Shrine of the Holy Whapping

S. Joan with her Voices

2011-12-30T15:41:00.000-05:00

S. Joan of Arc with her Voices: SS. Michael, Katherine and Margaret. Ink on vellum. December 2009. © Matthew Alderman 2009. Private Collection, Washington, D.C. matthewalderman.com. (Larger version here, print available here).

2011-12-30T11:35:00.005-05:00

Welcome, readers of Crisis Magazine! I hope you enjoyed my recent book review there of Dr. Zmirak's graphic novel, The Grand Inquisitor. For those interested in my artistic and design work, please mosey over to matthewalderman.com for your further edification and entertainment. Prints, stationary, and other odds and ends available for purchase here ("The workman is worthy of his hire." --Luke 10:7).

(Above: The Espousal of the Blessed Virgin with SS. Joachim and Anne. Ink on Vellum. March 2010. © Matthew Alderman 2010. Private Collection, Minnesota.)

From the Archives:The La Sapienza Wine Bar, and a Visit to Piazza Navon

2011-12-30T10:14:00.003-05:00

Apologies for the long absence. This was originally published 09/12/03, during my year studying in Rome, and is suitably Christmassy for a day in the Octave:

I’ve spoken often about the street life of Italy, the one country in the world that seems like a twenty-four-hour open-air comic opera. However, the other day I saw a much more literal example of urban theater, or at the very least a pause between acts. In the stuccoed, bulky shadow of Sant’ Ivo della Sapienza, I saw one of Italy’s cinematic auteurs plying his trade.

Okay, maybe he was just shooting a commercial, as it did not have the look of a major motion picture. Still, filming on location, even if it’s the outdoor seating secton of the La Sapienza Wine Bar, has to count for something. The cast and crew were sitting around with a mixture of dejection and mild pique waiting for a graffiti-festooned and extremely noisy dump truck to clear out of earshot.

Inside, the café patrons (or perhaps extras) were trying very hard to look cool, while a bored, tanned and perhaps slightly shopworn starlet glugged down bottled water at one of the iron sidewalk tables. I caught a glimpse of the big zebra-striped clipboard gadget that always seems to show up at movie-making sites, or at least that’s they way it is on television. And on it, the name of the auteur and his work. In this case, one Sergio Prenoli. And the rather generic title of Roma.

Well, at least I had a name. By that point I had also walked straight into a now rather indignant bald man because of my rubbernecking. I sputtered some apologies and headed back to studio and thought about ways to fill up the pleasantly blank slate of my upcoming weekend.

I swung by later with my two friends Vera and Amelia—the Maenad girls, as I call them, because of an amusing mishap that happened on a trip to Tivoli involving two litres of red wine, my puritanical teetotaler habits and an empty mineral water bottle. But that’s another story. Anyway, Sergio Prenoli hadn’t gotten much farther with his great work. The starlet was looking fashionably bored at a different table with a different drink and they’d introduced a boom mike as well as wrapping one of the reflectors in blue plastic. Roma was looking very much true to Italian life: nothing seemed to be happening.

We weren’t stargazing, anyway, we were heading over to the Piazza Navona Christmas fair. The morning was surprisingly cool and clear, the first blue sky I’d seen in days. And it was wonderfully blue, and wonderfully chill. If I’d had any doubts about Italy’s devotion to Christmas, it had vanished. Over one narrow street, someone had hung half-arcs of red crepe and pine, festooned with gilt angels. Meanwhile, Piazza Navona positively buzzed with Yuletide hustle and bustle.

The sun bounced off the pure white stucco of the Brazilian Embassy façade, pigeons wheeling lazily in the cool air. Dozens of booths ringed the long, narrow piazza, while a carrousel spun in the center in a blaze of prerecorded music, flashing mirrors and garish nude caryatids encrusted with perhaps their tenth layer of paint. Everyone seemed to be smiling.

At first glance, some of the stalls had very little to do with Christmas. The girls stopped off at the first one, diffidently hovering on the edge of the carnival, carefully looking through velvet scarves hanging on a rack. The rest of the stand seemed to be devoted to soccer memorabilia, gloves, weird Peruvian knit caps and an incongruous Che flag. A couple of freckled blonde California girls exchanged casual tourist remarks in their native accent, curious to hear after so long in Italy. And then there was the preposterous mannequin torso with molded Redneck sideburns and goatee wearing the Assitalia team colors.

We moved on, passing a serious bevy of pudgy, bespectacled little nuns and a sprinkling of young matrons with toddlers. They seemed to be the target audience, as the booths were so weighed down with great garlands of hanging merchandise it would have taken a midget to clear one of these extravaganzas without knocking down either a bundle of Christmas stockings with pictures of Japanimation characters or La Befana playing soccer or maybe a seven-foot-tall Pink Panther about the color of cotton candy.

It was a six-year-old’s dream come to life. There were action figures of all races, creeds and TV shows, rapiers with cardboard Zorro masks, racks of miniature plastic Roman centurion cuirasses, and then a truly inexplicable guitar-shaped stuffed animal with the words “I love you” on its belly. What on earth would a kindergartener make of this monstrosity? Or the stuffed Rastafarian doll with cigar, bongos and gold teeth? Or even more puzzling, that enormous four-foot-tall gorilla with a snake shoved up his nose?

On the other hand, there were also some wonderful, and doubtlessly absurdly expensive, stuffed tigers and panthers snarling away with open mouths and quite convincing teeth. Most of them looked larger than the children who would want to play with them, set pieces designed to drive young Roman mothers nuts trying to explain to their charges that they did not need toys bigger than some compact cars.

Santa was there as well, either as a mechanical dummy doing a sort of Elvis hip-swinging dance, or available as a four-piece set of musicians, Santa variously on drums, bass violin, saxophone, or most frighteningly, accordion. A string of Christmas lights played several anthems dedicated to this curious secular saint.

La Befana, however, was clearly queen of this festival, and great bundles of Christmas Witch dolls were hanging like strings of onions from a dozen booths. Occasionally one would let loose with a diabolical pre-programmed electric cackle. A few other ones had a faint converted-kewpie look, less Macbeth than Samantha Stevens. Some others even looked faintly obscene.

