New Year Plans: lets keep going

Courses, videos and hopes for the future

Angel of the Last Judgment, c. 1080, fresco. Sant’Angelo, Formis, Italy

Happy New Year, everyone, and an especial welcome to our 80+ new readers; thanks so much for signing up in the last few days. I thought I’d take a few minutes to talk about some of the plans for going forward, from more weekly articles to plans for courses. I’ve been really gratified that people seem to enjoy these articles, so much that I think the moment has come to expand.

Given how much deep joy and enrichment it’s provided to my interior life - my understanding of Christianity, of our place in the universe and even the nature of reality this knowledge and exposure has given me - it seems clear that I have a duty to pass it along to anyone interested. And when I floated the idea of a series of short courses on a Facebook page, I was surprised by the warm and enthusiastic response I had.

So, this is the year.

We’re at the same level

I do want to make it clear that I’m not an expert. I don’t have a degree in art history. The one course in art history I took in university - a survey that covered Ancient Egypt to German Expressionists - was an absolute crashing bore. It’s just that I’m rather in love, and I was happily surprised that other people seem to love it too.

My plan going into it is to use the journalistic methodology - don’t try to be an expert; find experts and ask them questions. A long time ago an experienced journalist and wise teacher told me that the truest way to approach that kind of work is to do everything to erase the presence of one’s own ego: don’t be a teacher; be a student. As a journalist, I tried to be a representative of people who don’t have PhDs. I covered subjects I found interesting and important and tried to convey that interest to readers.

I was there to stand for Joe Regularguy, to ask the kinds of questions he would want the answers for, to try to interpret the often complex and technical issues with as much precise accuracy as possible, but at the same time in language that could be understood and used to effect by Joe and his family. In the years I did that work, I found that the experts were, at their core, really just enthusiasts themselves, and were often delighted to find someone “normal” was interested in what they were doing.

I’m not an academic; I’m an interested layman, investigating and writing for other non-academics. My professional training has been in researching, investigating, finding experts and asking them questions and writing down my findings in a way everyone can understand.

I hope I will never bore you.

Palatine Chapel in Palermo. Italian Byzantine, a great synthesis of styles.

How it will work

I’ve got a basic plan on how to present the courses, and it involves Substack, and its new video hosting feature; no need to go to YouTube - and the Algorithm - at all. I hope to add a lot of value by creating videos talking about the art works we’re examining, and these will eventually include me taking you along to go see some of them in person.

The platform also allows you to set up a separate section for paid subscribers, meaning that I can create a “members room” on this site. The videos will be available to those who buy the course materials - we’ll try to create a network and a community.

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This button will take you to my studio blog where you can see a gallery showing my progress learning how to paint in the traditional Byzantine and Italian Gothic styles. It includes a link to my PayPal where you can make a donation or set up a monthly support to become a patron. Many thanks to those who have already contributed.

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In addition to videos the course materials themselves will be divided into downloadable PDF “packages” available for purchase. These will be yours forever and will include text, images and suggested exercises, fun things to do for homeschool students and teachers, quizzes, and projects and of course lots of “further reading” and further viewing suggestions. These will be available individually or bundled.

Those who sign up for the paid student section of the Substack will be able to join a private “chatroom” where we can all talk together about our discoveries.

At the same time, I’m planning on continuing to post my regular articles about whatever subject grabs me and these will always remain free to everyone.

The Lindisfarne Gospels, incipit to the Gospel of Matthew. 8^th century.

What will we look at?

The course will be divided into three basic sections, plus an introduction. The first section will be a general survey or overview of the first 1200 years of Christian sacred art, to give students a starting familiarity with terms, styles and periods. After that, three “drop-down” sections will be divided into “Early Christian art (300-500 AD),” “Byzantine art (500-1453 AD),” and “Italian and Northern European Gothic art (1100-1500 AD)”.

Gospels of Liessies, Saint John. 12th c.

Those who have been following along in the last few months will start to have at least an idea what we will be looking at. Within those three sections, we can develop into a lot of different directions. Byzantine alone covers Christian art in Egypt, Syria and Ethiopia before we even get to Greece and Constantinople, to say nothing of Russia and the Balkans.

