The Lamentation

Lubin Baugin (c. 1612 – 1663)

Déploration du Christ 

Lamentation over Christ

Oil on canvas

130 × 103 cm

Musée du Louvre, Paris

Baugin was appointed Maître Peintre in the Guild of Saint-Germain-des-Près in 1629, but from 1636 onward he spent many years in Italy. 

He painted religious works and has earned the nickname "Le Petit Guide" (Little Guido) because he was strongly influenced by Guido Reni. 

His reputation has recovered during the 20th century after being unjustly forgotten and undervalued

In this work, the painter emphasises the relationship and status of both Christ and his mother Mary

This was the point emphasised by Pope Francis in his homily at Castel Gandolfo on 15th August 2013, the Feast of the Assumption:

"[T]he mystery of Mary’s Assumption body and soul is fully inscribed in the resurrection of Christ.  

The Mother’s humanity is “attracted” by the Son in his own passage from death to life. Once and for all, Jesus entered into eternal life with all the humanity he had drawn from Mary; and she, the Mother, who followed him faithfully throughout her life, followed him with her heart, and entered with him into eternal life which we also call heaven, paradise, the Father’s house. 

Mary also experienced the martyrdom of the Cross: the martyrdom of her heart, the martyrdom of her soul.  

She lived her Son’s Passion to the depths of her soul. She was fully united to him in his death, and so she was given the gift of resurrection.  

Christ is the first fruits from the dead and Mary is the first of the redeemed, the first of “those who are in Christ”. 

She is our Mother, but we can also say that she is our representative, our sister, our eldest sister, she is the first of the redeemed, who has arrived in heaven."

Crespi and Penance

Giuseppe Maria Crespi 1665 - 1747

Saint John of Nepomuk confesses the Queen of Bohemia

c. 1735

Oil on canvas

185 x 150 cm

Galleria Sabauda, Turin

According to tradition the saint was martyred in 1383 when he refused to reveal to King Wenceslas IV what the Queen of Bohemia had confessed in the Sacrament of Penance

The painting would have been commissioned about the time that the Saint was canonised in 1729

It can be compared to another work by Crespi on the Sacrament which was one of a series of seven depicting the Seven Sacraments

Giuseppe Maria Crespi 1665 - 1747

Confession

1712

Oil on canvas

127 x 95 cm

Gemäldegalerie, Dresden

In 1739, while Crespi was still alive, the Bolognese Gianpietro Zanotti gave a thorough account of the origin of the series of the paintings: 

'One day Crespi saw a man in the confessional at San Benedetto's confessing his sins to the priest. A ray of sunlight fell on the man's head and shoulders, and was reflected inside the small chamber to produce the most beautiful contrast between light and dark that can be imagined. 

He [Crespi] studied it very carefully and, as soon as he was back home, did a small drawing of the scene. 

Then he sent two porters to fetch him a confessional, which he promptly installed in his room with staged lighting. He introduced Ludovico Mattioli, who chanced to be there, into the scene of the confession, and painted him so well that everyone recognised him, as they did the priest, who was the same person who had lent him the confessional.' 

Zanotti further recounts that Crespi made a gift of the painting to Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni in Rome, who was highly delighted and commissioned the remaining six paintings.

Pope Francis said of the Sacrament:

"[T]he protagonist of the ministry of Reconciliation is the Holy Spirit. 

The forgiveness which the Sacrament confers is the new life transmitted by the Risen Lord by means of his Spirit: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (Jn 20:22-23). 

Therefore, you are called always to be “men of the Holy Spirit”, joyous and strong witnesses and proclaimers of the Lord’s Resurrection. 

This witness is seen on the face, is heard in the voice of the priest who administers the Sacrament of Reconciliation with faith and “anointing”. 

He receives penitents not with the attitude of a judge, nor with that of a simple friend, but with the charity of God, with the love of a father who sees his son returning and goes out to meet him, of the shepherd who has found his lost sheep. 

The heart of a priest is a heart capable of being moved by compassion, not through sentimentalism or mere emotion, but through the “bowels of mercy” of the Lord! 

If it is true that Tradition points us to the dual role of physician and judge for confessors, let us never forget how the physician is called to heal and how the judge is called to absolve."