I don’t really get La Befana the Christmas Witch. I don’t get the Italian witch fascination at all, though I admit to being a bit hazy on her existence up until the other day. (I still am not wholly convinced Strega Nona isn’t really just a brand of pasta, either.) A holiday mascot that looks due to scare the bejeepers out of your average toddler (or at the very least give the most redoubtable first-grader a case of, as they say, the jibblies) seems rather an unlikely giver of gifts. But Italy is Italy.

I did however, get the rest of the fair with crystal clarity. There were remarkable booths bedecked with hundreds of glassblown ornaments tempting fate (and small children) in the clear cool air. They were vast translucent rainbows, some cobalt, some gilt, some shocking pink with feathers like exotic fishing lures. Even more pleasurable were the candy stands, piled high with shiny obsidian-black dollops of licorice, green almond paste and dozens of jelly worms, or the occasional mandarin-yellow wax apples, looking good enough to eat.

And then came the nativity scene vendors. They were everywhere, selling everything and anything you could need to kick your crèche up a notch (or ten). There were plenty of quaint cork-carved stables and working miniature wall fountains and corn cribs and just about any other structure imaginable, some populated by horrible smooth-faced Fontanini knockoffs, others filled with minute figures that looked likely to get trampled underfoot like so many post-Christmas lego bricks back at home.

There were automated smithies with their brawny-armed blacksmiths striking plastic hammers against plastic anvils with balletic repetition that suggested both strength and repetitive stress motion injury, as well as all sorts of weird and wonderful accessories, like baskets of silvery sardines no bigger than grains of rice, tiny (and anachronistic) tin milk pails, frying eggs in pans and even trays of mushrooms. And you thought gold, frankincense and myrrh made for weird newborn gifts.

The girls stopped to examine more scarves at a more ordinary stand which also sold novelty boxer shorts. There was so much more here, the hoardings with the enormous Lenin-sized effigy of Gwyneth Paltrow asking for her martini, the weird hydrocephalic Tweety-bird balloons, the disreputable heraldist at his computerized booth peddling the history, shield and noble title of your last name, and the great festival of travertine that Bernini had erected in the center centuries earlier, the grand rocailled spike of the Fountain of the Four Rivers with its aquamarine water and sober river-gods around which this Roman weirdness seemed to swirl.

And then there was the empty cabin at the center for the coming attraction—a vast nativity scene. Maybe it would have sardines and mushrooms and frying pans, but it would also have something far more important, the Child that all these children squealing for La Befama were ultimately waiting for.

The girls finished up their shopping and we headed back to studio. They decided they had to ride on the carrousel at least once before they left. Not a bad idea, since Christmas at Navona only comes once a year. Which makes me wonder what they do with all those mini-sardines for the rest of the time.

From the Archives: Heraclitus and Ursula

2011-12-29T08:18:00.000-05:00

This was originally published on 04/01/2004, during my time studying abroad in Italy, which now seems so long ago, and deals with a visit to the town of Barletta in Apulia, the heel of the Italian boot. I hope, to introduce new readers to my Italian essays, to periodically post old pieces from the archives on this site over the next year.

The first thing I heard about Barletta was that it was home to the largest bronze statue left over from antiquity. The second thing that I discovered was, according to Professor Nessman, it was also the ugliest bronze statue left over from antiquity. And it wasn't even that old. Apparently some bits of the ungainly giant--either Heraclitus or Constantius II--had washed up on shore one morning during the early Renaissance. The townspeople decided to finish the job, with less than serviciable results.

Inspecting the completed sculpture in front of the church of Santo Sepolcro, Heraclitus's solemn, bag-eyed face looking more dourly Byzantine than classically antique, it seemed fine enough to me. Though for some reason, the top of Heraclitus's head was missing. Given the preponderance of flat roofs in the region, the danger of the Emperor filling up with rainwater seems a small danger.

We arrived in the dark Thursday evening. The outskirts seemed, at best, shabby, filled with haphazard high-rises with the occasional concession to tradition in the form of Italianate roofline dingbats. The hotel was on the outskirts of town in the beachfront tourist ghetto, a gleaming new pocket-sized four-star in hyper-clean imitation art-deco. The occasional nod to postmodernism showed up in a few crooked lines here and there that suggested the architect had hiccupped in the middle of drafting.

Still, I had a feeling I was going to like the complementary breakfasts, no matter who designed the place.

The mayor was footing the bill, and feeding us darn well, too. We soon were escorted next door to the Brigantino Due Restaurant to an extravagantly multi-course dinner of spinach pasta and fresh fish. In between the luxury, we were expected to take copious notes and measurements about all things Barletta, the net result being we would design a master-plan for the die-hard classicist town council who wanted something a bit more solid to show to the real architects to give them some ideas. So solid that he was willing to go as far as to let us stay for a week rather than just a weekend.

I was a bit agnostic about the town's prospects, though I planned to enjoy the food nonetheless. I hadn't seen much to suggest that a week or a month here would give us anything with which to save the place. The towns we'd passed nestled under the lofty peaks of the southern Appenines were choked with sprawl, and looked too busy trying to survive to be quaint. History, after all, had not been as cutely kind to the underdeveloped south as she had to the touristed hills of the Val d'Orcia or the cobbled streets of Arezzo.

Plus, there was the fact that our hotel's next-door neighbor was a video game parlor. The closest thing to classicism was the La Rotonda pizza stand at the bend in the coastal highway. To be fair, we had glimpsed the glorious floodlit Trani marble spire of the Duomo as we had driven past, but I wasn't about to hold my breath.

Not yet.

The next morning, the tour took us straight into old-town Barletta. We walked through the green, empty park around the stark sloped white walls of the old fortress. We'd meet the mayor there, though it seemed his Excellency was nowhere in sight and the heavy iron grill of the barbican was still locked. The moat was dry, but still looked thoroughly impassable.

