No comments about Numbers: Their Iconographic Consideration in Buddhist and Hindu Practices.

1 comments about Beyond Belief: Modern Art and the Religious Imagination.

1. Crumlin's Beyond Belief is meant as a catalog for the exhibition. The photographs of the works of art are each of high quality. So it's a beautiful book to see. The different comment which accompany the works are very different. Some are helpful, interesting, others abstract, don't say a thing to me.
   The collection of works is of a wide variety. So don't expect only christian art, of religious art. It's about spirituality. Within it is a good part of religious art anyway.
   It's a book to enjoy!

3 comments about Forgiven.

1. I was blessed when I came across (the last one) "The FORGIVEN Devotional Journal: by Roy Lessin, Artwork by Thomas Blackshear II, in a local Bible store. It included 6 cards with the FORGIVEN Masterpiece on the cover (the full length of the figures) and a set of matching envelopes. If, in viewing this powerful masterpiece, you don't feel the sword of guilt, piercing you very heart and soul, re-affirming your beleif may be in order!!........The full length picture is so moving to me, I have a hard time mailing the cards to friends, but that's what they were made for. Every time I enter my journal and look at the figure of Christ supporting "me", I cry.



2. For committed Christians, we know we must live a disciplined lifestyle to honor God, to walk in His power, to be an effective witness and to prosper. This book goes straight to the heart to convict and bring the child of God to a mindful state of repentance. What else can there be when we know the end from the beginning and have only one direction to travel? The enemy steals an inch at a time. He can be so deceptive it's practically unnoticeable, but it becomes obvious when it has accumulated over time and we taste the destructive force of it. Sit and read this book in a quiet place and let the Holy Spirit minister to you in His still, small voice. Just get honest with yourself and make a decision to return and be seated in heavenly places. You want God's peace to rule in your heart, don't you? I highly recommend this work to any Christian with a desire to have God complete His work in him.



3. Thomas Blackshear's painting, which is the central focus of this book, is famous to most Christians. It's symbolism carries deep resonance to anyone who has embraced the message of Christ. Here, the complete painting and numerous detailed insets are complimented by Roy Lessin's tender and insightful reflections and excerpts from the Bible. Lessin has examined twelve symbolic elements of the painting as keys to understanding the individual path to repentance and forgiveness. As a devotional, this book offers great comfort to those struggling with their own human failings.

No comments about Eureka! Archimedes And The Genesis Code: The Man Davinci Called The Wizard.

2 comments about Matthias Grunewald (Art & Design).

1. Les experts nous disent qu'il nous reste 26 peintures et 37 dessins definitivement faits par Matthias Grunewald. Il y avait aussi le retable d'Isenheim qu'une foule revolutionnaire du 18eme siecle ne laissait pas intact et le panneau d'un autre retable qu'un voleur prenait du musee de Frankfurt au 19eme siecle. Et puis l'artiste lui-meme devenait inconnu jusqu'a sa redecouverte par Heinrich Alfred Schmid et Walter Karl Zulch au 20eme siecle. Quant aux documents historiques d'Aschaffenburg et de Seligenstadt, et a cause des recherches d'Alfred Schadler et Bernhard Saran, lequel etait-il des quatre maitres Mathis de la meme epoque? Qui que ce soit, et l'auteur nous en donne son avis, Grunewald etait pionnier du premier eclipse solaire peint avec realisme en Europe. Lui encore et le coloriste bohemien, le Maitre de Wittingau, etaient pionniers du tempera qui se faisait de juste assez de l'huile, pour peindre des couleurs vives un peu partout dans la peinture, et des subtilites.



2. Possibly 26 paintings and 37 drawings by MATTHIAS GRUNEWALD made safe passage. Others didn't. In 1789 revolutionary mobs went after his late Gothic Isenheim altarpiece. An altarpiece panel went missing from a Frankfurt museum 36 years after.

   Grunewald became unknown in art history. But he came back, thanks to Heinrich Alfred Schmid in 1911 and Walter Karl Zulch in 1938. In fact, records in Aschaffenburg and Seligenstadt, plus studies by Alfred Schadler and Bernhard Saran, have left us with 4 Masters Mathis to choose from!

   So was the artist Master Mathis, carver in Seligenstadt? Or was he Master Mathis of Aschaffenburg, also hydraulic engineer of the Klopp castle artesian well in Bingen? Or was he Master Mathis of Grun, carver, painter or sculptor in Frankfurt? Or was he Master Mathis, architectural painter and gilder in Aschaffenburg?

