(Saturday) Goodie Bag for August 3rd: All seeing eye? Hildegarde's visions? More weird icons east and west
Below the fold: more exclusive pics and clips from Siena Duomo's fabulous Baptistry
Some updates and a welcome to new subscribers
Welcome to August - we’re finally getting to the last stage of our annual summer test of endurance - and to the Friday Goodie Bag for August 2nd, (translated to the following Saturday). A big welcome to all our new subscribers; I hope you will benefit from and enjoy our explorations of this tremendous spiritual and historical patrimony.
I’m tremendously encouraged by the ongoing and growing interest out there in this work. The last time I did a blurb like this back in April, the growth was about 200/30 days, and we have jumped a lot since then, with nearly a thousand new subscriptions overall.
I’m also happy to welcome those who have signed up to be paid members; many thanks again and I hope we can help each other. Paid members receive an in-depth post per week (usually Mondays) and are able to see the second half of our weekly Friday (sometimes Saturday) post. That’s where I can post video clips and photos of the various places I’ve been and works I’ve seen, as well as those from friends who send me their stuff. It’s like getting little mini-guided tours. I always take a lot more photos and videos than I can sensibly post in a single piece, so there’s loads to go.
The Spiritual Life and Prayer According to Holy Scripture and Monastic Tradition: a paid subscriber chat
We’ve also started our reading group for paid subscribers on the Substack Chat. We’re working our way slowly through a classic book on Benedictine spirituality. We’re working toward Chapter IV “Union with God; a Grace”.
A taste:
If you’ve always felt as though you don’t know enough about the interior life, the pursuit of divine union with God, you’re definitely not alone. We’re in the chat talking about it and how we can better integrate prayer into our lives.
We’re also working our way through this series on prayer by Fr. Cassian Folsom, the founder of the Norcia monastery.
On top of all that, we’ve had some digital downloads, PDF articles, videos and other fun stuff for paid subscribers, and there’s lots more in the works. Much of it, by the way, is oriented toward people who are home schooling and can’t find in-depth material on the history of art that isn’t heavily secularised; art history from the perspective of a believer is exceedingly rare, and I’m hoping to close that gap.
Why is it important? - the Image and Likeness of God, the Divine Prototype
It’s made me think about why I’m doing this. I had a rather unpleasant note from some random guy on Twitter some time ago, asking why I’m wasting my time and energies painting and writing about “pretty pictures” while the world seems to be burning itself down. I suppose he remembered my other work in Catholic journalism and commentary, when I paid a great deal of detailed attention to the multiplying evils of our time. But this attitude toward Christian sacred art, toward Christian culture is the reason the world is tearing itself apart right now, and is exactly what I’m trying to address by re-introducing western Christians to our patrimony. If you think it’s not important, that images are irrelevant, you’ve failed to pay attention to one of the main ways modern people have been corrupted, mentally and spiritually.
Most readers know that I keep a pretty close eye on the goings on; you won’t be left in any doubt if you follow my Twitter feed. But in the 15 years I was writing political news journalism, I was haunted by the thought that we weren’t offering solutions; just lamenting over the destruction. Over the years I found it increasingly difficult to justify the doom-scrolling and black-pilling I and my colleagues were both encouraging in readers and engaging in ourselves. For all that it’s called “activism” it seems strangely bereft of tangible answers, let alone positive results.
As I said back in April:
I feel like we are at a crucial juncture in the western world, as if we are being forced to make a choice between saving our civilisation’s collective soul or watching its utter destruction. And this little website feels like a chance for me to plant my flag, and invite others to stand up for this culture that has been like no other in human history, which we are in danger of losing forever.
What I learned from those years of working with my attention trained outward on the world, is that we in the West have entirely forgotten who we are. Why is “identity” so much in crisis right now? When I started studying iconography, I found a name for it: we have lost our divine iconographic prototype.
All the things our governments are doing to us they are able to do because we have lost the strength that comes from that unshakable knowledge of our identity, and its relationship with the Divine Prototype - which is what “image and likeness of God” means.
And there is nowhere this loss of identity shows itself more clearly than in our visual arts. Our art expresses our interior cultural agony better than ten thousand editorials; it is the art of a people who are so entirely cut off from their divine source as to have forgotten even what kind of beings we are.
Icons are a requirement of our nature. Can our nature do without an image? Can we call to mind an absent person without representing or imagining him to ourselves? Has not God Himself given us the capacity of representation and imagination? Icons are the Church’s answer to a crying necessity of our nature.
– St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ
We have drunk down a flat, dry empiricism, a view of the universe that is entirely material, with our mother’s milk, so ubiquitous is this worldview in our post-Enlightenment age. It is not easy to shake off this fundamental outlook, but I think we have to do it to save our souls, and if the news is anything to judge by, our lives and the lives of all children.
And this is the real reason I believe very firmly that what I’m doing is genuinely worthwhile. I learned what we were missing when I started studying Christian sacred iconography, and started connecting it to the crisis of meaning, our ontological crisis, which was at the core of all the work I’d done before. I finally had something positive to offer, and knew that I wanted to share it.
I hope you’ll subscribe
The little blurb above the subscription button always reads something like: “The Sacred Images Project is a reader-supported publication, which means there’s no annoying ads BUT also no advert revenue to keep the lights on and the kitties fed.”
But I think maybe people don’t realise that I mean this literally. What I earn on this site, plus monthly patronages through my studio blog and occasional sales of paintings and prints, makes up my entire income.