And so we began to wander. We soon found ourselves standing on ancient paving stones, rich and mottled in their subtle rainbow of pink and yellow, their sharp edges glazed with hundreds of years of passing steps.

Then we entered under the arch of the campanile and passed into another world.

Narrow streets, iron balconies, a patina of beautiful peeling stucco. Time and antiquity pressed close as the walls of the tiny alleys. On our left hand, the austere white flank of the church rose; Saracenic arabesques and weird Romanesque gargoyles snarled at us across centuries of time. The tiny piazza before the Duomo was empty in the chill winter morning. We entered under the curve of an arch carved with a surreal bestiary of long-necked dragons and double-bodied centaurs tangled amid an Arabic tree of life, and found a small miracle of pale, clear light and even clearer stone.

A brief foray into the open door of the sacristy ended with the uncertain stare of a sexton, and so I slowly made my way around the ambulatory, bathed in the cool white light. In the north aisle stood a wooden half-length reliquary effigy of a swooning female martyr, eyes dark and raised to heaven, glossy and naive. Against the pale skin of her neck could be glimpsed a neat round red wound streaming precise drops of painted blood. Gilt gleamed on her ornate dress and carven waves of hair. St. Ursula, perhaps, by the limp cloth banner held in one dramatic outstretched hand. At her chest was a neat little glass window--and inside--

I wasn't certain, but it looked like a great curving shard of skull. The skull of a saint, inches away from me. I pressed my fingers against the glass, put my hand on hers, and simply stood there for a minute, astonished. It was--I felt chills, a faint quickening of my breath, confusion and excitement. Grotesque, perhaps, this disembodied fragment of someone else's life on display, and I felt that tingle of perversity. But soon, amazement overwhelmed it. But I was as close as humanly possible to a splinter of sanctity. Ursula, that great martyred princess of legend, who wasn't supposed to exist. Like the classical town that we were trying to re-build here.

I decided I was going to like Barletta.

***

Perhaps the ages have been unkind to Barletta's fringes, but amid the close-hugging townhouses of the old centro storico, the memories of the past still lingered, and lingered beautifully.

Barletta's only significant historic claim to fame, after Heraclitus, is a duel which pitted thirteen gallant but outnumbered Italian knights against a significantly larger group of occupying foreigners. Either Spanish or French, nobody I talked to seemed to be sure.

The overt act in the brawl occurred in a tavern off one of the tiny principal streets of the old quarter. The lofty, vaulted bar-cellar is still there, grand but empty. Its display cases are barren, the only exhibit a histrionic plaster effigy of one of the victors beating up a Frenchman (or was it a Spaniard?). About the only things of interest that remain are a stack of magazines, some marginally historic furniture and a tired docent. A mannered, historically accurate beaux-arts-Romanesque monument in the piazetta out front is about the only clue to who killed who here.

It may be Barletta's only claim to fame, but there are still hidden treasures tucked away from the prying eyes of beachfront tourists.

Around the corner from the tavern--around every corner, practically--could be glimpsed the facade of a graceful baroque church, springing to life with naive, glorious whirls of cherubim that seemed to unite the provincial perfection of Latin American baroque with the charming vigor of a New England Puritan tombstone. And to imagine growing up here, amid such splendid monsters and strange legends--it boggled the mind.

It's a slow town, an unremarkable town, even, the sort of average village that an Italian Garrison Keillor might make up meandering, poignant stories about. But a Garrison Keillor who would have grown up in the shadow of ancient churches with doors carved with linenfold panelling and images of the Host blazing above a chalice. In a history-soaked country, Barletta's shabby charm might seem ludicrous in comparison to Rome's hundreds of churches and eons of existence, but to an American like myself, it seems just about the right size. I could see myself being very happy here.

The town, for all my early cynicism, had a homely, homey beauty. Literally, it feels like you've stepped into someone's well-loved home. After all, our own Professor Marconi grew up in its welcoming, grimy alleyways and exotic stucco, beneath the forest of television antennae that bristle like spider-webbed ships' masts over the flat roof-terraces of the village.

We sketched and wandered, and wandered and sketched, and soon it was siesta time. The Puglians take siesta seriously: the cathedral's closed at least until four, and most shops hardly stir from noon to five. Clouds and chill gave way to golden-auburn late-afternoon light on the cornices of a dozen age-streaked stucco palazetti. Dead Christmas decorations still hung on the locked church doors.

Meanwhile, I had begun to inspect the people of Barletta, as well as her architecture. And it looked like they were perfectly happy to inspect me as well. I sat myself down on a metal bench in a little square that lay in the shadow of a grizzled white-marble civic campanile, cornices dark with the patina of age.

The piazza, humming with the din of midday traffic on the main street, seemed to be populated entirely by old men in flat caps. I sat there for a space, watching the pigeons waddle, heads bobbing, as the afternoon light caught the purple iridescence on their necks. Later, two five-year-olds started scrambling over the bench and eagerly demanded what I was doing, inspecting my sketchbook with cries of delight. After they had exhausted my meager Italian vocabulary, I excused myself and left them to clobber each other with delighted shrieks.

I continued to meander. In the cathedral, a cleaning lady was desultorily thwacking the base of the St. Ursula statue. Back outside, a young girl smoked on a balcony, giving me a diffident stare through the arched alleyway. On a convent square, an old man sat perfectly still in a darkened doorway, looking contented beyond compare. I offered a ciao to an old lady and a young woman hanging out laundry on a balcony, garnering a muttered giorno from the nonna. It was siesta. No need to strain oneself.

Almost everything was closed. Admitted, the scuzzy Lizard cantina was still open, its walls decorated by a single poster of Emilio Zapata, the bargain-basement Che. But the extraordinarily-named Shakespeare's Head English pub and the Irish jazz bar with the enormous Guinness advertisement painted on the front door didn't look like they would open for a while. The High Fashion Uomo store was, however, doing business with some exorbitantly large discounts, though given the quality of the flashy merchandise--something out of What the Well-Dressed Goombah is Wearing--it looked like the customers could use all the encouragement they could get.

