Here are examples of cast drawings by freshman students at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts They study the academic method of drawing. This is a systematic drawing method that developed in the High Renaissance and can be traced back to Leonardo. The name comes from the art academies of the 16th and 17th centuries that established it. We are lucky to have the world renowned Ingbretson Studio closeby in Manchester, New Hampshire.

During the spring semester, students spent each Wednesday evening (that’s about 12 sessions) at the studio. This is a sacrifice of time as they received no concessions in regard to their other studies. The results are excellent, I think you’ll agree. The students whose work you see are Elizabeth Rochon and Nicole Martin. Each drawing is approximately 24”x30”.

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…and how do we know God’s glory when we see it anyway?

As I have written before, I recently read Jean Corbon’s book The Wellspring of the Worship. In it Fr Corbon describes how an ordered participation in the liturgy opens our hearts in such a way that we accept God’s love and enter into the mystery of the Trinity; in which we worship the Father, through the Son in the Spirit. This renews and transforms us so that we are rendered fruitful for God by participating in the glory of Christ. Some who read this might wonder what this glory as manifested in the people of the Church looks like. Can we really see people shining with light? I have not seen one person shining with light that I am aware of, so does that mean that none of my Christian friends are properly participating in the liturgy?

The answer to this might come through consideration of Corbon’s description of the symbolism of the icon of the Transfiguration. It is an icon of the liturgy.

At one level the icon of the Transfiguration portrays, of course, the events as they happened in the bible. The composition of the icon shown above, by Theophanes the Greek, is ordered to Christ. He is flanked by the prophets Moses and Elijah who bow reverently. His appearance changes so that he and his clothing shine with uncreated light. Peter on the left is shown talking to Christ, he and the others all looking disoriented by what they are seeing and hearing.…

Or…do you need to see people in the nude in order to paint them with their clothes on?

In commenting on recent article someone based what they were saying on an assumption that in order to paint the human figure well, the artist needs to understand anatomy. He was referring to a naturalistic drawing method in which the artist painted a portrait by going through a process, in his mind if not directly on paper, of establishing first the positions of the skeleton, then  the muscle groups on the skeleton, then the skin is placed  over this and finally, if the figure was to be clothed, put clothes on him. There is a drawing method that is based on a process something like this. I have not studied it deeply, but was told that this is descended from the methods of Michelangelo. However, it is not necessary to do this. There is a method that is based solely upon training the eye to see well and the artist to represent what he sees. This is the method that can be traced back, some say, to Leonardo and Alberti. In this second method there is not need to understand how the human figure is made up anatomically, one simply paints what one sees. Great exponents of this method from the past have been to name just a few Velazquez, Van Dyck, Joshua Reynolds, John Singer Sargent. This is the method that is taught in the atelier that I attended in Florence, Charles H Cecil Studios and the one that Paul Ingbretson teaches at his Ingbretson Studio in Manchester, New Hampshire.…

Or…do you need to see people in the nude in order to paint them with their clothes on?

In commenting on recent article someone based what they were saying on an assumption that in order to paint the human figure well, the artist needs to understand anatomy. He was referring to a naturalistic drawing method in which the artist painted a portrait by going through a process, in his mind if not directly on paper, of establishing first the positions of the skeleton, then  the muscle groups on the skeleton, then the skin is placed  over this and finally, if the figure was to be clothed, put clothes on him. There is a drawing method that is based on a process something like this. I have not studied it deeply, but was told that this is descended from the methods of Michelangelo. However, it is not necessary to do this. There is a method that is based solely upon training the eye to see well and the artist to represent what he sees. This is the method that can be traced back, some say, to Leonardo and Alberti. In this second method there is not need to understand how the human figure is made up anatomically, one simply paints what one sees. Great exponents of this method from the past have been to name just a few Velazquez, Van Dyck, Joshua Reynolds, John Singer Sargent. This is the method that is taught in the atelier that I attended in Florence, Charles H Cecil Studios and the one that Paul Ingbretson teaches at his Ingbretson Studio in Manchester, New Hampshire.…

For the final part of the spring semester, the students were assigned a project in which they were asked to design a church floor using traditional forms. I gave them two options. First, they could design a sanctuary floor, which must include the quincunx – four circles spinning out of a central circle. This is a geometric representation of the four Evangelists taking the Word of God, represented by the central circle, out to the four corners of the world through their gospels. Second, they could design the floor of a nave, the main body of the church, and this must employ a shape called the guilloche, which is a chain of interconnecting circles.

In each case they had to follow the general design principle of ordering the space into regular orthogonal shapes, in the nave you can see that each has been sub-divided into a series of rectangles. then the infill is made of a range of patterns. I gave a selection of tradition romanesque geometric patterns for them to choose from.

