“The border around sacred art … alerts us that we are crossing over into something special, something sacred.” Following the example of the Iconographic, if we want to revive Gothic as a living tradition we need to start offering some rules or conventions to guide artists who wish to workContinue 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
“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
“To be sacred or holy, means to be set apart. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that we remove ourselves from the world.” The Desert Fathers were hermits that withdrew from the world to focus on the contemplation of God and deny themselves every worldly comfort. One day, one of theseContinue Reading
“The Truth behind the legend of Saint George and the Dragon is that Good will triumph over Evil.” The Man, Saint, and Martyr The early gothic art form of the 12th-14th centuries, from which I draw much of my inspiration, borrowed many elements from the iconographic form that preceded it.Continue Reading
“the crucifixion and the resurrection go together, they cannot be separated,” From the Rheinau Psalter, circa A.D. 1260 Just a few days earlier it appeared that all was lost. Jesus, whom the twelve had followed for the last three years, is arrested, condemned, and put to death in the mostContinue Reading
From the Rheinau Psalter, circa A.D. 1260 In his book “The Spirit of the Liturgy,” Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, touches upon the difference between the Iconographic art form and the Gothicart form. “The depiction(in the Gothic) is no longer of the Pantocrator, the Lord of all, leading us intoContinue Reading
“Go to Joseph” There is a story that explains why Saint Joseph is often depicted with a flowering staff. According to tradition, The Virgin Mary was consecrated to the Temple. She lived within the Temple complex and was by the men and women who also lived there, filling their variousContinue Reading
Reclaiming the Gothic Over at “The Way of Beauty” David Clayton has written often about the importance of re-establishing the Gothic Style as a living tradition. He describes one such model from the Rheinau Psalter here. Along with the Iconographic and the Baroque, the Gothic form is identified by Pope BenedictContinue Reading
“One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.” -St. Joan of Arc Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans. I wanted to depictContinue Reading