But, goombahs or no, the town still slumbered beautifully.

Soon, a pink sunset was streaking the white stone of the church. Four kids, one sporting purple-streaked hair, sat under the wild Saracenic arabesques and munched potato chips. Within, the gleaming whiteness had turned to a serene pale gloom, illumed only by the warm sparks of light from the bulbs in the shrine to St. Roch, his downturned face kind in the darkness.

It was too dark to see St. Ursula, though, save for a tinselly spark on the gilded filigree of her dress. So I turned to leave. Perhaps I might return some day.

Plus, the four kids had started screaming and throwing themselves against the portal in some juvenile display of rough-housing. It seemed a good-enough time to leave.

New Christmas Card Design

2011-12-24T10:24:00.002-05:00

© Matthew Alderman 2011
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God, and saying: Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will. And it came to pass, after the angels departed from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another: Let us go over to Bethlehem, and let us see this word that is come to pass, which the Lord hath shewed to us. --St. Luke, 2:13-15.

Studio Update from Matthew Alderman

2010-11-16T10:12:00.001-05:00

Just to let our readers know that I have been keeping busy during my occasional absences from the Shrine, I thought you might enjoy Matthew Alderman Studios' two official 2010 Christmas cards (here and here), complete with pre-printed greeting and quotation from the first chapter of the Gospel of John (Douay-Rheims translation): "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as it were of the Father, full of grace and truth." You can see and purchase the designs here.

In other news, I have been busy with some similar illustration and graphic projects--CD packaging design, a design for a set of altar cards that I hope will be available for commercial purchase soon, as well as my continuing work for St. Paul's in Madison, and some writing/journalism. More on these as they develop.

Matthew Alderman Studios in the News!

2010-10-26T12:14:00.004-04:00

Matthew Alderman Studios has been serving for the past few months as the designer for the principal elevation of the new St. Paul's University Catholic Center in Madison, Wisconsin, with RDG Design and Planning of Omaha serving as the overall architect of record. We are now releasing our concept to the various organs of the city government for their comment and review, so I can now share this exciting news with our readers.

St. Paul's University Catholic Church serves as the Newman Center for the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Under Fr. Eric Sternberg, it has spearheaded an amazing effort to bring the fire of the Faith to Madison's student population. Catholic life in Madison has undergone a remarkable renaissance under Bishop Morlino, and St. Paul's is one of the foundations of this resurgence. I can assert from personal experience that it is really heartening what is going on over there. St. Paul's is molding a new generation of faithful, responsible, and joyfully serious young Catholics.

The current facilities are crowded and do not match the parish's expanding vision. St. Paul's is proposing a mixed-use high rise, incorporating a chapel and offices on the lower floor, with a unique residential college located on its upper levels. The fourteen-story building's dormitories will house 175 students, while the chapel will have room for 500 worshippers. More details from the Wisconsin State-Journal:

Officials with the St. Paul Catholic Student Center at UW-Madison unveiled a new, less-boxy design Monday for a $45 million housing development and campus worship center. The design keeps the same square footage and 14-story height as an earlier version but presents it in a way that will better fit with surrounding historic buildings, they said. An April design drew concerns from city planners over mass and height.
"I don't know if we've addressed those concerns — it's the same height and size — but our goal is to convince city staff that while it's a tall building, it's not a very big building," said the Rev. Eric Nielsen, St. Paul's priest.
The project would replace the existing Catholic campus facility at 723 State St. The center's "relatively small" quarter-acre footprint would remain the same, with much of the 10,000 square feet coming in height, Nielsen said.
The student center portion of the current facility was built in the late 1800s. The chapel was built in 1909 and renovated 43 years ago. It has no residential component. The redeveloped center would house up to 175 students. "This is something Catholics in the state will want for students here, and urban density is something the city wants," Nielsen said.
City Planning Division Director Brad Murphy did not return phone calls for comment. The student center is across from Memorial Library on State Street Mall and between University Book Store and the landmark, neo-Gothic revival Pres House, the campus Presbyterian chapel. The new design looks less blocky and more classical than the earlier version, center officials said. It is "more cohesive" in the way it integrates a chapel and student center on the lower levels with several stories of student housing, Nielsen said.
Informational plans for the project were to be submitted Monday to the Madison Landmarks Commission, said Ron Trachtenberg, St. Paul's attorney. The project is expected to go before the Landmarks Commission Nov. 8 and before the Urban Design Commission Nov. 10. The City Council will need to approve it, he said. Center officials hope to break ground in two to three years, said Scott Hackl, St. Paul's development director. A vast majority of the money for the project is expected to be raised from a small group of benefactors, he said.

The project poses a number of intriguing challenges; it was commented when I was first discussing the possibility of involvement that I was probably the only ecclesiastical design consultant in America who had made a systematic study of early twentieth-century churches with similar mixed-use programs, which the concept is reminiscent of. I was brought on board once most of the internal program had been worked out, as well as the basic height and width of the building, but a lot of the exterior massing and detail had not yet been worked out. After consultation with the clients, a form of Romanesque was adopted as the preferred style, given its obvious ecclesiastical connotations, its ability to blend with a more modern Deco aesthetic, and its ability to withstand budgetary simplification.

The interior of the building will house a variety of dormitories, apartments, meeting rooms, study lounges, and other facilities for the campus ministry, as well as the chapel, which is accessed through a large lobby and will be on the second level of the structure. It was important to impart an ecclesiastical character to the principal facade while at the same time asserting the building's mixed-use status. In my own sketches, I drew on the work of Ralph Adams Cram at Christ Church Methodist in New York, a rugged urban ecclesiastical plant with a great deal of dignity and personality, and Bertram Goodhue's slightly earlier St. Bartholomew's, just down the street on Park Avenue. St. Bart's offered some particularly useful ideas, as the General Electric Building, a particularly lofty high rise, was built behind it and designed to serve as a suitable low-key backdrop for the church's Byzantine dome, in much the same way the main shaft of the structure relates to the church facade below. This is also an important precedent given the neighboring structure, Pres House, the Presbyterian university church, is a landmarked Gothic revival structure, so while St. Paul's should make its identity clear, it must also create a symbiotic relationship with the older structure.

