Christ releases from his shackles a dying man, the personification of Poland with the shattered weapons of its failed insurrection against Russia by his side, his exposed, wounded body draped in the Polish flag. The repentant Mary Magdalene kneels beside Christ. It is an encyclopedic interpretation of human history that transports the viewer from modern-day Poland, Greece, and America to both the ancient and medieval eras. The composition reflects the renewed interest in France during the 1830s for a more liberal activism within the Catholic Church. On a personal level, it also reveals the artist’s appreciation for various European art movements, especially, the markedly religious Nazarene circle in Germany.

The Dutch-born and French-trained artist Ary Scheffer (February 1795 - June 1858) was one of the pre-eminent Romantic painters active in Paris during the first half of the 19th century. Although his earliest works concentrated on illustrating Romantic literature or overtly sentimental genre subjects, after 1830 he became increasingly occupied with Old and New Testament themes. Christus Consolator created a sensation when exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1837, where it was purchased by the French monarch’s son, the Duc d’Orléans, as a wedding present for his Lutheran fiancée, the Princess Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Scheffer’s religious subjects were the source of his international reputation during his lifetime, and, one might argue, the epitome of his genius. Christus Consolator was, after Holman Hunt’s contemporaneous Light of the World, the most popular religious image throughout the Western world during the middle decades of the 19th century.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 3 - Lamentation

Title: Lamentation
Artist: Paul Delaroche
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 49.5 x 32.7 cm
Date: 1820
Location: Dahesh Museum of Art, Greenwich, CT.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 3

John 19:25-30 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

This is one of Delaroche's earliest known works and exemplifies the religious imagery that found favor in the opening years of the Bourbon Restoration (1814–1830), when the Catholic church regained much of the power it had lost during the French Revolution. In 1820 the Duchess of Orléans, wife of the Duke of Orléans (the future King Louis-Philippe), commissioned the young Delaroche, still an unknown student in the atelier of Baron Gros, to paint a Lamentation for the family chapel at the Palais Royal in Paris. That same year he also executed this smaller version, perhaps a presentation model submitted for final approval. However, the two compositions differ substantially, and this could also have been an independent work painted for the member of the ducal household to whom it is dedicated. Delaroche created a traditional but deeply moving depiction of the mourning Virgin, whose intense suffering is symbolized by the swords that pierce her heart.

Hippolyte Delaroche (July 1797 – November 1856), commonly known as Paul Delaroche, was a French painter born in Paris. Delaroche was born into a wealthy family and was trained by Antoine-Jean, Baron Gros, who then painted life-size histories and had many students. By 1822, with the arrival of Romanticism in Paris challenging the dominance of Neo-classicism, Delaroche was to steer a course between the two currents, unwilling to opt for full-blooded Romanticism for fear of jeopardizing his public standing. Delaroche's paintings, with their straightforward technique and dramatic compositions, became very popular. He applied essentially the same treatment to the characters of distant historical times, the founders of Christianity, and various figures of his own day such as "Napoleon at Fontainebleau."

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 2 - Jesus Handing St Peter the Keys to Paradise

Title: Jesus Handing St Peter the Keys to Paradise
Artist: Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 280 x 217 cm
Date: 1820
Location: Musée Ingres, Montauban.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 2

Matthew 16:15-19 “But what about you?” Jesus asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.”

The success of Jesus Handing St Peter the Keys to Paradise lead Ingres to stiffen many of his compositions, giving the historical scenes as well as portraits sometimes a too pronounced solemn character. In this image, however, the stiffness achieves the wonderful effect of making the painting seem like a living Icon. The photo-realism of the robes contrasts the stylized halos; the realistic expressions contrast the formality of their posture, and so on. Even as a guardian of tradition, Ingres cannot help but nod towards the future.

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (August 1780 – January 1867) was a French Neoclassical painter. Although he considered himself to be a painter of history in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David, by the end of his life it was Ingres's portraits, both painted and drawn, that were recognized as his greatest legacy. A man profoundly respectful of the past, he assumed the role of a guardian of academic orthodoxy against the ascendant Romantic style. Ingres influence on later generations of artists has been considerable. His most significant heir was Degas, who studied under Louis Lamothe, a minor disciple of Ingres. In the 20th century, Picasso and Matisse were among those who acknowledged a debt to the great classicist; Matisse described him as the first painter "to use pure colors, outlining them without distorting them."

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 18 – ST MARGARET THE VIRGIN

Title: St Margaret
Artist: Ernest Hebert
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 66.2 x 34.1 cm
Date: c. 1877
Location: Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 18 – ST MARGARET THE VIRGIN

St Margaret the Virgin, also known as Margaret of Antioch, was the daughter of a pagan priest named Aedesius. Her mother dying soon after her birth, Margaret was nursed by a nearby Christian. Having embraced Christianity and consecrated her virginity to God, she was disowned by her father and adopted by her nurse. Later, Olybrius, Governor of the Roman Diocese of the East, offered her marriage at the price of her renunciation of Christianity. Upon her refusal, she was cruelly tortured, during which various miraculous incidents occurred. One of these involved being swallowed by Satan in the shape of a dragon, from which she escaped alive when the cross she carried irritated the dragon's innards. Finally the Governor ordered her beheaded.