   Even with the author's answer, we've no record of Grunewald's journeymanship, apprenticeship, or pre-mastership. How did Grunewald paint the first European realistic total solar eclipse, in the Mainz small crucifixion? The only eclipse during his lifetime was on October 1, 1502. It was seen only in the Brandenburg marches, Lusatia, Mecklenburg, Silesia and southern Poland.

   And how did he come up with his tempera medium? It used little oil, for boldly spreading colors and subtle changes. That was only done by the colorist Master of Wittingau, Bohemia.

   Finally, his art had Bohemian, French, Italian and Netherlandish touches. Did the lack of colored center and the modulated local color in The mocking of Christ mean that he studied with Hans Holbein the Elder, the great colorist of Augsburg? Why was Judas standing alone, Leonardo da Vinci-style, in The last supper?

   Why was the Isenheim Calvary painted, da Vinci-like, in brightest light? Why did Christ turn out his palms, Raphael- and Verrocchio-like, to show his wounds in the Isenheim Resurrection? Where did the Isenheim central panel get the angel concert from? They were painted in France, as of Jean Pucelle's Book of hours. The roofless golden temple was like Melchior Broederlam's Dijon altarpiece and the Breisach minster roodscreen in Alsace. Why were there Hieronymus Bosch-like light rays from God in the Isenheim Incarnation?

   Horst Ziermann's book perfectly preps Ruth Mellinkoff's THE DEVIL AT ISENHEIM and Gottfried Richter's THE ISENHEIM ALTAR.

3 comments about God's Human Face: The Christ Icon.

1. Schonborn does a masterful job in presenting the Trinitarian and Christological foundations of iconography. Actually, I use this book mostly for the Christological sections. It is VERY well done! All the major and minor aspects of Christology are examined and continually related to the role and meaning of the Incarnation and, thus, the meaning and role of icons. A few well chosen color icons are in the book.

   This work is highly recommended. I wish I could buy it for you!




2. 
   "Incarnation of God the Word, as a realization of the perfect man." As such his disclosure to us reveals who God is and who we are as perfected in God. (cited in Ouspensky 483)
   
   
   Christ, God's supreme icon:
   St. Irenaeus wrote, "When the Word of God became flesh, He showed forth the image truly, since He himself became what was His image; and He reestablished the likeness -- by rendering man altogether similar to the invisible Father." Christ is the supreme icon of God and the supreme icon of humanity divinized.
   When we think of icons, it is almost, by default, that we think instantly of 'written' images of Jesus and the saints. Developing the New Testament implication of the image of God in Christ, Leonid Ouspensky, Orthodox theologian and icon expert wrote, "Christianity raises the image of Christ before the world. Christianity shows the prototype according to which man was created, now hidden because of his sin. This image lives in Tradition, the mystical memory of the Church, its inner life."
   
   Christ, true image of God:
   Eastern Orthodox and Greek Byzantines refer to icons as being 'written' rather than painted, since icons are treated as theological texts, a graphical depiction of scripture. Only Christ is the true image of God. Christ is the prototypical icon: Whoever experience Christ does enter mystically into the Father's presence, in fullness. The icon's place in the church liturgical life is derived from the living personal existence, in whom the unity of the nature of God with sanctified human beings is vividly clear. Through Christ and in Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, human beings are called to something more. Humans are called and allowed to be images of Christ.
   
   Creative Iconographic theology:
   Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn discerns the depth of the truth of Cyril's teaching on the unity of Christ, masterfully exposing Origen's Iconclastic Christology, and compares two of his students St. Athanasius and Arius place of image in their systematic theology of the Person of the Word. Eusebius' view, midway between the Orthodox and neoplatonist, expressed a third way of interpreting their common master Origen. The enlightened Cardinal presents the most fascinating expression in the real great Eastern Orthodox, Maximus the confessor, Love as the Icon of God. Part II, the Church sliding into paganism would appeal to Protestants, but is relevant to all of us.
   
   Thanks, your Eminence:
   I am amazed and humbled by those authentic Orthodox Catholics who know our fathers, doctors (teachers) of the Church, in such depth and loving understanding that preaches the real unity of the One Holy Universal Apostolic Church. This authentic teacher who wrote "From Death to Life, The Christian Journey," and further, "Living the Catechism: life in Christ," wrote the most compelling, in depth thorough study on the roots of iconography, and a reflection on its supporting Christologies.
   I encountered no other book on the subject which ever explained, so deeply the true meaning of God's Human Face. So, read, learn, and meditate on anthropological theology, Christology, and Patrology, all flowing in order,logic and harmony.