I imagine you will hear more from me on this in the next few weeks as the story develops further and we get reactions from the vox pops. Everything I have heard so far has been very positive. I encourage you in any case, if you live in Wisconsin, to tell your friends and support this very worthy cause. Not only could this be a great moment for traditional architecture, it could be a unique and fruitful opportunity for future generations of young Catholics in Wisconsin and throughout the Midwest.

How Do You Say "Plus ça Change" in Viennese Dialect?

2010-10-26T10:14:00.000-04:00

'...and well-presented anthems in churches were often rewarded with cries of "Bravo" and handclapping.'

--Arthur J. May, The Hapsburg Monarchy 1867-1914, Harvard, 1951, p. 309

Oh, Bother

2010-10-26T10:09:00.004-04:00

Someone had the...er...brilliant idea of inviting a man in a Winnie-the-Pooh suit to the recent birthday celebrations for Queen Elizabeth (or HRH Princess Philip of Greece and Denmark to those Jacobites in the audience). I am sure HM took things with her usual grace, but one simply wonders what made them connect men in foam costumes with royal dignity and old age.

2010-10-22T13:18:00.003-04:00

I suspect Captain Jack Aubrey would have done slightly more than this. Still, points for style.

2010-10-22T13:13:00.002-04:00

This little aside posted by Mark Shea reminds me why the word "spirituality" (when contrasted with "religion") puts me on my guard. There are a lot of things called spirits out there that aren't on the side of the angels. Or at least the good, unfallen sort of angels. Best to not go down that dark alley.

You've Come to the Right Place

2010-10-22T12:59:00.005-04:00

In my role as a lecturer on architectural topics I have been to a number of monasteries and convents, and even one seminary. All of them have been filled with devout, holy men and women and were of a traditional bent to their liturgy and life, but on one visit I definitively knew I was among friends when the monk showing me around said, in these exact words, "I'm quite devoted to the cult of relics,"* and then promptly opened up a largish armoire in the chapel filled with at least one hundred small bits of saints. I knew the talk I was scheduled to give was going to go over very well with that audience.

*Note to alarmed Protestants and the unchurched: Cult in this instance just means "veneration" or "respect" (cultus in Latin) but it sounds disappointly less scary if one puts it that way. It has nothing to do with worshipping Prince Philip as a god or drinking koolade in Guyana. One might speak in a secular context of the cultus of the American flag centered on the pledge of allegiance, or, in certain parts of the Midwest, the cultus of the Green Bay Packers centered on nearly everything someone can stick green and gold on.

An American Neuschwanstein That Wasn't

2010-10-21T12:31:00.004-04:00

The wonderful, wonderful book Unbuilt America: Forgotten Architecture from Jefferson to the Space Age was a constant companion of mine during college, and from it stems my fascination with Halsey Wood's "Sacre Coeur on Crack"-style design for St. John the Divine in New York; another great fanciful unbuilt unknown is this Maxfield Parrish-esque proposal (apparently seriously considered) for a U.S. summer capital complex in Colorado to house the President and his retinue during the hotter months. The castle would have been located in Mount Falcon, Colorado, and would have cost $50,000 and the landscaping $200,000. Views of Denver, the Continental Divide and Pikes' Peak would have been visible from the terrace. It would have been funded by popular subscription and was supported officially by 22 governors, who would have held the building in trust.

Wilson, who apparently had no love for Mitteleuropäische Count Chocula-style architecture (another point against him, in my book, not that I need an excuse*), nixed the idea. On the other hand, considering the massive expansion of the federal government some decades later seems to eerily intersect with the installation of air-conditioning in the federal city, perhaps this was all for the best.

*Please stand for the official anthem of the Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Guild of Amalgamated Deli Meat Producers and Hog Butchers: "Unser Kaiser has a first name, it's K-A-R-L, unser Kaiser has a second name it's H-A-B-S-B-U-R-G." Wait, that doesn't really scan. And I'm pretty sure Franz-Ferdinand didn't drive a Wienermobile, though it might have been from Wien (or Skoda, or something).

(Test Pattern)

2010-10-20T11:25:00.004-04:00

I do have some posts planned for today, but the image uploader is acting up this morning, so bear with me! Coming up later today or tomorrow: The turn-of-the-century castle that would have housed an American summer castle in Colorado, Winnie the Pooh turns up at Buckingham Palace, and more. In the mean time, enjoy this photo of the legendary Latin ATM at the Vatican, courtesy of a friend. It does exist!

Of course, they'd naturally use Comic Sans.

Christ the God and Christ the Good Man

2010-10-19T08:45:00.003-04:00

I think many of us Catholics had at the back of our heads growing up, unconsciously, at the very least that the idea of Christ's divinity, or His claim of divinity, was the hardest thing to prove. Some may even assume it was a fairly late addition to the story, like the half-hearted deifications of the Roman emperors. Much of this comes, not from history, but from historians, and rather bad popular historians at that. If one looks at the early Christological heresies, the one thing that it seemed nearly all Christians could agree on was He was emphatically not just a good man. Those outside the Church who denied His divinity, often thought Him considerably less than a good man, and there were many inside Christianity were not even sure He could be called a human being at all.

A lot of this comes from popularizers who find it convenient to throw out the text and tell us what really happened from their own speculations on human nature, or on their rather blandly respectful view of what they assume is Christian morality and their unfocused contempt for what they think is Christian dogma, as if the two could be separated. The Jefferson Bible, a bit of Enlightenment bowdlerization, is a prime example of this, in which Christ goes swanning around giving the impossible advice of the Gospels without the impossible miracles of the Gospel.

