Contemplative Vision: A Guide to Christian Art and Prayer

By Juliet Benner, ivpress.com, 181 pages.

According to Benner, we can develop in contemplative prayer through our practice of enjoying artwork. Contemplation is the prayerful attentiveness to God that leads to ever-deepening conversion. Christian mystics have taught the Church this way of prayer throughout the centuries.

Benner's book fills a void, as we seem to have forgotten the central place art has played in Christianity's history. Western art's vocation was primarily to educate the faithful. Contemplative Vision shows just how much spiritual teaching Western art contains. Such paintings as Caravaggio's The Call of St. Matthew can play a similar role as icons.

Some artists such as Jean Francois Millet saw their painting as a vocation to inspire belief in others. His The Angelus depicting poor French peasants praying in their potato field with a church in the far distance invites onlookers to the childlike simple faith of these two.

Readers get a clear sense of how these paintings testified to the artist's personal religious practice: "Millet himself observed how his own father never failed to respond to the bells, stopping his work wherever he was, to pray the Angelus every day, 'piously cap in hand.'"

Benner explains the meaning of the art from a Christian viewpoint, which is how such works should be presented, rather than solely through a secular, technique-obsessed stance. Regarding The Angelus, she notes the "moment of deep and quiet reverence," which unites the praying husband and wife "in a holy alliance where God is present."

Such prayerful observation of a painting, discussed throughout Contemplative Vision, invites us to something akin to lectio divina, or "sacred reading." In this Benedictine-style of perusal, we are to go over a small passage slowly and prayerfully, learning the spiritual truth behind it rather than grasping for intellectual insight. We are to use our imagination prayerfully, as in placing ourselves into a healing scene from the New Testament.

Benner challenges us to use our imagination when we look at these paintings. She shows how artists such as Caravaggio used light and darkness to emphasize the light and dark aspects of the world or the good and sinful parts of the human soul. Where Jesus stood and called someone to follow him, we see a bright yet mysterious light, beckoning the receiver out of the dark cave of sin. The other people in the painting are ugly or engrossed in the matters of the world, as with Caravaggio's The Call of St. Matthew.

Benner also shows through her analysis of this painting the timeless, personal quality of such artwork: "That hand [of Jesus depicted in the painting] seemed to be pointing at me and inviting me to turn and follow Jesus."

These paintings can give modern Christians new insights into biblical stories heard a thousand times. We often turn off and stop hearing their real spiritual depth and insight. A painting can reawaken us. Such artwork is as valuable as the writings of the saints and theologians of the Church.

Dürer

By Norbert Wolf, 96 pages large size, Taschen.

In this excellent art book, Wolf discusses the life and work of perhaps the greatest German artist, Albrecht Dürer, a multi-talented artist whose woodcarvings, paintings, and even sculptures reached as far as Italy. There, he has been considered a master of the Renaissance, as Wolf shows.

The author gives readers a solid introduction to the artistic world of late medieval Europe in which Dürer lived. This background played an important role in the German's development as an artist, as through his travels to Italy, France, and Germany he came into contact with the great artists and artistic movements of the day.

Dürer, like other artists, was deeply influenced both by the Church and by the Renaissance. His work follows the familiar motifs of the time, including innumerable paintings of the Virgin with Child, and images from the Bible such as Christ Among the Doctors, which portrays a young Jesus with long hair arguing with aggressive, old men surrounded by innumerable books. His young, innocent face contrasts with their demeanor.

Many of the artist's paintings were portraits of members of the local leading German families. Wolf introduces Dürer's city, Nuremberg, to the reader, as the leading German city of the time, especially culturally. Dürer's father had moved there from Hungary to work as a goldsmith, later briefly apprenticing his son, the future artist.

These portraits are among his most famous works. Portrait of a Young Man depicts a young, wealthy mover-and-shaker of Nuremberg dressed in a fashionable hat, fur-lined jacket, and expensive white shirt. The man's piercing eyes seem alive, enhanced by the realistic features of the man's face, including eyebrows, whispy moustache, and uneven facial skin. Unafraid to portray the aging, diseased, or dying, the reverse of the painting portrays "a repulsive hag," according to the author.

