To view a digital version of the artwork click here . The Ghent Altarpiece, also known by the title The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb , is one of the most famous images in art history. The additional title is important as a signal to the viewer to pay close attention to where the image leads us through an evocation of the narrative of salvation. Jan van Eyck was born in the fourteenth century in present-day Belgium and settled in the city of Bruges, where he accomplished his major works during the Northern Renaissance. He and his artist brother Hubert... Read more
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Articles Under: Catechizing with Art
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To view the art on a smart board click here. “What are those five naked boys doing in my Holy Family?” [1] Thus exclaims Agnolo Doni in Irving Stone’s novel The Agony and the Ecstasy upon seeing the tondo (round painting) he had commissioned from Michelangelo. Whether or not the real Agnolo Doni found the picture surprising in 1509, viewers today may well find the inclusion of such background figures strange. The presence of five nude youths is not the only puzzling thing about the Doni Tondo . The arrangement of the principal figures is most unusual. Although the Virgin... Read more
Several years ago, I stepped into another sister’s classroom to drop something off and found her seated on a low chair near the sacred space, her students on the carpet at her feet. She had an image of Fra Angelico’s Annunciation prominently displayed, but they were talking about the bells at Mass. “The bells are like the doorbell,” she was saying. “When the doorbell rings you know someone is there to see you. When the bells ring at Mass, they tell us that God is here.” I was intrigued, and, since I had a few minutes, I sat down to... Read more
To view this work of art on a smartboad click here. In 1583, nearing the end of a brilliant career as a painter, sixty-five-year-old Jacopo Robusti began work on The Annunciation , a scene of Gabriel announcing to Mary that she would be the mother of Jesus, the Son of God. Having grown up in his father’s dye business, Jacopo Robusti was better known as Tintoretto, the “little dyer,” from having drawn on the walls of the shop with pigments from his father’s dye pots. After absorbing the drawing style of Michelangelo and the color sense of Titian, he established... Read more
To view the artwork online click here. When you ascend the hill that leads up onto Franciscan University of Steubenville’s campus and look across the Rosary Circle, a glittering mosaic will likely catch your eye. At first, you may only be able to make out a vague form inside a golden almond shape. As you get closer, you’ll see Our Lady, crowned as Queen of the Angels, standing within a mandorla formed by fiery seraphim. Her rose-colored mantle drapes around a representation of her holy womb. Inside, surrounded by concentric circles dotted with stars, Jesus holds a miniature Portiuncula and... Read more
To view this image on a smart board, click here. “Mary does bring us closer to Christ; she does lead us to him provided that we live her mystery in Christ,” wrote St. John Paul II. [1] Throughout the year, the Church offers the faithful countless spiritual paths to live in the mystery of Christ through the feasts and fasts, the seasons and rhythms of the liturgical year. Manifold dimensions of the Paschal Mystery of Jesus’ Life, Passion, Death, and Resurrection unfold in time across the liturgical year. In this way, each day of the liturgical calendar is a renewed... Read more
The Mass of St. Gregory depicts a miracle in the life of Pope St. Gregory the Great, who died in Rome on March 12 of AD 604. According to tradition, he and others experienced the appearance of Jesus as the pope celebrated a particular Mass. It is considered a eucharistic miracle because of the circumstances surrounding the event. We learn of this narrative through the stories of the saints collected and published by Jacobus de Voragine, a Dominican priest of the thirteenth century. The original title of his book was Readings from the Saints . But over time, the published... Read more
The sacristy of the Cathedral in Toledo, Spain, houses a painting made in the late sixteenth century by Domenikos Theotocopoulos, better known by his nickname , El Greco. In the center of the picture, we behold Christ wearing a brilliant red tunic. All the other figures—clad in gray, green, yellow, or blue—fall into subordinate places around Christ, as cool bodies gathered around a flame. A man in green takes hold of the red garment at its neckline to begin the divestment, the “ expolio .” The brutal removal of the vesture, and its imminent sundering by the executioners, vividly reminds... Read more
To view or to zoom in on this art on a smart board click here. One of the most famous Catholic paintings of history is the humble work of art titled The Angelus by Jean-Francois Millet. This painting might be considered unique in that it has been viewed as inspired fine art by some and purely sentimental illustration by others. What is in this image that stirs the aesthetic imagination for some and is dismissed by others as a simplistic work of religious nostalgia? Importantly, how does it incarnate the subject of prayer? Jean-Francois Millet was born in Grechy, France... Read more
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