Anyone who tells you that they believe in the high moral system Christ developed, but not in His divinity, clearly has not read scripture. Christ was not a moral teacher in the manner of Confucius or Buddha, but came to fulfil the Law, doing so in startling and puzzling fits of drama and opaque parables that at times verge on performance art. Fig trees get cursed, Christ scribbles in the dirt, tells weird stories, asks people to eat him (which sent most of his followers running for the exits), uses scary phrases like people being "eunuchs for the kingdom of Heaven," and claims He knew Abraham some thousand-odd years earlier.

Chesterton called these the "riddles of the Gospel." Without the miracles and the resurrection, this is not so much a moral system as a cryptographic puzzle, and a rather disheartening one at that. Without grace (and the Eucharist), the Christian life is an unreachable ideal, and a rather Quixotic and bizarre one at that. It is not the self-evident Hallmark squishiness people assume it was--humility was never a virtue in the pagan world before Christ, for one thing. If you wish a high, human moral code, go and read Marcus Aurelius and contemplate your solitary stoic self-splendor, don't drag the God-Man into it. He is not telling you how to fix yourself, asking you to let Him do the heavy lifting.

The other thing is that it is clear to the early Christians who thrashed around with the tradition handed onto them in word and scripture thought this strange visitor was clearly more than a man. Christ's divinity was being praised in song as early as the letters of St. Paul (if Christ's own assertions to the effect in the Gospels are not enough), and it is clear from rabbinic commentaries of the period on Isaiah's prophesies that even before Christ came, it was thought the Messiah would have at the very least some special relationship with God, and at the most be quasi-divine Himself--He, the wonderful counselor, mighty God, the prince of Peace.

Indeed, the errors of early Christianity are quite illuminating in that regard. We have the Dan Brownian notion that the early heresiarchs were mild-mannered peacenik types who loved Christ the simple good man (and the goddess Mary Magdalene, don't ask me how that works), rooted in history and everyday life. With a few exceptions, by and large their Christ was not only scarcely human, He was scarcely historic. The Gnostic pseudo-scriptures show Christ as a weird ghostly being, not necessarily a god but a messenger from corporate headquarters sent to untangle the mess started by Jehovah, who in this view comes across as a sort of low-ranking Dwight Schrute weirdo in the greater scheme of things, with very little connection to Jesus the friendly aeon. Christ floats in, dispenses gnosis in a historic void lacking in the arguing Pharisees and Sadducees.

Why anyone would find this talkative, haughty spirit appealing is beyond me, but then I suspect a friendly ghost is considerably less demanding than a flesh-and-blood incarnate God. At the very least such discussions prove that the modern world's problem is not a lack of proof for historic high Christology, or its remoteness from modern man, but simply its inconvenience.

Vlad Ţepeș and the Worst "Where's Waldo" Ever

2010-10-18T08:02:00.000-04:00

Since Halloween is coming up, a bit of seasonal ghoulishness for your edification. I have been re-reading Elizabeth Kostova's rather enjoyable The Historian, one of the few reasonably memorable contributions to the vampire-slaying genre of page and screen since the late Terrence Fisher, serious High Church Anglican and horror filmmaker, left the field. The greatest achievement of this first-time author, though, seems to have been being able to camouflage, with considerable charm and suspense, the fact that on the whole not much really happens in the course of the book, nor does she seem quite able to develop even some of her own more interesting contributions to vampire legend and lore, like trying to vaguely link up Vlad the Impaler with the various heretical Cathars and Bogomils of southern France and old Bulgaria, or some rough fictional equivalent. This goes, oddly, almost nowhere, despite the fact that Cathars are, nowadays, the new Beanie Babies. (Are Beanie Babies still the new Beanie Babies? I can't keep track of these things.)

That being said, it is something of a relief to see in Kostova-land, the blood-sucking fiends still recoil in horror from a crucifix, however much the authoress seems to ignore the metaphysical assumptions this requires to work, rather than simply moping around moodily and acting all sparkly. (On the other hand, sparkly teenagers are terrifying in themselves.)

I bring this up because I ran across a rather curious sidelight on Vlad the Impaler the other day. (Which in all fairness has nothing to do with vampires--Bram Stoker's character has nothing in common with the bloodthirsty Romanian prince, save the name, and at various times in the book seems to be either a Hungarian Szekeler or perhaps even a Serb, rather than Wallachian or even properly Transylvanian, and vampires are, when you get down to it, more Greek--!--than Transylvanian. He also looks a bit like the late Victor Borge in the novel.) It is an open question exactly how nasty a piece of work the fellow was, though I doubt he was an angel, in any case.

Romanians ar understandably somewhat baffled by their national hero's Bela Lugosi reputation in the west. Imagine going to Kazakstan and discovering in their culture, er, say, Andrew Jackson, with all the good and bad that implies, is a blood-drinking undead sex symbol with a bad Canadian accent. All the Romanians I know are pleasant Mediterranean types, rather than pale ghouls, and they drink...you know, wine.

Much of Vlad III Drăculea's reputation in the West seems to stem from King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary's various the-nosferatu-ate-my-homework attempts to explain why the heck he didn't team up with Dracula to run the Turks out of Dodge (for Dodge read: Rumelia), and thus why he didn't owe his creditors back all that money they gave him. There was even a poem about it: Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walache. Indeed, it seems Vlad had supporters at one time or another in Poland, Venice and even the Holy See. It seems much of his atrocities were wildly exaggerated, and while perhaps a nasty little man, was certainly not insane, for what it's worth. That being said, Corvinus or no, I am not sure I would want to get on the wrong side of someone a) named "the Impaler," and b) who doesn't drink... wine.

One of the odder bits of this propaganda campaign (in addition to the usual broadsheets and pamphlets) must be a couple of images that put the Impaler in place of Pontius Pilate, and in the place of the Roman consul watching over St. Andrew's crucifixion. The elegant court hat, the feral little face, the big Marshal Kûrvi-Tasch mustache--it is immediately recognizable and disturbingly out of place. The effect is oddly chilling and yet, brainwashed from birth by images of Chocula and the Count von Count, weirdly funny in a completely inappropriate way. It is like the Where's Waldo from hell.

