“Embrace your authenticity. Be the person God meant for you to be with all your quirkiness and eccentricities.” Beauty vs Authenticity In his book “Blink,” Malcom Gladwell recounts the story of the “Getty Kouros.” In 1984 the J.Paul Getty museum unveiled its latest acquisition, a two thousand year old marbleContinue Reading
“As Catholics, we receive tradition, but we grow, and develop, and build upon it.” Lessons Learned How do we revive the Gothic form as a living artistic tradition? What should we do? What should we avoid? We can learn some lessons from the revival of the Iconographic form. The revivalContinue Reading
“The Lord invites us to use our gifts and talents worthily and He will sustain our efforts by His grace.” Napoleon’s Mercy Napoleon Bonaparte is often portrayed as a violent man, a dictator alongside the likes of Hitler and Mussolini. But those who knew him, knew him to be aContinue Reading
“Sacred art is not about depicting peoples and events as they actually looked” Naturalism vs Abstraction The underlying foundation of the Gothic form is the Iconographic. That is, the Gothic form builds on the Iconographic. The artists of the Medieval period worked in a visual language that was partly receivedContinue Reading
“Saint Lazarus the Painter believed that we do not live for the here and now, we live for the future. We are not content with what is, but struggle to achieve what should be and what will be.” Saint Lazarus the Painter Saint Lazarus the Painter was born in ArmeniaContinue Reading
“While we may no longer be an illiterate society, we are quickly becoming an aliterate one.” Teacher and Storyteller Artists can take on many roles. In the Middle Ages, artists working in the Gothic form often took on the roles of teachers and storytellers. There is perhaps no better exampleContinue Reading
“When we are tempted, the best course of action is often to stand up to it, recognize it for what it is, and stare it down.” Temptation How do we face temptation in our lives? From the Denver Post: “Like many sheep ranchers in the West, Lexy Fowler has triedContinue Reading
“If the Iconographic shows man in Heaven, the Gothic shows man here on earth, still struggling, still on the pilgrim path that leads to Heaven.” The Iconographic vs The Gothic The Gothic form is sometimes regarded as a degradation of the Iconographic, a slippery slope that ends in aContinue Reading
“It is a common mistake among artists … to feel that their work must be explicit in spreading and teaching the faith.” Oskar Schindler Following the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, property and businesses belonging to the Jewish population were seized by the regime. One of these factories, specializingContinue Reading
“For the Gothic artist the clarity of the image, the truth that was depicted, was more important than an illusion of reality” Buildings in the Gothic Form The artist of the Gothic period strove for simplicity and clarity. They would often sacrifice realism in order to create a work thatContinue Reading