Matthew Alderman. S. Thomas More with a Patron. Ink on vellum. April-May 2009. Private Collection, New Hampshire.
Here is a drawing commission I did last year for a young lady and attorney (and as of a few months ago, mother-to-be) with a great devotion to St. Thomas More. The patron is shown being presented by her guardian angel to St. Thomas More, who is accompanied by another angel bearing the headsman's axe of his execution. The saint's arms, with the external ornaments of his Lord Chancillorship, are shown at bottom right, with the client's arms (though shown on a generic shield rather than the female lozenge, due, I admit, to an oversight on my part) are shown at left. Much of the composition is inspired by van Eyck's Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, though unlike Rolin, the client is being humbly presented by a heavenly intermediary rather than presuming to simply present herself at the foot of her patron saint.
This is awesome!
ReplyDeleteAs a lawyer! I love this... maybe one day if I ever make any money, I'll commission something like this from you.
"though shown on a generic shield rather than the female lozenge, due, I admit, to an oversight on my part"
ReplyDeleteWell if she was a mother-to-be I take it she is married, so the oversight was fortunate, since even under English rules, as I understand them, married women do not display their arms on lozenges. That said, I have always had a particular dislike for lozenges, which happily never really became popular in Mitteleuropa. They seem decidedly unheraldic to me, the worst form of paper heraldry.
She is married, though at the time of drawing I think she was just engaged, and not at all a mother-to-be, of course. I'm not sure if her husband is armigerous, but he certainly could assume arms if he desired. (And considering the wedding was on the horizon, the shield, as you said, makes a good deal of sense.)
ReplyDeleteOn top of that, after writing that comment on lozenges, I did a bit of research and, like you said, I discovered lozenges were not common at all in Germany and were never introduced at all in Poland. As the client is German and Polish in her ethnic background, introducing an English heraldic element would have been somewhat out-of-place. (And you're right they're somewhat of a fussy development--historically they were used only intermittently in France and England until the Renaissance.)
I would enjoy hearing some thoughts on the heraldic or iconographic significance of sunglasses.
ReplyDeleteHAHAHAHA...besides the patron wears them on her head 90% of the time?
ReplyDeleteEr...let me try getting in a Jacobus de Voragine mood...hmmm...perhaps because they are perched on her head and not actually in use they represent the clarity of the New Covenant?
Matthew, that is stunning; I love the way you use traditional structures for modern pictures.
ReplyDeleteAlthough yes, the sunglasses are a gloriously bizarre touch.
Perhaps by being placed on top of her head rather than over her eyes they could be symbolic of her drawing nearer to the Presence of God, but not having reached there yet?
Or perhaps symbolic of the enlightenment of the law, or her personal enlightenment through her meeting with the saint.
ReplyDeleteWorks for me. Why not? Someday we may have saints who wore sunglasses in life. The canonization of Bl. Chiara Badano (a young lady who died in 1990 at age 18 after a year of heroic suffering in illness) makes one wonder if one can find anagogic symbolism for tennis gear, given her fondness for the game...
ReplyDeleteI mean, the beatification, which is coming up later this year. She's not been canonized yet.
ReplyDeleteScissors, incidentally, were used as a symbol of Biblical exegesis by medieval painters. Presumably at one time they were a new gadget as well...
I've been in older churches that depict modern people and buildings in a traditional way (modern for the 19th and early 20th Century). I think St John Cantius in Chicago has a painting depicting Jesus sitting amongst turn of the century children with the church and school in the background. I was also once in a Byzantine Catholic Church where Saints Peter and Paul were holding a representation of the church itself - a modern boxy looking building.
ReplyDeleteAnyway - beautiful image.
I suspect sunglasses ought to relate to the whole "God dwells in light" thing that shows up with black madonnas (Mary saying "I am black" in comparison to the incomparable brightness of the Sun of Justice).
ReplyDeleteThere's also a good deal of stuff in Scripture about shade; and about trying not to be blind, as noted above....
Could be a sign of prudence, though -- you've got your sunglasses right there, ready for your need when you go out into the world.
ReplyDelete