Yet, it does get one thinking. It is too easy to write off Pilate as an overworked lightweight, in over his head, a bad man, a foolish man, a weak man, but perhaps not a wicked man. Yet, in letting himself be cowed by the rabble, and sending off a man he knows to be innocent as the tidiest (or least-headache-inducing) solution to a bureacratic snafu, one may rightly put him on the same footing of wickedness as the Impaler. Pilate's muzzy, dispassionate condemnation is just as inhuman and chilling as the bitter, ruthless, hot-and-cold hatred of Vlad Ţepeș. At least the Impaler never killed anyone out of sheer moral laziness.

***

And now, Sesame Street's Count von Count singing in German. Just in case you thought this was getting too serious.

Random Thought

2010-10-17T11:23:00.000-04:00

If the medievals had invented the PopeMobile, I suspect it would have looked like one of those wacky, colorful Indian busses. I think this would be a good thing, on the whole.

Top Ten Myths about the Middle Ages

2010-10-16T12:25:00.003-04:00

A great article here. One myth, number eight, "Starving Poor," reminds me of a comment made by, I think, one end of our friend the Chesterbelloc (I forget which), who noted that poverty in England can be traced to the year 1536, the same year the monasteries, which acted pretty much as the English poor-relief system, started getting trashed by Henry VIII. Hmmm. I wonder if there's a connection?

Another thought springs to mind. Myth number one, "People of the Middle Ages were crude and ignorant," is of course easily refuted by Chartres Cathedral, chivalry, and the Medieval period's superb contributions to the field of millinery, but I'm also reminded of a throwaway line in C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength: When Merlin wakes up from his epochal slumber, everyone is impressed by his elegant table manners: admitted, he's eating with his hands but he's doing it quite neatly and daintily. Presumably if you had only a knife and only occasionally a fork or spoon, you'd get to be quite good at eating without making a mess of yourself (or, one hopes, looking like this fellow). Heck, I'm told a figure as late as Louis XIV ate stew with his hands and clearly the man was no Oscar Madison, though by that point the Renaissance prejudice against bathing had set in and perhaps he did smell a bit whiffy.

Lydia Purpuraria

2010-10-15T11:09:00.005-04:00

Matthew Alderman. S. Lydia the Dealer in Purple Cloth. June 2010. Private Collection, New Hampshire. More work by the artist here.

St. Lydia was the first Christian to be baptized in Europe, at Philippi by the Apostle Paul; the Greek landscape is visible at beneath her feet while the Apostle Paul hovers in the distance. In one hand is the murex shell, the source of her livelihood, purple dye, and by extension a symbol of royalty and Christ the King, and also, through its marine origins, baptism and regeneration. The waves in the upper left-hand corner also recall baptism, and the strip of half-dyed cloth in her right hand recall the imagery of white robes washed in the blood of the Lamb. St. Paul's book and sword decorate the hem of her robe, while Christ the Man of Sorrows, clad in His purple robe, decorates the clasps at her shoulder. The client (who has also commissioned work from me in the past), a New England lawyer, ND law grad and new mother, commissioned this to celebrate the birth of her first child, also named Lydia. She says she wants it to be hanging in the girl's dorm room 18 years from now when she matriculates at Notre Dame.

See Sacrosanctum Concilium, Par. 121

2010-10-15T10:07:00.000-04:00

I was recently at a mass away from my usual parish, and the offertory (I think) was a hymn singing in pleasantly autumnal tones thanking God for mown hay and the harvest and all those wonderful things Martha Stewart dries and sticks up on her front door like headhunter totems around this time of the year. It was a nice hymn, even edifying, but not very substantive. Three things occurred to me: 1) Most of the people here probably have never even seen a scythe outside of a field trip to Old World Wisconsin. 2) How is this superior to getting whatever scriptural tag would have been in the mass propers? And 3) You should be focusing on mass, so darn it, try and be edified anyway! But the point remains: how is this any better? I've noticed when away from either the "Reform of the Reform" mass I got when I was in New York, and the Tridentine liturgies I attend regularly here in the Land of Encheesement, how little scripture (even allowing for the daunting infodumps of the 3-year cycle, which cannot be digested quite as smoothly or as naturally as a nice Gradual) I actually get by comparison. We can do better than this, folks.

Okay, Then, Show me an Ancient Roman Automobile

2010-10-14T09:42:00.003-04:00

No, I don't know what the deal is with this, either, or where it came from, or, more importantly, just plain "why?" (When I showed this to a classicist friend of mine, she commented "What makes me think these guys are probably British?")

I've not bothered going to see it in the theater, and probably won't, but I read some interesting dissections of the latest science-versus-faith film schlockfest, Agora, starring Rachel Weisz as the lovely and irritatingly pagan Hypatia. At least she's easier to look at than Tom Hanks, though, for the record, the real Hypatia may well have been in her sixties by the time she was torn to shreds (or something) by albino mo--er--angry Egyptian Christians (or something) in AD 415. The truth is a lot murkier than that, and the old girl seems not to have been quite so relentlessly anti-Christian as all that, nor the Angry Albino--er--Egyptian Christians so relentlessly anti-pagan, either. (In other words, you shouldn't think of the Cyril-vs.-Hypatia rumble as High Noon with Grace Kelly in the Gary Cooper role. The whole thing was more of a messy political thing with the Christian-versus-Pagan business as a sort of unfortunate sideshow.) They certainly didn't torch the Great Library of Alexandria, for one thing. Scholars aren't even sure it was even around then, it having been something of a dump since centuries earlier. I'll leave the MST3K-ing of this bit of celluloid to the classicists in our audience, but thinking about this brought two points to my attention:

1. We hear a whole lot in the popular historical narrative about how Christianity pretty much snuffed out a great age of Roman science, invention and knowledge. Admitted, the ancients had some pretty nifty gadgets (aeliopile, anyone?) but they were pretty much toys, and rather antique Greek toys at that. Not so much Blackberries (are they still around? I can't keep track of the trends these days; my iPod is older than most people's cell phones) as Chia Pets. The order, stability, efficiency and grandeur of Rome was built not on labor-saving devices but...well, wait, yes it was built on labor-saving devices. They were called slaves. Instead of the Spinning Jenny, you had, well, some nice Briton captive called Jenny...or, more likely, something Welsh made out of phlegm and consonants. Or, to be fair, not just slaves but a whole lot of freedmen, bureaucrats, working class Joes and military migrants from the fringes of the empire (at least some of the barbarian hordes started out essentially as the Roman national guard) were needed to keep things running smoothly. The clockwork marvels of antiquity, such as the wondrous Antikythera mechanism, are notable primarily for their being strange anomalies. The genius of Rome was in its organization and centralization, not in some inventive spirit, and by time of Diocletian, even that was starting to go.

