A sacramentary “was a liturgical book used for prayer during the High Middle Ages, containing prayers, prefaces and canons for mass” (“The Drogo Sacramentary”); this sacramentary was created between 845-855 CE for Drogo, the Bishop of Metz (“The Drogo Sacramentary”). This artwork is interesting to me because it illustrates the religious beliefs of French society in a beautiful and articulate manner. An artistic pattern found in illuminated manuscripts is a painted scene within an individual letter. For instance, in this illuminated manuscript a scene from the Lord’s ascension into heaven is painted inside the letter “C” (“Carolingian Art”, see Figure 1). It is amazing to consider how small the area is for the artist to paint; still the artist is able to illustrate a mountain, 12 disciples, two angels, and Jesus in a limited space. The artist uses colors of gold, red, yellow, green, blue, and black; these colors are simple, yet the combination of them is bold and grabs the viewer’s…
However not all of the works in this wing held religious connotation . An image that appealed to me was a depiction of how Cleopatra committed suicide, "Suicide of Cleopatra" painted by Guercino . This image stuck to me because of the widely known legend that Cleopatra used cobras to commit suicide. Cleopatra looking away as she inserts her hand into a bowl of deadly snakes demonstrates this . Another secular image was one done by Dutch artist Pieter Claesz named…
This documentary film explains how St. Francis caused Christian inspired artists of the period to put emotion and nature into their art and to produce naturalistic paintings that showed movement and feeling. This was totally different from prior art that was flat and one dimensional and did not show feelings or emotions. Francis Bernardone was born in Assisi, Italy in 1182, and was wealthy and wild in his youth. This all ended when he was taken prisoner in a war between his home of Assisi and Perugia. A year as a prisoner of war changed his whole life, and he went back home knowing that he wanted to live his life like Christ had.…
To begin with, Saint Jerome was a Saint, a Scripture scholar, a priest, a monk, and a writer. He was also known as the Doctor of the church. Saint Jerome meets the definition of church father because he had translated the Bible from Hebrew into Latin which had come to be known as the Vulgate. His translation of the Bible was fortunately accepted by the Church. The Council of Trent asked for a new edition of the Vulgate that was corrected in 1592. They had declared it the authentic text to be used in the Church. St Jerome used his pen to write about his love for God and his son Jesus Christ, but he had also used it for sarcasm when something triggered his anger. Although he had a bad temper, he was a brilliant scholar and he wrote many commentaries which inspire many lives today. Most monks, bishops, and popes consulted with him. St. Augustine had once told him (August 28) "What Jerome is ignorant of, no mortal has ever known." Meaning St Jerome was a very intelligent student and knew almost about anything, that no regular person would normally acknowledge.…
Works not by “Christian” artists, but evocative of Christian beliefs, should be viewed in full context. The title of “Christian art”…
He’s specialized in small devotional paintings for a ready market in Antwerp and other Flemish cities. He created many works of art, most of which are religious paintings. Some of his works include St. John the Baptist and Christ as the Man of Sorrow. Christ with the Crown of Thorns, and Madonna and Child. His rich and complex iconographical elements create a heightened sense of contemporary beliefs and spiritual ideals, morally the works express a fearful outlook, combined with a respect for restraint and stoicism.…
Saint Catherine of Siena was born in 1347 in Siena, Italy. She was the youngest child of a very large family and grew up an intelligent, cheerful, and intensely religious person. At age six, she began having mystical experiences, seeing guardian angels as clearly as the people they protected. Saint Catherine was very in touch with God, even as a child.…
Throughout the Renaissance, many talented artists tried to express deep symbolism in their paintings, but no one came close to the ability of Jan Van Eyck. His paintings were so accurate and realistic that it was necessary for him to paint his miniaturists with a single strand of hair, on a brush. Jan's Arnolfini Wedding Portrait (1434) is so photo-realistic that it has been debated for decades of it's legality of a wedding document. This paper will help to understand Jan's extreme use of symbolisms and the multiple meanings of his Arnolfini wedding scene.…
After visiting the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, I will write about four art works. The first one is called Salome Receiving the Head of St. John the Baptist by Andrea Solario. The work is very colorful, and it shows chiaroscuro with the dark background and light on the faces of Salome and John the Baptist. The focal point is on John’s head. This is one of Solario’s most notable works, and the figure style is influenced by Leonardo Da Vinci. The story behind the painting is that Herodias had a quarrel with John the Baptist, and would have killed him herself. Instead, her daughter, Salome, danced for Herod and he was so pleased that he said he would give her anything she asked for. She asked for John the Baptist’s head on a platter at her mother’s urging. I believe I was interested in this work because I already knew about the subject matter, but I don’t think you have to know a lot about the art before entering the museum to be interested in it.…
Suffering from mental illness and poverty, Vincent Van Gogh was able to overcome all of his problems and become one of the best artists ever known. Vincent Van Gogh influenced art in the 20th century and new styles of art. Van Gogh’s artwork was so different and creative that it was able to influence many other artists.…
“Vita brevis breviter in brevi finietur, mors venit velociter quae neminem veretur, omnia mors perimit et nulli miseretur. Ad mortem festinamus peccare desistamus.”1 Humans have always had a fascination with the macabre, undoubtedly because it is one of the few things in life one will never fully understand; as beings it is very difficult to comprehend the concept of “being” no longer. This is often amplified in times of widespread devastation, which was the case during, and, following the Black Death. Art often reflects the concerns of society at that time, and this was most certainly the case in the late Middle Ages. Due to the extraordinary death toll caused by the Plague, and the essentially nonexistent understanding of the mechanism…
On May 8th, 1373, an anchoress named Julian of Norwich asked God for a sickness that would bring her close to death in order to gain a “more trew minde” of Christ’s crucifixion (Julian of Norwich 53). Through bodily visions of the Passion, Julian yearns to gain a better understanding of Christ’s “bodily peynes” and thus to “suffer with Him” (48-49, 50). In these visions, Julian witnesses several grotesque events during Christ’s crucifixion: the crown of thorns piercing Christ’s skin and causing him to bleed, the copious outpouring of Christ’s blood, and the bleeding, gaping wound on his side. While each of these scenes focus on the movement of blood out of Christ’s body, they also pay particular attention to the openings through which the blood…
St. Vincent was born into a poor family in Gascony, France. He was ordained as a priest in 1600. Unfortunately, in 1605, he set out on a voyage from Marseilles to Narbonne and on his journey he was captured by African pirates. Vincent was taken to Tunis where he would become a slave. He was held captive for close to two years when God’s actual grace allowed him to make his escape from captivity. After he escaped, he made his way through Rome and eventually returned to France where he began preaching and laying the foundations of a congregation. St. Vincent received the grace of helping the poor. His predominant virtue was charity. In fact, he is now known as the Apostle of Charity. Throughout St. Vincent’s life, his soul…
Meiss, Millard. Paintings in Florence and Siena after the Black Death: The Arts, Religion, and Society in the Mid-Fourteenth Century. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1951. 74-93. Print.…
After becoming the bishop of Milan, Ambrose made many changes within the Western Church. He was accountable for the two first theological works written in Latin, which were De Sacramentis on the Sacraments and De Spirtu Sancto on the Holy Spirit. Ambrose was also able to instruct and strengthen the process of preparing for Baptism. He reformed the Church’s way of singing by introducing singing into the Western Church. The singing that was done in the church at the time was known as the “Ambrosian Chant.”…