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 ArtsHigh 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.
In Matthew 16:15-19 when the disciple Simon Peter states that Jesus is the Messiah, and the Son of the living God, Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, 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 be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."
Lorenzo Veneziano fulfilled countless commissions in Venice and its vicinity that display a style that is a handsome fusion of Byzantine and later pictorial currents. His commissions included an altarpiece which was later dismembered, and its side panels unfortunately destroyed in Berlin in 1945. But the central panel depicting Christ Giving the Keys to St Peter survived and is now considered a masterpiece in its own right. His rich, elegant painting is characterized by brilliantly clear color, the sculpture-like form of his figures, and the expressiveness of their faces. He accentuated the sense of space and added a fresh dimension to the elongated style of Byzantine figures.
Lorenzo Veneziano was an Italian painter active 1356-1372 in Venice. We have little written evidence for the life of Veneziano, who was one of the most important figures in late-fourteenth-century Venice, but many of his surviving works are dated. It is likely that he worked in the workshop of Paolo Veneziano in the early 1350s and he also worked at Verona, Vicenza, and Bologna, where he executed the Lion Triptych (1357-59) for the Sant'Antonio Abate church (now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice).
Location: Premier Video, New Bedford, Massachusetts.
In the parking lot of Premier Video, a few days after street artist Maki105 placed a wheat pasted poster titled “Peek-A-Boo Jesus” on the side of the New Bedford, Massachusetts video store, dozens of Christians began flocking to the site. They came from miles around. They were young and old, sometimes three generations of a family in a car. There were blue-collar workers with their buddies, retirees, teenagers. They brought cameras and took pictures of each other near the figure of Christ. Some brought flowers, real and artificial, and some brought candles that flickered in their jars in the spring breeze.
Christ's enigmatic gesture — he is holding his hands over his eyes — stirred many of those into what was a fairly unanimous interpretation: that Christ had to close his eyes to the world today. A middle-aged couple in their car didn't get out, but rolled down the window enough for the man to say, "I don't know what to make of it," and for his wife to concur with the idea that Jesus can't bear to watch anymore.
Maki105, perhaps aiming for a more satiric depiction of Christ playing peek-a-boo, may have not anticipated the reaction his work garnered from the faithful. But the gesture of covering one’s eyes is a powerful one, and the association with a game of peek-a-boo is far from the first thing that pops into one’s mind. We may laugh at the irony of a piece of art meant to poke fun at Christianity has accidentally become a Christian shrine, but one still can see the validity in the pilgrims’ interpretation over the artist’s.
Among visitors to the site was a consensus that whoever created the image, he or she did a masterful job, and it ought to be left right where it is. The idea of people celebrating street art and wishing to preserve it is also unusual. Perhaps these pilgrims see something uncharacteristically touching and powerful in Maki105’s work (the complete opposite of the derisive sarcasm intended by the artist) and want it saved.
The Assumption of Mary is a belief held by many Christians that the Virgin Mary, at the end of her life, was physically taken up into heaven. The earliest known narrative is the so-called Liber Requiei Mariae (The Book of Mary's Repose), a narrative which survives intact only in an Ethiopic translation. Probably composed by the 4th century, this early Christian apocryphal narrative may be as early as the 3rd century. The Roman Catholic Church teaches as dogma that Mary, "having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory." Pope John Paul II quoted John 14:3 as a scriptural basis for understanding the dogma. In this verse, Jesus tells his disciples at the Last Supper, “When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am." According to Catholic theology, Mary is the pledge of the fulfillment of Christ's promise.
In Zuccaro’s image, flanked by St John the Baptist to the left and St Catherine of Alexandria to the right, Mary seems to have just begun her rise to Heaven. The clouds have parted and a golden light prepares to receive her. The beauty of Zuccaro’s painting lies in its simplicity, as most images of the Assumption are depicted with the Heavenly Host providing a rapturous reception for the Mother of Jesus. Here, a few simple cherubs gather Mary and provide her escort, the true rapture lying just beyond the upper frame of the picture in the golden clouds.
