The Twelve Days of Christmas - Day 10

Title: Moses on Mount Sinai
Artist: Jean-Léon Gérôme
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: tbd.
Date: 1900
Location: Private Collection.

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, Ten Lords a-leaping...

The leaping lords are representative of the Ten Commandments. Also known as the Decalogue, Ten Commandments are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in Judaism and Christianity. They include instructions to worship only God and to keep the Sabbath, and prohibitions against idolatry, blasphemy, murder, theft, dishonesty, and adultery.

 

French Academic paint Jean-Léon Gérôme paints a stunning image capturing the power of Exodus 16-18: 'And it came to pass on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of a horn exceeding loud; and all the people that were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. Now mount Sinai was altogether on smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.'

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.