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 4 - ST LAWRENCE

Title: The Martyrdom of St Lawrence
Artist: Palma Giovane
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 283 x 490 cm
Date: 1581-82
Location: San Giacomo dall'Orio, Venice.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 4 – ST LAWRENCE

Lawrence of Rome (c. 225 – 258) (Latin: Laurentius, meaning "laurelled") was one of the seven deacons of ancient Rome who were martyred during the persecution of Valerian in 258. At the beginning of the month of August, 258, the emperor issued an edict, commanding that all bishops, priests, and deacons should immediately be put to death. On 6 August Pope Sixtus II was apprehended in one of the catacombs, and executed forthwith. After the death of Sixtus, the prefect of Rome demanded that Lawrence turn over the riches of the Church. Legend has it that Lawrence asked for three days to gather together the wealth, and then swiftly distributed as much Church property to the poor as possible. On the third day, when ordered to give up the treasures of the Church, he presented the poor, the crippled, the blind and the suffering, and said that these were the true treasures of the Church. He was subsequently martyred. Since the fourth century St. Lawrence has been one of the most honored martyrs of the Roman Church.

This depiction of The Martyrdom of St Lawrence is a rather unusual horizontal design, which has been criticized as being unsuccessful with predictable intermingling of Venetian and Roman mannerism. But the depth of field has been masterfully captured in distinct planes, creating a very naturalistic sense of depth, as does the light from the flames beneath the Saint’s gridiron. Tradition also holds that Lawrence joked about their cooking him enough to eat while he was burning on the gridiron (hence his patronage of cooks and chefs), stating something along the lines of "turn me over ... I'm done on this side."

Jacopo di Antonio Negretti (c.1548 - October 1628), best known as Jacopo Palma il Giovane or simply Palma Giovane ("Young Palma") was a Venetian painter, and great-nephew of Palma Vecchio. He is said to have been a pupil of Titian, but this tradition has been doubted (it is probably based on the fact that he completed the Pietà which Titian left incomplete at his death). In the late 1560s and early 1570s he worked in central Italy, mainly Rome, but thereafter he spent the rest of his life in Venice. Adding naturalism to his Mannerist style by the 1580s, he varied the ingeniously synthesized amalgam according to subject matter and patrons' own eclectic and conservative tastes, with "virtuoso skill and a facile intelligence." After the death of Tintoretto in 1594, he became the leading painter in the Venice.

Miracle of the Snow: Foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore

Title: Miracle of the Snow: Foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore

Artist: Masolino da Panicale

Date: c. 1428-1432

Size: 144 x 76 cm

Location: Museo di Capodimonte, Naples.

This painting, part of the altar depicting the Miracle of the Snow, was painted between 1428 and 1432 by Masolino da Panicale for the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome. It has since been removed and can now be seen in the National Gallery of Capodimonte, Naples. To commemorate the Miracle of the Snow, every August 5th a cascade of white petals descends from the coffered ceiling onto the altar place during the religious festivities.

This painting commemorates the foundation of the Santa Maria Maggiore in the center of Rome. Legend says that between the 4th and the 5th of August of 352, Pope Liberius and Giovanni, a rich Roman gentleman, dreamed of Mother Mary asking them to build a church devoted to her on the Esquilino hill, one of the famous Seven Hills of Rome. The virgin also told them that at the place chosen to build the church it was going to snow. Generally, snow is extremely rare in Rome, even in the coldest seasons, so the following morning when a rectangle of snow was discovered on the Esquilino hill during the hottest month of the Roman Summer, it was regarded as miraculous. People crowded to see the patch of snow, which persisted despite the heat. As soon as the plot for the building had been staked out, the snow melted, and the first major church in Rome in honor of Mary was erected in it’s place.

There has been some speculation among “UFOlogists” that this event was actually a phenomenon of extraterrestrial origin. In fact, this “Miracle of the Snow” is likened to another event that occurred at 2.30 pm, 27 October 1954: several discs were reported flying in the sky over Florence, and left in their strange passage "flakes", white and “cotton-like”. The substance was quick to disintegrate if held in the hand. Nearly sixty years later the case on the Florence phenomenon remains unresolved. Speculation links these two events, and there are those who maintain that this is why Masolino’s clouds are not depicted like normal clouds, lacking any vaporous contours, but are all clearly delineated, almost disc-like in their appearance.

Masolino da Panicale (c. 1383, Panicale in Valdelsa - c.1447, Florence) was a Florentine painter of the early Renaissance, whose real name was Tommaso di Cristoforo Fini. His versatile painting incorporated his feeling for decorative color with strong modeling and spatial organization. He was admitted in 1423 to the apothecaries' guild in Florence, in which painters were enrolled, and was soon commissioned to paint the frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel in Florence. These were continued by his pupil Masaccio upon Masolino's departure in 1427 for Hungary.

The Bleeding Woman

Title: Untitled (The Bleeding Woman)
Artist: Unknown

Medium: Fresco
Date: 4th Century AD
Location: Catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter, Rome, Italy.

The Roman catacombs, or underground burial places, are extremely important in the history of early Christian art, as they contain the great majority of the fresco and sculpture examples from before 400 AD.

Depicted appears to be events described in Mark 5:25-34, where a woman who had been bleeding for years came up behind Jesus in a crowd, believing that by touching his garments she would get well. The typically unbearded Christ gestures openly to her, graphically interpreting the passage “You are now well because of your faith.”

This fresco, and others like it, are over 1600 years old. As they had lain forgotten for hundreds of those years the name of the artist has been lost with the passage of time. Fortunately, through the work of Antonio Bosio, who accidentally rediscovered the catacombs in 1578, such priceless art treasures have allowed us a unique window into the early Christian church.