The students whose work you see are, from top: Nicole Martin, Augustine Kamprath, Erin Monfils, Aleth Sargent, Teresa Webster and Cecilia Black.

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In the second of a series of three, here is some geometric patterned art done by students from Thomas More College of Liberal Arts during the course of the year as part of the Way of Beauty class. In this exercise I asked them to construct an eight pointed pattern that is traditional in Islamic art. I wanted them to make sure that they did an over-and-under feature as the ‘tape’ that defines the pattern cuts back across itself. Also, I wanted a pattern that had a unity in itself, and so they had to design a simple border for it and designs for the four corners.

In the class that I teach, the Way of Beauty, this is an exercise that prepares the student for a larger project in which they are asked to design the floor of either a church sanctuary or nave using traditional Romanesque design patterns. These will be shown in the next posting in this series in a week’s time.

We go to Islamic art for these exercises because this is a living tradition and there are text books that explain how to construct these patterns. It is not a new idea for Christians to look to Islamic culture – I have written a number of times in the past of occasions when this was done, most notably in a series of churches built in Sicily when ruled by the Normans in the 11th century. Islam took geometric patterned art from the Byazantine Christian lands that it conquered during its early expansion and then developed it into a distinct and complex form.…

The Transfiguration as a symbol of the liturgy and our participation in the glory of Christ

As I have written before, I recently read Jean Corbon’s book The Wellspring of the Worship. In it Fr Corbon describes how an ordered participation in the liturgy opens our hearts in such a way that we accept God’s love and enter into the mystery of the Trinity; in which we worship the Father, through the Son in the Spirit. This renews and transforms us so that we are rendered fruitful for God by participating in the glory of Christ. Some who read this might wonder what this glory as manifested in the people of the Church looks like. Can we really see people shining with light? I have not seen one person shining with light that I am aware of, so does that mean that none of my Christian friends are properly participating in the liturgy?

The answer to this might come through consideration of Corbon’s description of the symbolism of the icon of the Transfiguration. It is an icon of the liturgy.

At one level the icon of the Transfiguration portrays, of course, the events as they happened in the bible. The composition of the icon shown above, by Theophanes the Greek, is ordered to Christ. He is flanked by the prophets Moses and Elijah who bow reverently. His appearance changes so that he and his clothing shine with uncreated light.…

I am going to post two features that display the work of the students at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts done during the course of the year. The first will be figurative art from Western illuminated manuscripts. I have written before about how I think that this is something we should start to focus on in the Church in order to reestablish our traditions of sacred art. I tried it for the first time this year with the students and with, I feel, great success. The medium used is egg tempera on good quality watercolour paper. This is just the sort of work that students who attend the iconography class at the Way of Beauty Atelier, this summer can expect to be doing if they wish to.

They are in the order they appear: St Christopher by Nicole Martin; St Jerome by Ian Kosko; St Maurice by Amy Green; and Daniel in the Lion’s Den by Alison Trapp.

Of these students Nicole Martin has had some experience of academic art classes and arrived with some skill with brush and pencil. The other,  as far as I am aware are largely untrained prior to the class.

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I am going to post short series of features that display the work of the students at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts done during the course of the year. The first will be figurative art from Western illuminated manuscripts. I have written before about how I think that this is something we should start to focus on in the Church in order to reestablish our traditions of sacred art. I tried it for the first time this year with the students and with, I feel, great success. The medium used is egg tempera on good quality watercolour paper. This is just the sort of work that students who attend the iconography class at the Way of Beauty Atelier, this summer can expect to be doing if they wish to.

They are in the order they appear: St Christopher by Nicole Martin; St Jerome by Ian Kosko; St Maurice by Amy Green; and Daniel in the Lion’s Den by Alison Trapp.

Of these students Nicole Martin has had some experience of academic art classes and arrived with some skill with brush and pencil. The other,  as far as I am aware are largely untrained prior to the class.

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This can be something of interest to us and the basis of a powerful lesson for our children.

Recently I wrote an article about the idea that the number five was symbolic of Our Lady, here. In it I raised a doubt in mind about the suggestion that it was part of the tradition. This doubt existed because of the lack of scriptural references or works of the Church Fathers citing it.

This can be contrasted with consideration of symbolism of the number four. Unlike the number five we have references from many different sources that point to a longstanding and firmly established tradition of Christian symbolism of the number four. We can also see how this symbolism has been reflected in the culture, through art for example. There are biblical references and the writings of the Church Fathers, some of which are included in the liturgy of the Church.

What brought this to mind was a passage in the Office of Readings from the book of the Apocalypse. The passage is from Rev. 7 and begins as follows: ‘I, John, saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, so that no wind  should blow the earth, the sea or any tree.’

This statement links the created world, the earth, to the number four. We can also see how these expressions (the four winds and the four corners of the earth) derive these common usages.…