Another reason we’re going to stop at 1500- the start of the “early modern period” - is that this is the moment the Christian world lost its unity. It fragmented politically, culturally, politically and artistically as though someone took a hammer to it. Frankly, from the perspective of Christians looking for works in keeping with the great tradition to help them reach heaven, 1500 is a good line to draw. We really don’t need more Naturalism in our spiritual lives.

Madonna and Child, (and goldfinch). Master of the Sienese Straus Madonna. c. 1385-89. A typical example of Sienese Trecento painting.

The three sections are broad enough we can keep expanding and deep-diving pretty much indefinitely. And reading and writing about the art of Christianity between 300 and 1500 certainly leaves plenty of room for expansion:

• What is Byzantine art?

• Pre-Christian origins in Egypt, Greece and Hellenic Judaism

• Christianity dawns: Christian (Coptic) Egypt, Africa, Syria, Greece and Rome under persecution

• Alexandria and Sinai - the monastic desert cities and first true icons

• Emancipation and Imperial sponsorship

• Constantine moves the Empire East

• Byzantine art of Italy

• The “Barbarian” Invasions: Germanic, Lombard and northern European influences

• Norman conquest of Sicily: the art of the Northmen in the south

• Islamic influences in the Levant, the Balkans, Christian Armenia and southern Italy

• Christianity’s art in Russia

• Forms in Iconography: wall frescos, mosaic, panel icons

• The liturgical architectural setting: icons in churches

• The splitting of the empire: Iconoclasm, the Filioque and the Great Schism

• Charlemagne, the Carolingian Renaissance and the invention of “Europe”Codex books and Carolingian Miniscule; Ottonian and Carolingian manuscript art and the first pan-European writing system

• Insular or Hiberno-Saxon - the art of the monastic North countries, Britain and Ireland

• Insular script: the books of Kells and Durrow and the Lindisfarne Gospels

• Stone carving of the early Middle Ages

• The Crusader cities of the Holy Land

• Romanesque; the Nazareth column capitals

… and we’re only up to about 1100…

Why this course? Because its by a Christian for Christians

Everyone has heard of the Renaissance and its really easy to find material on it, but if I asked, “Which is your favourite Trecento painter, Simone Martini or Lorenzo Monaco?” how many would know that it’s a trick question¹?

I’ve discovered there’s a pretty big gap in the general awareness among English speaking Christians of the great artists and works of Christian art before Giotto. Art in general has really suffered from the cult of celebrity; everyone goes to Florence to look at Michelangelo’s David. But as someone said the other day, turn away from the crowds gawping and pointing their phones at the Birth of Venus in the Uffizi and you’ll find this:

I want to metaphorically grab readers by the shoulders and turn them around to see something they’ve never even imagined seeing before.

The idea is for a course specifically focusing on Christian sacred art, not only on the technicalities style and history, but its spiritual aspects, how it relates to mystical theology and the pursuit of our spiritual goals.

When?

So, as soon as the turkey coma wears off and we’ve all finished hard-core Christmasing, I’ve got a pile of notes to compile into the first parts of the first section, the general survey. I expect² we’ll be ready to start uploading the first packages by the end of February. We’ll bite off little bites.

Thanks so much to everyone who has taken an interest, commented on articles, sent emails, and especially commissioned paintings and bought my prints and other products. It’s already been a transformative journey from my first course in icon painting almost exactly 4 years ago. I sort of had an idea I was getting into something bigger than myself, but I had no idea how many others were going to be involved.

I am looking forward more than I can say to our next projects.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and a blessed Epiphany to all,

Hilary

1. Lorenzo Monaco was a Camaldolese monk and painter who rejected the new “Early Renaissance” trends of Florentine painting and consciously stuck with the earlier Trecento style. He entered the monastery in 1390 and gained fame as a painter in the 1400s - “Quattrocento”.

2. Yes, I realise I’m going out on a wild limb here… But deadlines work miracles, in my experience.