Backbiters and Gossips

Dario Cerdoni (called  Dario da Treviso or Dario da Pordenone) (active 1440/ 1498)

San Bernardino da Siena / St Bernardine of Siena

c 1445

Tempera on panel

21,2 cm x 29,5 cm

Accademia Carrara, Bergamo, Italy

This was not the first image (or last) of St Bernardino of Siena painted by the bizarre and restless artist known to history as Darius from Pordenone, Darius from Treviso, or even Darius from Udine

He did not seem to stay in one place for long

But he remained in the Veneto Region

His most important work was a work which was destroyed and no longer exists:  the Madonna della Misericordia between St. John the Baptist and Saint Bernardine. made in 1450 for the Church of San Bernardino in Bassano

The pictor vagabundus may have felt an affinity with his Franciscan subject who traversed the length and breadth of Italy in the early 15th century and became known as "The Apostle of Italy"

Other images of the Saint by Darius include those now at the Museo Antoniano  in Padova, the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in  Milan and the County Museum of Art in Los Angeles 

Dario Cerdoni (called  Dario da Treviso  or Dario da Pordenone) (active 1440/ 1498)

San Bernardino da Siena / St Bernardine of Siena

c 1470

Tempera on panel

178.435 x 71.12 cm

County Museum of Art, Los Angeles 

The saint`s sermons inspired hundreds of thousands probably millions for generations

Today some of his themes (but only a few) are extremely controversial and no longer accepted: his tirades against gambling, usury, homosexuality

And it also has to be said he is not photogenic

He is always depicted as rather grim, definitely ascetic except perhaps those of Spanish painters like El Greco and Goya

The three bishops` mitres represent the three appointments to various important Sees in Italy which he rejected and turned down

But he was canonised scarcely six years after his death. He beat Pope Saint John Paul II to the altars

Yet his sermons are still worth reading with discretion for many of  his topics have a surprising topicality

From the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis has strongly criticised gossip and backbiting

At his General Audience on 19th June 2013 he said:

"Unity is superior to conflict, always! Conflicts, ifnot properly resolved, divide us from each other,separate us from God. Conflict can help us to grow,but it can also divide us. Let us not go down the pathof division, of fighting among ourselves! All united, allunited in our differences, but united, always: this is theway of Jesus.  

Unity is superior to conflict. Unity is agrace for which we must ask the Lord that he mayliberate us from the temptation of division, of conflict between us, of selfishness, of gossip. How much evilgossip does, how much evil! Never gossip about others, never! "

Gossipers and backbiters were also a favourite target for St Bernardino of Siena. 

However his polemic and invective go far beyond what Pope Francis might feel is decorous. Here is an example from one of the Saint`s sermons. The language in the translation is rather antique and perhaps we could do with a fresh translation:

"Qfttimes the backbiter goeth about with a show kmdness and speaketh evil of others.  

He walketh under the shadow of a fair manner, seeming possessed of charity, and malice lurketh beneath.  

Knowest thou what he doth resemble? He is like to a canker, and outwardly he is glossed over, and such men as these when they wish to hide their malice do after this fashion ; ere they speak of a thing they send before an ambassador. And knowest thou who this ambassador is ? They send forth a sigh,  

What aileth thee, eh? What is it?  I have a great melancholy upon me ! Arid then he will begin and will say: Brother, what I am about to say, I will say for a good purpose, God knoweth it (and he giveth him the sure token ), in faith I wish to tell it thee. Such an one hath done such and such a thing'.  

It seems to me that such another is doing a certain wrong, in my opinion. He doeth this or that, and to me it doth appear that he hath the wish to do thus and thus. And he will say very many things, and in all these he will lie in his throat.  

This evil tongue that doth in this way is like to the scorpion, which doth perform three things, and all maliciously. First, it licketh with its tongue ; second, it encircleth with its claws, third, with its tail it doth twist it, and lift it into the air, and then it doth bite. In this samemanner doth the backbiter do ... 

If thou seest that another doth evil, correct him ^o that which not with a slandering tongue, but with a kind manner, as  the Church hath taught thee. There are very many who see no other evil than that which their neighbour doth perform. 

Art thou here, thou who seest no wrongdoing but that of others ? Pay heed to that which the Gospel saith when it telleth thee that thou seest the mote in the eye of thy neighbour and seest not the beam in thine own.  

And therefore I say to these, see to it that thou dost correct thine own defect, and so thou wilt do better than if thou dost correct others while thou thyself remainest in sin. women, to what are ye bound ? Know ye .what ? Both that ye shall perform good and that ye shall give good example"

The Woman of Silence

Annibale Carracci (1560-1609) 

The Madonna and Sleeping Child with the Infant St John the Baptist ('Il Silenzio')

1599-1600

Oil on canvas

51.2 x 68.4 cm

The Royal Collection, London

Mary enjoins silence from an Infant John the Baptist as the child Jesus sleeps

The atmosphere is subdued and the characters seem to come out of the shadows in the background

The seemingly simple scene prefigures the Passion.

Christ rests lying on a table, a kind of altar. In face he rests on a white sheet, remiiniscent of a shroud. Mary holds the lifeless child as she will do later in a Pietà 

Cherries, the fruits of Paradise, and symbols of Heaven, lie near the grasp of the sleeping child

The centrepiece of the composition is the gesture of the Virgin putting to silence

Pope Benedict XVI once spoke of the importance of silence and Mary as the woman of silence

He said:

"Inward and outward silence are necessary if we are to be able to hear this word [of God]. 