Hebert became renowned for his painting, 'La Malaria', in the 1850 Salon, and perhaps thought of as a principally a classic painter. He deserves, however, to figure among the Symbolists as well. His religious and mythological pieces, such as Ophelias, were wistful and avoided female figures in a lyrical and passionate atmosphere. Accordingly, his St Margaret shows us a triumphant Virgin. Looking Heavenward she holds the dragon pinned and helpless with her radiant cross. Though she may have the visage of one of Raphael’s Madonnas, the vibrant colors and attention to fine detail make this painting distinctly Hebert’s.

Ernest Hebert (November 1817 - December 1908), sometimes known as Antoine Auguste Ernest Hebert, was a French painter and academic. Hebert was yet another of the artists working in the orbit of Paul Delaroche whose name fell into relative obscurity in the last century. He was, in fact, like Delaroche, one of the most highly regarded and decorated painters of his generation, winning medals at several "Expositions Universelles" (World's Fairs). He received the Grande Croix of the Legion of Honor in 1903.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 15 – ST SEBASTIAN

Title: St Sebastian
Artist: Michel Henricot
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 30 x 30 cm
Date: 2006
Location: Private Collection.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 15 – ST SEBASTIAN

Saint Sebastian (died c. 288) was a Christian saint and martyr, who is said to have been killed during the Roman emperor Diocletian's persecution of Christians. Diocletian commanded Sebastian be led to the field and there to be bound to a stake to be shot at as punishment for his proselytizing, "And the archers shot at him till he was as full of arrows as an urchin," leaving him there for dead. Miraculously, the arrows did not kill him. Irene of Rome, the widow of martyred Christian Castulus, went to retrieve his body to bury it, and found he was still alive. She brought him back to her house and nursed him back to health. Having regained his strength, he harangued Diocletian as he passed by, and the emperor then had him beaten to death. He is venerated in the Roman Catholic, and Orthodox Churches.

This portrait of St Sebastian is unique in that it has moved away from the standard portrait of a young, beautiful, white, shirtless, and baby-faced icon. In Henricot’s work it is the suffering that is foremost, the torso pierced by long arrows that are graphically embedded in flesh. It is not another portrait of a beautiful Saint to admire, but a reminder of the physical suffering that Sebastian endured in order to spread the word of Christ among a hostile environment; it is a stark portrayal of the agony that will be meted out to those who oppose the status quo, to those who will stand up in the face of injustice and find the courage to “harangue the emperor”. Henricot’s portrait reminds us that emulating the life of Christ is not all accolades and honors, but true, painful suffering.

Michel Henricot (1940) is one of the most prominent contemporary French visionary painters. He had his first individual show in 1961, in Galerie Marignan, Paris, and has since had numerous exhibitions in France and abroad, e.g., Germany, Italy, and the United States. Among his influences, Henricot is fascinated with the work of Gustave Moreau, Max Klinger, Max Ernst, Egyptian art, and Renaissance Italian painting. More of his work can be seen at the JKK Fine Arts website: http://www.jkkfinearts.com/Henricot/

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 11 – ST GEORGE

Title: Saint George and the Dragon
Artist: Gustave Moreau
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 141 x 96.5 cm
Date: 1889-90
Location: National Gallery, London.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 11 – ST GEORGE

Saint George (c. 275 – April 303) was, according to tradition, a Roman soldier in the Guard of Diocletian, who is venerated as a Christian martyr. In hagiography Saint George is one of the most venerated saints as well as being the patron saint of several nations. The episode of Saint George and the Dragon is Eastern in origin, brought back with the Crusaders and retold. The city of Silene was terrorized by a dragon, and to appease the dragon the people fed it their children. One day the king's daughter was to be fed to the dragon, when, by chance, St George rode past, and subdued the dragon. So that the king and the people of Silene would convert, George slew the dragon. Remembering the unscrupulous freedom with which any wild story, even when pagan in origin, was appropriated by the early hagiographers to the honor of a popular saint, scholars are fairly safe in assuming that the Acts of St. George, though ancient in date and preserved to us (with endless variations) in many different languages, afford absolutely no indication at all for arriving at the saint's authentic history.

This late work is one of the Moreau’s rare completed oils. The design is based on a drawing that he had produced about twenty years earlier. The figures of the horse and the dragon are reminiscent of those of Raphael, but the painting is otherwise a more abstract and ornamental rendering of the legendary subject. The haloed figure of the saint recalls works of the early Renaissance that Moreau would have seen in Italy, notably those of Carpaccio and Crivelli. The figure of the princess with her hands folded in prayer in the right background, and the visionary Gothic castle in the distance, have been compared to those seen in eastern miniatures.