We’re ahead since last April, but I’m still only covering expenses. Maybe because it’s summer and everyone’s gone on holiday, paid subscriptions seem to have abruptly dried up again, as you can see from the graph above.
I’ve got high hopes for this project, to expand to include other writers, to develop podcasts and keep working on those homeschool mini-courses. I hope you’ll come along.
Feel free to also take a browse around my shop, where you can buy prints of some of my drawings and paintings and other items, by clicking here:
If you prefer, instead of subscribing on Substack, you can set up a monthly patronage for an amount of your choice on the studio blog, “Hilary White: Sacred Art”. Anyone taking out a patronage for $9/month or more will of course also get a complimentary paid membership here.
More iconographic oddities
There is a great deal of medieval and Byzantine sacred art that is heavily or almost completely symbolic or allegorical, and to our very literal, materialistic modern western minds can be extremely difficult to come to grips with. But it’s worth wrestling with these abstractions, allegories and symbols to see how the minds of our spiritual forebears looked at the truths of the Faith differently from ours.
The Eye of Providence Icon
It is sometimes also called “The Coal of Isaiah.”
This icon is a symbolic, allegorical and abstract composition representing the omniscient and vigilant all-seeing eye of God, the light of Christ. “Behold, the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy.” Ps 33:18
Around the edges of the figures the following inscriptions can be read:
“The Burning Coal appeared to Isaiah, the sun arose from the virgin’s womb, bringing to those who wandered in darkness the light of the knowledge of God.” - reference to Isaiah 6:6-8 “Then one of the seraphim was sent to me. He had a live coal in his hand, which he took with tongs from the altar. He touched my mouth, and said, ‘Behold, this has touched your lips. Your lawlessness is taken away, and your sin is cleansed.’ I also heard the voice of the lord, saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go to this people?’ Then I said, ‘Behold, here am I, send me.’”
This also refers to a part of the Divine Liturgy in the East: “As the Burning Coal that appeared to Isaiah, a sun arose from the virgin’s womb, bringing to those who wandered in darkness the light of the knowledge of God.” - both the burning coal and the sun are equated with Christ.
Around the green circle is the Magnificat: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour. For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant.” (Luke 1:46–48)
Around the blue circle: “Your eyes will be upon the faithful of the land, and greet them with cherubim who are glorifying God.”
Around God the Father and outermost circle is the Sanctus of the Angels in the Book of Revelation, the epinikios hymnos or Hymn of Victory: “Holy, holy, holy, the glory of the Lord of Hosts is full of heaven and earth.”
Around the innermost circle is the Greater Doxology: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.” (Luke 2:14)
Commentary from the Fathers given by the Orthodox Study Bible, says, “A live coal touching the mouth; Isaiah experiences as a symbol of the Eucharist, which is taken from the altar to be served to the faithful.”
Christ the Divine Judge: Revelation 1++9:15
Why is there a sword in, coming out of or across Jesus’ mouth?
Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.
Rev. 1: 12 - 18
“Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. ‘He will rule them with an iron sceptre.’ He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.”
Rev. 19: 15
Christ is described to match the description of God in the vision of Daniel. His hair is white, like the “Ancient of Days” in Daniel’s prophecy. His feet of bronze signify permanence or stability, His voice, authority of the teaching of God; His eyes signify the flame of knowledge; His right hand, power.
His two-edged sword is complete authoritative discernment in judgement which cuts effortlessly to the heart of humanity. The brilliance of his face recalls the Uncreated Light John saw on Mt. Tabor emanating from Jesus.
The Lord holds seven stars in one hand, representing the seven churches, meaning the Church.
We are no longer used to seeing literal depictions of the visions of St. John from the Book of Revelations, but they were commonly included in medieval Christian sacred art both east and west.
Here’s a little clip from my trip to visit the incredible Cripta San Magno, at Agnani, about an hour outside Rome, last February. You can see all the other clips and photos here.
Liber Divinorum Operum (The Book of Divine Works)
Theophany of Divine Love.
This is an illustration of the Book of Divine Works by St. Hildegard of Bingen1. It is, again, an allegorical figure representing the “theophany2 of Divine Love”.
God has signified all creation in humankind, made in his image and likeness; and after the fall, he gathered them, renewed simply by love’s goodness through his Incarnation, into that blessedness that the fallen angel had lost; and so this is what is shown by the mystical signification of the vision just described.
Devoted faith embraces the excellence of divine Love, and through this, God is understood to be One in Trinity; by the merit of that faith, God himself by his protection leads humans back to heaven.
The love of God and of neighbour cannot be separated and is strengthened by the virtue of faith.
Whoever has submitted to God with humble devotion and been set alight by the aid of the Holy Spirit overcomes both what is corrupted within themselves and the devil; the angels rejoice because of the good works of the just and praise God’s omnipotence.
(Read the full passage here.)
In Hildegard’s Vision of Divine Love, this image presents a way of visualising the abstraction of non-material reality: Divine Love, which creates and sustains all life. It is embodied by a young woman who holds the Lamb of God and tramples upon the devil. Her face is bright red, a colour associated in western medieval iconography with the heavenly fire of divine love3. From the top of her head emerges God the Father, the creative mind and power of God symbolically enthroned on this allegorical representation of Divine Love.
Join us below the fold for more clips and photos from Siena the Baptistry, the recently discovered and restored crypt and Duomo.
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