Federico Zuccaro, also known as Federigo Zuccari (c. 1542 - July 20, 1609), was an Italian Mannerist painter and architect, active both in Italy and abroad. His documented career as a painter began in 1550, when he moved to Rome to work under Taddeo, his elder brother. He went on to complete decorations for Pius IV, and help complete the fresco decorations at the Villa Farnese at Caprarola. In 1585, he accepted an offer by Philip II of Spain to decorate the new Escorial at a yearly salary of 2,000 crowns. He worked at the palace from January 1586 to end of 1588, when he returned to Rome.
Location:YaleUniversityArtGallery, New Haven, Connecticut.
As recorded in Matthew 9:1-8, after traveling, Jesus returned to his own town. Upon his return some men came to him with a paralytic man lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven." At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, "This fellow is blaspheming!", but knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, "Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...." Then he said to the paralytic, "Get up, take your mat and go home." And the man got up and went home.
On the right of this mural, the paralytic is on his bed. To the top center is the earliest image of Jesus found anywhere, Christ making his pronouncement to “Take up your bed and walk.” On the left, the man takes his bed, and walks away. The figure of Jesus in this mural appears depicted as a type of the Teacher. He wears a tunic and pallium and sandals on his feet, he has close-cropped hair, and his face is that of a youthful, distinguished intellectual.
The Massacre of the Innocents is an episode of mass infanticide by the King of Judea, Herod the Great, which appears in the Gospel of Matthew 2:16-18. King Herod ordered the execution of all young male children in the village of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King of the Jews whose birth had been announced to him by the Magi. Like much of Matthew's gospel, the incident is advanced as the fulfillment of passages in the Old Testament read as prophecies. The slaughtered infants, known as the Holy Innocents, have been claimed as the first Christian martyrs.
This depiction of events is rendered as bathed in light, but set before a landscape with dark and heavy architecture. A group of eight adults and eight children (including the putti distributing the palm fronds of victory) has been skillfully arranged. The unusual vertical format, rarely used for this theme, and above all the symmetrical structure of figural counterparts indicate that Reni was particularly interested in a specific problem of composition: that of achieving a balance between centripetal and centrifugal movement while combining them in a static pictorial structure. Reni also seeks to achieve this equilibrium in his expression of effects and in the distribution of color accents.
Guido Reni (4 November 1575 – 18 August 1642) was a prominent Italian painter of high-Baroque style. He was constantly seeking an absolute, rarefied perfection which he measured against classical Antiquity and Raphael. Because of this, over the years the Bolognese painter has been in and out of fashion, depending on the tastes of the times. The eighteenth century loved him, the nineteenth century, persuaded by the violent criticism of John Ruskin, hated him. But even his detractors cannot deny the exceptional technical quality of his work or the clarity of his supremely assured and harmonious brushwork.
After the brutal Japanese prohibition of Christianity in 1614, most images and icons were used only to ferret out Christians hiding among the populace. Officials would make everyone in an area step on a Christian image to prove they were not adherents of the faith. These images were called fumie, and usually depicted Christ, Mary and crosses. In response to this oppression some groups, mainly on the northwest coast of Kyushu and some small coastal islands, maintained the Christian faith in secret until in 1873, when under pressure from Western powers the freedom of worship is restored. These groups who prevailed against state oppression became know as Kakure Kirishitan (hidden Christians).
Images created by Japanese Christians are scant due, in most part, to the relentless persecution they faced. Figures of the saints and the Virgin Mary that were made skillfully exploited the similarities between Catholicism and Buddhism and were transformed into figurines that looked like the traditional statues of the Buddha and Buddhist Bodhisattavas. Prayers were adapted to sound like Buddhist prayers, yet retained many untranslated words from Latin, Portuguese and Spanish. The Bible was passed down orally, due to fears of printed works being confiscated by authorities. Scrolls and artwork not disguised were hidden and passed down through generations in secret Christian families.
The scroll shown here was created anonymously, and shows the Japanese impressions of the Christian teachings, with God the father, Mary and Jesus, and a winged angel to the left. The traditional European imagery is well represented, from the swirling and parting of heavenly clouds to the angels feathered wings.
In modern times, with the economic condition pulling the youth away from remote areas, many of the Kakure Kirishitan groups are thinning or even disbanding. Further, many of the families who used to be Kakure Kirishitan have rejoined the Catholic Church, or given up the faith entirely.