Gustave Moreau (April 1826 – April 1898) was a French Symbolist painter whose main emphasis was the illustration of biblical and mythological figures. He trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. The work of Delacroix - and that of Theodore Chassériau, who was an admirer of Delacroix's and a friend of Moreau's - was a great influence on his development. He visited Italy and developed an interest in Byzantine art and the primitive Italian painters. Moreau sought to perpetuate the traditions of religious and mythological painting, at a time when naturalism was becoming increasingly dominant. Hostile criticism of his work caused him to exhibit only intermittently at the Salon, though later he was elected a member of the Academy. He also taught at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts from 1892, winning the admiration of students, who included Matisse and Georges Rouault. He was a leading painter of the French Symbolist movement.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 10 – ST JOAN OF ARC

Title: Joan of Arc
Artist: Noah Massey
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 111.7 x 73.7 cm
Date: 2010
Location: Private Collection.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 10 – ST JOAN OF ARC

Saint Joan of Arc or The Maid of Orléans (c. 1412 – 30 May 1431) is considered a national heroine of France and a Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed Divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years’ War and paved the way for the coronation of Charles VII. She later testified that she experienced her first vision around 1424 at the age of 12 years, when she was out alone in a field and saw visions of figures she identified as Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret, who told her to drive out the English and bring the Dauphin to Rheims for his coronation. She said she cried when they left, as they were so beautiful. A remarkable military leader, often ignoring the commands of her fellow military leaders and war councils, she lead soldiers and peasants alike against the English to victory. Though she was continuously belittled and disregarded by men of her own rank she was renowned by the men who served under her for her behavior both on and off the battle field. She was captured by the Burgundians, sold to the English, tried by an ecclesiastical court, and burned at the stake on May 30th, 1431, when she was nineteen years old.

Joan is presented to us in an image the encompasses her conflicting aspects. A pubescent girl, her cheeks are rosy and childlike, almost a cherub, but in her eyes are full of wisdom. Though her hand rests on a sword, prepared at any moment to battle, she is surrounded by an army that look like toys from another era. But the flames that surround her remind us that she was not just a little girl playing with toys, but a warrior, who followed the impetus of her visions, and who died an agonizing martyrs death.

Noah Massey is a contemporary American painter and graphic artist. As part of an artist’s statement, Noah writes: “I am interested in the dual nature of existence. What I have read concerning Catholic Saints has stressed their ability to separate and overcome the destruction of their bodies. These stories of martyrdom, torture and temptation demonstrate, in the extreme, the equality of all mankind in suffering. My paintings are not the whole story of the saint they represent. The works are instead my interpretation of overcoming and reunification. Some of the saints, in the midst of their bodily destruction, find salvation in humor, stoicism, defiance, generosity, and preparation. Utilizing contemporary graffiti styles and items of modern fashion the paintings draw a comparison between modern existence and that of the beatified who lived from the 2nd to 11th centuries. The paintings create a psychological space that is abundant with pain but free of panic, the place where decisions of fate and faith are made. It is my desire to create paintings that seduce the viewer into believing that impossible challenges and trials can be overcome, even by the weakest of us.” More information can be found on Noah’s website at http://noahmassey.com/

Jesus Appeared To His Disciples By The Sea Of Galilee

Title: Jesus Appeared To His Disciples By The Sea Of Galilee
Artist: Alexandre Bida
Medium: Etching
Size: 28 x 21 cm
Date: 1873
Location: From Illustrations by Alexandre Bida, from Christ in Art; or, The Gospel Life of Jesus: With the Bida Illustrations. by Edward Eggleston. New York: Fords, Howard, & Hulbert, 1874.

John 21:1-14 Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” He called out to them. “No,” they answered. He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards. When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.

We now know that the Gospel of Mark ended at 16:8... or do we? There are scholars who state that the ending of Mark can be found in John 21. John 21 has synoptic affinities which do not appear in John 1-20: the sons of Zebedee appear, the disciples are fishing, 28 words in John 21 do not appear elsewhere in John, but only in the synoptics. Further, Mark 14:27-28, 16:7 states that Jesus will reappear in Galilee. There are other clues that Mark foreshadows John 21. The disciples will be unaware of the empty tomb, because the women told no-one of what they saw (Mark 16:8). Accordingly, in John 21, Peter and other disciples have lost hope and returned to the lake; for having witnessed the risen Christ before, they now fail to realize Jesus is present in 21:4. The whole story is more like a first appearance to the disciples than a "third".

Alexandre Bida (1813–1895) was born in Toulouse, France and was a painter of the Romantic period. During Bida's youth, he traveled and worked in Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, and Palestine. He specialized in Orientalism and studied under Eugène Delacroix, but with an artist's eye for precision and perfection, he soon developed his own style. He was also an illustrator of the Holy Bible. As a Bible illustrator, Bida's Les Saints Evangeles was published in 1873. In it, the four gospels were enriched by his twenty-eight etchings. Of Bida's work, it was said that he brought a truth and genius that made his Christ reverent, refined, dignified, and strong.