A Year of Sacred Images; An Inheritance We Can Still Occupy
Plus some fun quizzes!
This is the time of year we all are taking stock and thinking about directions, if we tend that way. And of course, for me the question of where to take this work next is a leading one. What started for me as a personal pursuit has expanded into a body of work that now has enough weight and internal coherence and momentum to think seriously about where it ought to go next.
I’ve been looking back over the archive from the past year, and a clearer overall picture has started to emerge. All of it is oriented toward a kind of spiritual service, to try to provide a kind of mental framework for Christian life, that can actually be inhabited by modern people. Honestly, it’s sometimes overwhelming. We are engaging with a vast Christian patrimony, spanning 1500 years and cultures from Ireland to Anatolia to Egypt and Ethiopia, but refusing to shrink from its immensity, complexity, or conceptual difficulty.
We look as deeply as we can at the works themselves, but also at their cultural and religious context. Because these images were never meant to be encountered on their own. They belong to a world of prayer, theology and practice, and only make full sense when seen from within it.
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Big Cosmic Questions
While we’ve been doing this, the same underlying questions have surfaced. How can the Triune God, and all the heavenly realities, be depicted visually, and why does it matter so profoundly to get that right? What is prayer and veneration, really, and what does it do to a human soul? What does it mean to live as Christians with human tragedy, exile, silence and loss, and still carry on? What happens when Christian meaning collapses or becomes distorted in a culture that has deeply rejected it? How did those distortions arise and what are their spiritual consequences? And what can we do about it now?
In all this, the larger question I’ve most wanted to answer for myself, that has driven everything, includes all those: how can we live - how ought we to live - in these particular circumstances, as Latin Christians and the natural heirs of this patrimony, in a modern world whose fundamental metaphysical assumptions are totally at odds with everything we think is true, with everything we value and believe in? This question is at the root of everything I read, everything I write about, everything I think about. And I think I’m not alone.
Looking back at the posts that resonated most strongly (judging only by something as silly as “likes”), a clear pattern appears. What people are responding to is meaning; these pieces treat our sacred art as existentially serious, and a crucial, indispensable bridge to salvation, a way of communicating with God. We’re way past pretty pictures, or decorations for altars.
The posts that seemed to resonate most were explicitly or implicitly assuming that true sacred images are about the biggest things of all: life, death, salvation, suffering, prayer and truth. And we are learning that misunderstanding their purpose and meaning has serious spiritual consequences, for individuals and for the Church as a whole; forgetting this meaning has cost something real and crucial that absolutely must be restored.
What I hope to do with all this is to offer a cultural grounding in Christian mystical theology, a subject that hardly anyone is talking about but that once formed the deep structure of Christian visual culture. I want to offer some kind of context or orientation for us as western Christians, Latin Catholics. When I discovered this lost treasure, I wanted to know where I - a modern person - stood in relation to this tradition, how could it provide a cultural and spiritual context that we can actually live in today?
Because all this is still ours. These images and the meanings behind them are the real stuff of our Christian culture, and they are still ours. This patrimony is not a curiosity, a set of relics of a vanished civilisation. We still live in the same civilisation, however distorted it may have become, whether we have learned how to read it or not.
Plans for expanding - the Association
Once all that becomes clear, certain practical consequences logically follow, setting out the way we’re going next. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes.
One of the more significant shifts this year is that the Ars Sacra Cultural Association has moved out of the realm of ideas and vague intentions and into something that is actively being prepared. There is now official paperwork, a small volunteer board, a lawyer, and a clear path toward registration in the new year. It isn’t registered yet, but it has crossed the threshold from “someday” to something that is now being handled deliberately and formally, and plans are being built around it.
Another quiet change this year is that I’m no longer working entirely on my own. I’m still doing the posts, and all the research and image searching that goes with that. But a few people have stepped forward to cover areas that are outside my reach. Once the Association is registered, we will be moving forward with a small group of collaborators, each contributing where they are best suited, as the work itself calls for it. On the (endlessly expanding) list of things to do are books, online courses and videos.
I’ve got a kind friend right now helpfully uploading our entire paid post archive to the new WordPress website we’re building. I hadn’t realised quite how large the catalogue had become. She’s been steadily at it every morning for a couple of weeks now and is still only about a fifth of the way through.
When that task is finished, we are looking at creating a kind of database of downloadable images, downloadable pdfs for paid material, and Ars-Sacra-Pedia, an online encyclopedia of sacred art terms, genres, iconographic prototypes, periods and names, all available to paid members. And the site will include a shop where these materials can be purchased by non-members. (And all in two languages!)
We’re going to continue posting free material on Substack, and interacting with readers there, as a way of keeping the conversation open and accessible, especially for people who are just finding the work.
Fun quizzes
If you’ve been reading along this past year, you may be surprised by how much you now recognise at a glance. Consider it a chance to look again and see what you’ve learned without realising it. (Cheating definitely encouraged. I’ll include some links to previous posts.)
Apocalypse, but where?
This image comes from which artistic and cultural tradition? (Here’s your cheat sheet.)
A. Romanesque France
B. Byzantine Constantinople
C. Visigothic / Mozarabic Iberia
D. Ottonian Germany
2. Catacombs: What Are You Actually Looking At?
Which of the following best explains why early Christian catacomb images look so “simple” or “flat”? (Cheat sheet here.)
A. Early Christians lacked artistic skill
B. The Church discouraged visual complexity
C. The images prioritised symbolic meaning over naturalistic realism
D. The underground setting limited what artists could technically do
3. Before or After Iconoclasm?
Question:
Which feature is most characteristic of post-Iconoclasm Byzantine imagery? (Cheat sheet is here.)
A. Increased narrative detail
B. Greater theological precision and stability of prototypes
C. Rejection of figural representation
D. A move toward Western naturalism
8. Cluny and Space: Why So Large?
Question:
Why did Cluniac churches grow to such monumental scale? (Cheat sheet here.)
A. To rival imperial Roman architecture
B. To accommodate lay pilgrimage
C. To support an intensive, continuous liturgical life
D. To display political power
Thanks for coming along
Mostly, I wanted to pause and mark the moment, and to say thank you for reading along this past year, and for the care and seriousness so many of you bring to these questions. Especially to those who’ve subscribed, and written thoughtful notes, and those who’ve supported the work in ways both visible and unseen.
I’m grateful for the quiet encouragement and patient attention from so many who make this work feel shared rather than solitary. I hope the rest of the Christmas season ahead brings some quiet, beauty, and real refreshment.
Happy Christmas, everyone.
HJMW
Hilary: Your posts have provided the intellectual and artistic stimulation that have fed my soul and encouraged me to continue my own artistic and spiritual journey.
I look forward to the community you are developing and continuing to learn and grow with you. You are a blessing!
The way you talked about icons and stained glass carrying a lineage of faith gave weight to visual devotion in a way that feels alive, not antiquated. When you mentioned how images can guide our gaze and shape our prayer, it made me think about how easily we overlook the spiritual role of beauty in worship.