And in our time this point is particularly difficult for us. In fact, ours is an era that does not encourage recollection; indeed, one sometimes gets the impression that people are frightened of being cut off, even for an instant, from the torrent of words and images that mark and fill the day. 

It was for this reason that in the above mentioned Exhortation Verbum Domini I recalled our need to learn the value of silence: 

“Rediscovering the centrality of God’s word in the life of the Church also means rediscovering a sense of recollection and inner repose. The great patristic tradition teaches us that the mysteries of Christ all involve silence. Only in silence can the word of God find a home in us, as it did in Mary, woman of the word and, inseparably, woman of silence” (n. 66). 

This principle — that without silence one does not hear, does not listen, does not receive a word — applies especially to personal prayer as well as to our liturgies: to facilitate authentic listening, they must also be rich in moments of silence and of non-verbal reception."

Silence is also a favourite theme in the teaching of Pope Francis

In a talk to young pilgrims from Lithuania, he said:

"Another good way to grow in friendship with Christ is by listening to his word. The Lord speaks to us in the depths of our conscience, he speaks to us through Sacred Scripture, he speaks to us in prayer. Learn to stay before him in silence. to read and meditate on the Bible, especially the Gospels, to converse with him every day in order to feel his presence of friendship and love."

A witty Anglican clergyman once compared the Church to a swimming pool. He said that the most noise and shouting was at the shallow end. 

Happy Christmas and New Year

Louis Cretey (1630/1635 or 1637-after 1702)

The Nativity

Oil on canvas 

58.1 x 74.9 cm

Institute of Art, Detroit

Louis Cretey has been described as   one of the best seventeenth century French artists "within the Lyonnaise school at a time when artists excelled. Above all, he is one of the most original, a veritable creator of forms, a skill not within everyone’s reach."

A mysterious figure, neither classical nor academic. He is sui generis. And poorly understood

Above we see him tackling the  joyful mystery of the Nativity of Christ, the greatest event in the history of mankind but also one of the strangest and most remarkable

In a recent audience Pope Francis said that Christmas  is a “feast of confidence and hope, that overcomes uncertainty and pessimism.” The reason for our hope, he said, is this: “God is with us, and God still trusts us.”

“God has willed to share our human condition to the point of making himself one of us in the Person of Jesus, who is true man and true God"

May you all have a holy and happy Christmas and New Year

In Vesica

Eric Gill (1882‑1940)

Madonna and  Child in Vesica

1918

Wood engraving on paper

105 x 44 mm

Tate Britain, London

The vesica piscis or almond (mandorla) is a symbol of ogival shape which appears when  two circles of the same radius, intersect in such a way that the centre of each circle lies on the circumference of the other. 

It has two meanings in Christian iconography

First by referring to the  fruit of the almond, and the seed in general, it is a symbol of Life 

Second, as the intersection of two circles it represents the intersection of  two worlds, the human and the divine. It is therefore only meet that  Jesus the Divine Word made man, is shown as the  mediator between the two realities

Unfortunately the cultists, the phony mystics and the New Ageists have attempted to hijack the symbolism

The similarity of the shape to "icthus", a fish is not perhaps without coincidence

As well as in religious painting the shape is also seem in architecture: for example, in a Gothic tympanum of a doorway.

Here we see the shape to full effect in a tenth century illustrated manuscript in The British Library in London:

Christ Enthroned Among the Choirs of Heaven

From The Aethelstan Psalter

924

Ink and pigments on vellum

F.21r, Cotton MS Galba A XVIII

The British Library, London

Here we see   Christ seated on the heavenly Jerusalem and holding a cross, with the wound in his side and the Alpha and Omega at his shoulders. 

He is borne in a mandorla, the pointed shape which indicates a 'view into heaven' and often implies vision of the Second Coming. 

The ranks of the choirs of martyrs, confessors, and virgins, identified by labels, surround him

The almond is the first flower of spring and Pope Francis has on a number of occasions spoken of the image of the almond blossom.

On the Vigil of Pentecost 2013 he said:

"This experience of faith is important. We say we must seek God, go to him and ask forgiveness, but when we go, he is waiting for us, he is there first!  

In Spanish we have a word that explains this well: primerear — the Lord always gets there before us, he gets there first, he is waiting for us! To find someone waiting for you is truly a great grace. You go to him as a sinner, but he is waiting to forgive you.  

This is the experience that the Prophets of Israel describe, comparing the Lord to almond blossom, the first flower of spring (cf. Jer 1:11-12). Before any other flowers appear, he is there, waiting.  

The Lord is waiting for us. Moreover, when we seek him, we discover that he is waiting to welcome us, to offer us his love. And this fills your heart with such wonder that you can hardly believe it, and this is how your faith grows — through encounter with a Person, through encounter with the Lord.  

Some people will say, “No, I prefer to read about faith in books!” It is important to read about faith, but look, on its own this is not enough! What is important is our encounter with Jesus, our encounter with him, and this is what gives you faith because he is the one who gives it to you!"