Dürer moved among the leading patricians of the city, and worked on projects for the municipality itself. He painted the emperor Maximillian, as well as a woodcut for the emperor from 1515, the largest woodcut ever, according to Wolf, depicting Maximillian's family tree. The woodcut, reflecting the artistic precision the painter learned as a goldsmith apprentice, was actually carried out by a team of artists under the master's direction.

Wolf explains well the meaning behind many artworks, such as perhaps Dürer's most famous, Rider, which, depicting a medieval knight on his horse, has inspired countless people:

"The protagonist of the picture, his visor raised, is looking down the path ahead. His profile is sharply drawn, his face darkly energetic. He seems heedless either of the skeletal figure of Death right beside him, holding out an hourglass containing the trickling sands of time, or of the Devil approaching from the rear. The fantastical scene is set in a ravine between rocky cliffs."

Nuremberg adopted the Lutheran reforms but never lost sense of its artistic heritage. Luther himself never opposed religious art as strenuously as the Calvinist reformers, so Dürer was allowed to continue his work, as he also supported the reformation.

Durer, in fact, was a true Christian humanist: "In the spirit of the Renaissance, he believed that the beauty of the gods of classical antiquity should set the supreme standard in art, even where the subjects portrayed were Christian."

The Abacus and the Cross: The Story of the Pope Who Brought the Light of Science to the Dark Ages

By Nancy Marie Brown, Basic Books, 310 pages.

The Dark Ages, including Gerbert of Aurillac's ninth century, were far from the intellectual backwater later scribes have attributed to them. Experimental science flourished, as churchmen sought the truth in astronomy, mathematics, and physics as much as they did from philosophy and the Bible.

Science was, the author shows, an extension of the search for God. Superstition as early as the tenth century was being chased away, as scholars sought to systematize knowledge and education. The cathedral schools at Chartres and Reims, where men were trained for the priesthood, were the leading places of intellectual discovery.

Brown takes readers on an interesting journey, writing biographical vignettes for the many leaders of Europe, religious and royal, who interacted with Gerbert. French Kings Lothar, Louis V, and Hugh Capet; German Emperors Otto II and III, various popes, and scholars such as Abbo of Fleury and Adalbero of Reims come to life.

Brown shows the genius of Gerbert, who as a young Benedictine traveled to Spain to study the latest science coming out of India and the Arab world. He learned how to use and make the astrolabe for measuring time and studying the night sky. He also created the best abacus of the day, and crafted or spread other mathematical advances important even to our own age.

The main argument of The Abacus and the Cross is that the Dark Ages were not dark, and that people were not as superstitious as we think. Open-minded, they eagerly sought new knowledge. The cultural and intellectual cross-fertilization of the Arabic, Visigothic Christian, and Jewish cultures in Spain of this period played an integral role in the development of modern science.

People did not believe that the earth was flat, or that everything could be explained by demons or the will of God. Surprisingly modern in their basic assumptions, they carried some of the Greek tradition of science and learning, even if the main writings had been temporarily lost.

Gerbert as a teacher and church leader in Reims and throughout Europe, including as a royal tutor, played an essential role in spreading the new or renewed science. He corresponded with emperors, popes, and other intellectuals, thereby keeping abreast of the latest intellectual developments.

This correspondence and his unlimited energy and learning helped get him involved in the highest levels of European politics, as Brown notes: "A knowledge of astrology would explain why Gerbert was so welcomed by the pope and the emperor, when he came to Rome from Spain in 970, as a master of mathesis."

Gerbert proved himself useful to rulers time and time again, as he helped design war machines and aided in correspondence and diplomacy. He hit it off so well with young emperor Otto III, the last great hope of a united Christian empire, that Otto unexpectedly made him Pope Sylvester in 999.

Otto died in 1002 and Sylvester in 1003, thus ending the dreams for what Brown, perhaps exaggerating a little, calls a great time of openness compared to the eleventh-century's more zealous, crusading form of religion. The Abacus and the Cross introduces readers not only to Gerbert, but to the entire age.

Art of Renaissance Florence, 1400-1600

By Loren Partridge, University of Californian Press.

Art of Renaissance Florence shows how the Italian High Renaissance was classical, moneyed, courtly, and above all Christian, even if the author does not fully appreciate the last quality. He does nevertheless discuss the theology behind many of the paintings, such as “Shaw Madonna” by Donatello:

"[B]y seating her triumphantly in heaven on a throne of clouds within a circular arrangement of haloed angelic heads and representing her in shallow, almost ethereal relief, Donatello also evoked her spiritual perfection and her role of mediator between earth and heaven."

