Friday Goodie Bag: May 10th
A celebration! The Wilton Diptych mini-course, and a trip to Rhodes
At the end of the post, we’ve got some great eye-candy from a friend who’s on holiday in Rhodes, visiting the incredible Byzantine churches there.
Today I have a little celebration and because of this, there’s going to be no paywall on this Friday Goodie Bag post. We’ve got some gorgeous pics and video clips below, kindly sent to me for the site by a friend who’s vacationing right now in Rhodes, the most magnificent Byzantine church you could hope to see, in a tiny remote monastery in the middle of nowhere.
Also, a nice preview of the course I’ve been working on, a the deepest rabbit-hole dive you can imagine about the glorious Wilton Diptych, one of the great national artistic treasures of the English nation.
But first…
Update and a big huge thank you
Guess what!
Now, I’ve noticed that Substack tends to be a little… let’s say “casual” about their estimates of your stat numbers. It says on my writer profile, for instance, that I’ve got 3000 followers, but it’s actually 2870, if you include free and paid subscribers, and “followers” on Notes. But I guess rounding up is OK. So, this little pic they generated for my milestone is a little bit of an exaggeration…
In fact, just today it’s exactly 100, and that means I hit my goal of 100 paid subscribers before the end of May. Just under a month after writing my “please subscribe or I won’t be able to keep doing it” post.
Just under a month ago I was getting a little depressed.
Free subscriptions were going like gangbusters…
But while people seemed to be interested, hardly anyone was signing up as a paid member…
I’d hit the dreaded plateau.
I sat down and had a think. It was definitely the work I wanted to keep doing, but if it kept bringing in so little, it might not be possible. I didn’t want to give up so I worked out a rock-bottom baseline I needed to be able to get to, before the end of May, in order to be able to afford to keep going:
And then I posted a thing just straight-up asking:
“A note to our many new free subscribers”
And boy-howdy! Did you guys ever come through!
The arrow is where we were when I posted April 12, with 52 paid subscriptions. That bump is 20 new subscriptions in a single day. And it’s been a steady, almost daily, stream since then.
I can’t express how grateful I am and how relieved. The site has gone in less than a month from bringing in $465/month to almost double that. A few more people have signed up for monthly patronages at my studio blog, Hilary White; Sacred Art, and put together that has brought me up to a much more survivable $1340/month or just over 16k/year (that’s after Substack and Stripe fees of 13%).
It might not seem like much to someone in FirstWorldia, but for me it’s the difference between struggling to pay rent and bills to not being in a state of anxiety all the time. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not wealth beyond the wildest dreams of avarice. I’m still under half the national average Italian salary, but I’m afloat.
There’s a big difference between being poor and broke and scared and not sure what to do, and poor but making it, with prospects looking up. And now I’m the second thing.
What chuffs me the most, even more than all that is that this is now really my work. My goal was to get to a point where I was making ends meet, and could divide my time safely between writing and painting. And even better, I feel like I’m making an actual contribution again, a good deal more than I was as a news writer. What it means is that there are a lot of other people out there who understand how important this work is, the reclamation of these great cultural and spiritual works, the reacquisition of our rightful patrimony.
I wrote in April that I had gone all in; doing the work to create this material full time, and was rolling the dice that there was enough interest out there to at least minimally support the work and keep doing it. And that gamble paid off.
So, thanks everyone. It means a lot.
The Sacred Images Project is a reader-supported publication where we talk about Christian life, thought, history and culture through the lens of the first 1200 years of sacred art.
You can subscribe for free to get one and a half posts a week. For $9/month you get a weekly in-depth article on this great sacred patrimony, plus extras like downloads, photos, videos and podcasts (in the works), as well as voiceovers of the articles, so you can cut back on screen time.
Sign up here; it’s just $9/month.
If you’d like to see more of my painting and drawing work, and maybe order a print or other item you can find it here:
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Wilton Diptych mini-course
This seems like a great time to announce the coming, very soon, of my first mini-course. Way back I floated the idea of doing courses about sacred art and art history for home schooling families. I could see that there was a great hunger for more material on this subject, but I was a bit surprised when I got the flood of “OH YES PLEASE!!!” in response, and not just from homeschoolers.
But it’s a bit of a daunting task to propose a full spectrum of courses on all aspects and nationalities of Christian sacred art starting in Egypt, Rome and Byzantium from the 3rd century to the end of the 14th… to say the least.
So, I came up with the idea of taking the task in very small bites. Instead of going broad, a laser-focused deep-dive kind of thing, about one particular object.
Little mini package online courses that will let you drill deep down into a single laser-focus topic. Like, a close examination of a single work of art, like the Portinari Triptych that we’ve already taken a short look at. Or an in depth look at one of the great Romanesque monasteries, architecture and history.
I think I can finish the first one in the next ten days or couple of weeks.
Learning goals:
To gain a deeper understanding of the Wilton Diptych and Gothic religious painting in general, its artistic style, historical context, and its significance within the broader world of art history and Christian art in particular.
Contextualize the Artwork: Learn about the historical and cultural context in which the Wilton Diptych was created. This could involve:
Understanding the patrons who might have commissioned the work
Exploring the artistic movements of High Gothic and International Gothic
Considering the religious beliefs and practices of the period
Develop Art Historical Skills: Practice close observation and critical thinking skills when analysing the artwork.