3. Schonborn does a masterful job in presenting the Trinitarian and Christological foundations of iconography. Actually, I use this book mostly for the Christological sections. It is VERY well done! All the major and minor aspects of Christology are examined and continually related to the role and meaning of the Incarnation and, thus, the meaning and role of icons. A few well chosen color icons are in the book.

   This work is highly recommended. I wish I could buy it for you!

No comments about Virtue and Vice: The Personifications in the Index of Christian Art.

No comments about Paris/Manhattan: Writings on Art.

No comments about Spirit and Art: Pictures of the Transformation of Consciousness.

5 comments about Searching for Mary Magdalene: A Journey Through Art and Literature.

1. Lahr's book is a real treat. Not only are there dozens of full page reproductions of some of the most famous art works containing images of Mary Magdalene, the text itself is well written and, for the most part, historically correct. Then there are the occasional gems - an 11th century mosaic portraying Mary and the angel more like aliens. Moreover, Lahr offers large selections of text from just about every major document dealing with Mary Magdalene, from the 1st century through the 20th century.
   
   One criticism of this extremely valuable book is that a lot of the artistic analysis seems to be based on Lahr's own impressions, rather than giving us the painter's perspective. While Lahr's opinion is obviously of interest, I'd also like to know what the artists' intentions were.
   
   Another shortcoming is that there are many paintings of Magdalene that are not covered (I'm thinking, for example, of Rosetti's 1877 stunning portrait of the curly haired woman, or Da Vinci's sketches, or his very sexual Mary with breasts exposed). Instead, she has many paintings that do not include Mary, but focus instead on Jesus or the disciples. While this makes for a well rounded book, the title suggests that we'll focus on Mary.
   
   Another problem is that Lahr sometimes gives us a painting with no explanation, and often it's difficult to understand what's going on and to distinguish Mary Magdalene from the other characters. This problem happens, for example, in Ruben's "Resurrection of Lazarus."
   
   None of these minor criticisms should stop any serious student of Mary Magdalene from buying this book. It is a one-of-a-kind and very well done.



2. Mary Magdalene rules! I had no idea she is told in so many different stories-not only in the canonical gospels, the apocrypha, but also in poetry, stories, and songs. You don't need to look to the traditional bible to find her-she is everywhere. And these writers and poets knew this; all these years, all these centuries, they all knew. Her story is told everywhere. The church tried to suppress her and keep her hidden-in your dreams, jerks! The Magdalene was never quiet, nor will she ever keep quiet. Long may the Magdalene reign!



3. In accepting Jane Lahr's invitation to time travel through centuries of artists and writers whose attention to Mary Magdalene illuminates profound truths, this is a transforming read, a moment in which to reflect on beauty and truth and really what it is that we do need to know in life. Exquisitely rendered by Lahr's finely tuned sensibility and scholarship, this book is a blessing and a great gift.



4. A beautifully illustrated work of original scholarship, Searching For Mary Magdalene: A Journey Through Art And Literature by author and editor Jane Lahr is an in-depth and comprehensive detailing of the modern and historical history of the enigmatic Mary Magdalene as reflected through the literature and art of the last two millennia. Introducing readers to a collective survey study drawn from historical writers, philosophers, artists, and scholars, Searching For Mary Magdalene accessibly presents a concise and intricate descriptive analysis of Magdalene based upon the many known resources. Searching For Mary Magdalene is very highly recommended to non-specialist general readers with an interest in a life and history of Mary Magdalene.



5. A beautifully illustrated work of original scholarship, Searching For Mary Magdalene: A Journey Through Art And Literature by author and editor Jane Lahr is an in-depth and comprehensive detailing of the modern and historical history of the enigmatic Mary Magdalene as reflected through the literature and art of the last two millennia. Introducing readers to a collective survey study drawn from historical writers, philosophers, artists, and scholars, Searching For Mary Magdalene accessibly presents a concise and intricate descriptive analysis of Magdalene based upon the many known resources. Searching For Mary Magdalene is very highly recommended to non-specialist general readers with an interest in a life and history of Mary Magdalene.