While the discussion for much of the book follows this theological reading, sometimes Partridge's secularist biases lead him to incorrect assumptions, such as calling Carmelite spirituality "Carmelite ideology," reflecting our period's own concern with political power before all else.

Authors such as Partridge fail to understand the elegant spirituality of late medieval and Renaissance Europe even though they appreciate the elegant culture that the spirituality created.

Partridge does have a great understanding of the political and social forces behind the Renaissance, and how this affected the artists of the day. He shows how art played an important role in the politics of Florence during a time when Italy was seriously divided and at almost constant low-level civil war.

City-states such as Florence would commemorate a victory over another state with art, to be prominently displayed in a public office where all could see. Defeat was also portrayed, as in Michelangelo's “Battle of Cascina,” where the Florentines were caught literally with their pants down by the Pisans, as the soldiers were bathing when Pisa's military came by.

Michelangelo couldn't resist, as Partridge notes: "The scene provided an ideal opportunity for Michelangelo to demonstrate his superb command of classicizing nude male anatomy in the most widely varied postures imaginable."

When power changed hands, as with the rise of the Medici family, these new players would have great palaces constructed. These buildings would showcase the city's art, both in sculpture and paintings, as well as in the architecture itself. Above all, they demonstrated who the mighty were.

Partridge explains this political function of art in Renaissance Florence quite well. This is a key to understanding the great artistic energy of the time. Italy was a vibrant though chaotic place, and this led to a unique dynamism in the arts.

Art of Renaissance Florence also explains the "conflation" between classical pagan and late medieval Christian motifs. Both Donatello and Michelangelo, in their respective Davids, combined ancient ideas of Hercules with the biblical David, whom Christians saw as a precursor to Christ.

With Michelangelo's David, Partridge portrays the politics at work: It relocation "from the cathedral to the Prior's Palace altered the work's meaning... From prophet, Christ-type, and savior most appropriate for its original ecclesiastical context, the emphasis shifted in its new secular setting to slayer of tyrants, embodiment of civic strength and justice, and defender of the Florentine republic."

Despite the author's sometimes short-sighted theology, the beautiful pictures and otherwise learned discussion reflect the dynamism of the Renaissance, which harmonized classical culture with late medieval Christian society.

The Road to Siena: The Essential Biography of St. Catherine

By Edmund G. Gardner, 205 pages, Paraclete Press.

"In [Pope] Clement VI, the corruption of this era of the papacy was personified. Learned, eloquent, and magnanimous, his private life was scandalous. The luxury and prodigality of his court was so extreme that he would have taxed all Christendom if he had been able to," writes Gardner in his often spell-binding journey through the life of Catherine of Siena and the disastrous fourteenth century during which she lived.

With the papacy in Avignon, France, and a political vacuum in Rome, Italy had reached a crisis point, with constant fighting among the city states, and a war of words between the papacy and various states, including powerful Florence. Catherine's mysticism called her out of herself and her comfortable middle class family. Her journey paralleled aspects of Francis of Assisi's: Her business-oriented family didn't understand, and therefore opposed, her vocation. Yet God had called her to heal Church corruption. Her inner relationship with God gave her a power over other people, which led to countless conversions. She remained ever faithful to the Church and the papacy in a time of great heresies.

The Road to Siena gives the reader a deep, almost personal understanding of Saint Catherine by painting the political and social fabric in which she lived. Gardner helps us see the great obstacles and challenges she faced as a woman and a lay, third-order Dominican mystic.

Her power and worldly spiritual success came from her spiritual strength, according to one medieval writing noted by Gardner: "She made herself in her mind by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, a secret cell, out of which she resolved never to go by reason of any external occupation." Modern therapists might say that she was, in other words, incredibly self-possessed.

She developed a powerful entourage and network of family, confessors, and those she had converted, including many priests and theologians. In 1366 she left her cell and entered public life, Gardner notes. Until her death in 1380, she traveled around Italy and up to Avignon, rarely enjoying peace in her quiet Siena. Yet not all her work was exotic: she did menial household work, visited the sick in hospitals, and even caught leprosy from lepers to whom she was ministering, until she was miraculously cured.