Identifying formal elements like composition, colour, and line
Considering the artist's choices and their potential impact on the viewer
Comparing and contrasting the Wilton Diptych with other works of art
Analyse the Artistic Style: Identify the key characteristics of International Gothic style as seen in the Wilton Diptych.
Use of vibrant colours and intricate details
Idealized figures with flowing drapery
Linear drawing style, but with rounded, realistic forms
Flattened perspective and emphasis on decorative patterns
Egg tempera as the painting medium with decorated gold leaf
Explore Religious Iconography: Decipher the symbolic meaning of the figures and objects depicted in the right panel.
The significance of the Virgin Mary and Christ Child as central figures
The symbolic meaning of the particular saints chosen
The symbolism of the angels, their number, and their gestures
The meaning of the gold background and any other symbolic elements
Appreciate Artistic Beauty: Develop an appreciation for the aesthetic qualities of the Wilton Diptych.
Recognizing the beauty of the colours, details, and overall composition
Appreciating the emotional impact of the artwork and its religious themes
Understanding the Wilton Diptych's place within the history of Western art
I chose the Wilton Diptych because of its importance in both the history of art and English national history. I have to admit, though it’s not difficult at all to get solid material on it, it’s really a matter more of a data-dump than actual writing, it’s possible to go down a very deep rabbit hole indeed, even for a small two-panel Gothic icon.
As I was reading about it, I just wanted to know more and more. Who is Richard II, and what happened to him? Why were those particular figures so important to him? What did the painting mean as a “national” English icon? What did it say about Richard’s ideas of the divine right of kings? What do all these symbolic figures mean?
So, the table of contents is getting longer as I dig deeper. But as I was doing it, something else happened I was hoping for; a structure was coalescing that could serve as a template for all courses to come.
Contents
Introduction:
What is the Wilton Diptych, and how was it made?
The painting’s history
Research and Essay suggestions
Fact sheet
Chapter 1: The Figures - outside panels
The white hart
Royal heraldry
Research and Essay suggestions
Fact sheet
Chapter 2: The Figures - inside panels
Who was King Richard II?
Historical context
The Black Death
Peasants’ Revolt
Overthrow and Death
St. Edward the Confessor, St. Edmund and John the Baptist
The Blessed Virgin and Christ Child with Angels
Research and Essay suggestions
Fact sheet
Chapter 3: Painting the Gothic
From Romanesque formality to Gothic liveliness
High Gothic painting
International Gothic painting - the Wilton Diptych
Techniques and materials
And it’s been fun! I’m amazed how fun, and how eager I’ve felt to get back to digging. So, this is definitely going to be the method going forward. I’ll be working with a professional to turn all my typing and downloaded images into a proper ebook, with formatting and everything.
The Wilton Diptych mini course will be made available for free to all paid subscribers as a downloadable PDF document package, embedded right here in the Substack post. For free subscribers and everyone else it will be made available for sale at my Hilary White; Sacred Art Shop.
If it sells well, I think the Ghent Altarpiece is next on the list.
A visit to Byzantium in Rhodes
And now, our eye-candy treat: a little trip to some Byzantine Orthodox monasteries and churches in Rhodes, courtesy of our friend James who’s on holiday there right now with his fam.
(Best seen by clicking full screen.)
Church of the Panagia Katholiki, Afandou. Built in the 17th century on the foundations of an older and grander Christian basilica.
It’s hard to wrap your head around, but this really is what all Christian churches looked like, once upon a time.
Holy Monastery of Tharri
9th-to-11th-century Holy Monastery of Tharri, dedicated to St Michael by a Byzantine princess.
Tsambika monastery, only reachable by foot high above the sea:
Dormition of the Theotokos church in Asklipieo:
I think that’s enough for now.
Pippin says good night.
Wonderful stuff. Every square inch of those Orthodox churches is decorated or painted - quite amazing. I look forward to the deep dive. It will be great!
Did I ever share with you what I wrote about the Wilton Diptych one day on Facebook?
THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE
WILTON DIPTYCH OF KING RICHARD II
This small painting from the 1390s is lushly and expensively creative with all the pricey blues and golds, especially in the repeated pattern of blue-tipped white angels' wings against the patterned gold background. Its portrayal of heavenly beauties is in great contrast with the left side of the diptych shown at the link below, which has a gold background but is otherwise stark, locating King Richard II perhaps in the Judean desert, [he is] being offered along with his country by his three favorite saints, St. John the Baptist, St. Edward the Confessor and St. Edmund, to the Madonna and Child
"This painting is on the right side of a diptych with the left side showing King Richard II offering England to the Virgin as her dowry in the shape of a standard. His hands are empty, as the infant Christ has taken the standard and passed it to an attendant angel. . . . The Virgin holds Christ’s foot for Richard to kiss . . .. Christ raises his hand to bless the standard and with it, Richard’s rule.—From the National Gallery in London
Christ raises his hand to bless the standard and with it, Richard’s rule. . . . We don’t know exactly how or where Richard used the diptych, but it might have been placed on the altar of a small chapel in Westminster Abbey – used by Richard for private prayer – or in that of the Order of the Garter at Windsor. He may have carried it from one chapel to another. He might even have had it with him when he was captured by the troops of his cousin, the future Henry IV, in 1399. He was forced to abdicate and then imprisoned by the new king, and later starved to death at Pontefract Castle, in West Yorkshire.—From the National Gallery in London https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/english-or-french-the-wilton-diptych