Catherine greatly influenced Pope Gregory XI, a "gentle, scholarly, sickly, well-meaning, but also weak and irresolute" leader. Here Gardner gives an excellent account of her mysticism as a source for her political work: "All through the summer of 1370, Catherine's soul was overwhelmed with visions of divine mysticism."

Siena's constantly quarreling leaders, as well as the pope in Avignon, waited curiously for the words of Christ coming from Catherine. She dreamed of a reform of the Church, and of a papacy that was materially poor and spiritually powerful. She called for strong measures against wicked clergymen, and the end to nepotism within the hierarchy. Gardner describes how low religious life had gone: every convent "was divided against itself and the same thing was going on outside the convents."

Under Catherine's influence not only did countless clergy convert and end their wicked ways, but the pope moved back to Rome and peace was made between Florence and the papacy. Catherine showed the political power of mysticism. Like Bernard of Clairvaux centuries earlier, she gave a religious view to politics.

Francis and the San Damiano Cross: Meditations on Spiritual Transformation

By Susan Saint Sing, St. Anthony Messenger Press, 103 pages.

Reports of God's death have been greatly exaggerated. The symbols of Christianity endure.

Basic Christian art, such as that of the Middle Ages or of Eastern Orthodox icons, holds a power over people that contemporary abstract art does not. Medieval art was for the people and their religious edification, if not education.

Susan Saint Sing writes about a piece of art when art was of, by, and for the people - democratic art that affected and continues to affect countless people. The San Damiano Cross is the Cross through which Saint Francis of Assisi experienced a great deal of his conversion; Jesus on that cross instructed him to rebuild his church.

Saint Sing offers insights into Saint Francis and his era with her own spirituality and theological knowledge, thereby showing how art can have a positive, powerful influence on the masses. When art is about something important like God, its message can endure through the centuries.

Medieval Images of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

By James France, 435 pages, Cistercian Publications.

Medieval Images of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux introduces the reader to art history, so closely tied to Christianity. Saint Bernard, sometimes called the last of the Western Church Fathers even though he lived centuries after the patristic age (he died in 1153), was probably the most influential churchman of his century, preaching crusades and conversion, finding young recruits for his monasteries, as well as traveling widely and advising ecclesiastical and political leaders.

Medieval images is an interesting topic because until the late Middle Ages, the medieval imagination was not conducive to genuine portraiture. The images of Saint Bernard would have reflected the piety of the artist and the intended religious message at that time rather than the real physicality of the saint. In other words, they would have been icons.

Images of the Saint would have reflected the roles he had fulfilled: “How do we recognize Bernard in medieval iconography? The chief 'attributes' are his portrayal as the monk he became when he entered Citeaux, probably in the spring of 1113; as the abbot who founded Clairvaux in 1115; and as the saint he was officially declared when he was canonized in 1174.”

The Church's teaching and preaching depended on art for centuries because most people couldn't read. A piece of medieval or renaissance art would have contained different layers of messages, such as biblical, moral, and doctrinal.

Medieval Images of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux also introduces the reader to medieval monastic culture, as in the words of one monk: “'I wear the habit of a monk, I am tonsured, I am cowled'. The tonsure and the cowl were the hallmark of the monk.” This culture, along with Christian art, played a vital role in the life and teaching of the medieval and modern Church, and so these tidbits offer us a wider view of medieval life.

The book opens with an informative portrait of Saint Bernard, focusing on what his contemporaries said about his appearance (he was emaciated because of his almost-constant fasting) and popularity with the opposite sex (women were not always shy about expressing their physical desire, even climbing into his bed while he was on one of his frequent travels throughout Europe). The biography of the saint continues throughout, as Medieval Images of Saint Bernard discusses the images of the saint reflecting his various roles and career.

This academic book includes the original Latin at page bottoms for citations from medieval writers. Typical passages descriptive of given images read like this:

“He is seated with his head bowed writing at a desk, holding a pen in his right hand and a knife in his left. He has a short beard and a circular area at the top of his head is shaven while his hair is long at the sides and back. Unusually, he is shown wearing his blue tunic with white dots. His tunic has ample sleeves and a shawl is draped over his left shoulder and lap.”

The accompanying cd rom contains all known medieval images of Saint Bernard.