2. Much is made of the alleged loss of all the ancient wisdom and knowledge of classical antiquity during the medieval period. Yet, when the Renaissance rolls round, or the Enlightenment, the first thing those wacky medievals are pilloried for is following Aristotle or Galen like holy writ--authors who are precisely representative of all that lost knowledge. Indeed, the Middle Ages rediscovered some of those lost bits of knowledge via their recovery of Aristotle from the East. And when it counted, the medievals knew when to experiment and discard as necessary. No sailor of the period would have tried to steer via a largely symbolic mappamundi, and the age also gave birth to the horse-collar, stirrups, glasses, and the mechanical clock. The Venetian arsenal, the wonder of the world, was the fruit of this period. Contrast this to the Renaissance, which, until Newton and co. came along, was rather on the conservative side when it came to gadgets. I recall one anecdote of a Venetian commission which awarded a contract to design a new sort of galley to a classical scholar of Roman naval techniques, not an actual sailor or naval architect.

It seems if you're a medieval, you just can't win.

On the Size of Altars

2010-10-13T15:40:00.001-04:00

Altar at Egmanton, Nottinghamshire (Sir Ninian Comper). Source.
"As the altar is the church, as the altar is the reason for the existence of the wonderful fabric that has gradually developed into the most complex and highly-organized of the buildings of men [...]. To it, all things are tributary, and whether you say the church flows from it as from the center of life, or that the visible organism develops from it cell-by-cell [...], the result is the same."

--Ralph Adams Cram, Church Building

It is a peculiar thing indeed that while the quite laudable trend after the Council has been to encourage all to communicate with hosts consecrated at that particular mass, that there has been no perceptible increase in the size of our altars to accomodate all those extra ciboria. The even more complex logistics and liturgical gymnastics that have accompanied the concession of the chalice to the laity have accompanied, similarly, no enlargement of the mensa, but instead it appears our altars have shrunk noticeably. (I will refrain from commenting on whether the practice of communion under both kinds has actually brought about any of the benefits it was assumed would accompany it; or whether it has unfortunately created significant liturgical traffic and sacramental disposal issues.) Admitted, the shelf-like nature of many older, pre-conciliar altars was a common complaint among the rubricists of the twentieth-century Liturgical Movement; the contemporary problem has less to do with depth than length.

Even a large, deep altar can fail to impress itself on an interior without sufficient breadth or a proper setting, whether it be a footpace, baldachin or even wall treatments to highlight it. Source.

The problem can be attributable to several things. First, the move towards a movable table-like altar form, that often accompanied dubious theological musings of the sort that made Edward A. Sovik a household word in the 1970s, was often rather on the puny side, a liturgical coffee-table rather than something reflective of the banquet of the Lamb. The ad-hoc and often rather haphazard nature of many of the quick-fix renovations of the period, which saw altar tables plopped in plano at the level of the sanctuary, also tended to result in rather smallish altars, perhaps because it was easier to get hold of furniture of a domestic nature than commission a full-fledged movable altar of wood or metal.

Even a traditionally-ornamented altar can appear overpowered by its surroundings when too small or when devoid of candlesticks and other ornamentation. Source.

This, coupled with the reformist tendency to avoid cluttering up the altar with extra candlesticks and the crucifix--all of which often added considerable dignity and verticality to the otherwise rather barren spectacle of a "naked" altar--resulted in the smallish, often movable altars one finds in churches today. Even when a freestanding altar is built, in an ostensibly traditional style and decorated with beautiful or incongruous odds and ends salvaged from the communion rail, they are often a bit small for the space in which they have been placed. Admitted, this may be because there wasn't much room in the sanctuary to begin with--which might be solved by going back to the old wall-altar arrangement, which required considerably less circulation space--but the results are often a bit underwhelming.

A few places where concelebration is common have tried to square this particular circle by erecting enormous square altars with massive table-tops as an exercise in Flintstones faux-primitivism--the cathedral in Los Angeles comes to mind. One would assume such highly interesting objects would serve well as the focus of the church's interior. However, given that these are often at the lowest point in a church with a sloping nave or theatrical seating, they can look rather dumpy and mushroom-like in that context, and a square's usable space for ciboria and chalices does not increase as the area is increased, given there is often a large unreachable region in the center beyond arm's length. There is good reason for the basic rectangular shape of our altars as they have developed over the ages.

A handsome altar in a modern Georgian style from the period directly before the council; seating on three sides. Such altars can serve as fruitful precedents but allowances must be made for additional circulation space under the baldachin. Source.

Given the excellent desire to place a crucifix and candlesticks on new altars, as well as the fact a growing number of churches now offer both forms of the mass, the current, faddish altar form requires careful re-examination. It is best to turn to the pre-conciliar authorities here as a starting-point, and then consider what further positive developments--such as the use of multiple ciboria--ought to be taken into account.

1. Shape: An altar should be rectangular, never round or octagonal, and only square where space constraints require it. I have seen one round altar in my life, a obje done recently in an otherwise fairly competent classical style, though wholly inappropriate rubrically and theologically. Scripture speaks of the "horns"--the corners--of the altar, and the round altar carries a whiff of the occult to it. The octagon is appropriate to baptisteries, not chancels. The Old Covenant's altars were rectilinear, and as the altar represents Christ, Christ calls Himself the cornerstone.

Cram's altar-like communion table at East Liberty Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh. Cram once commented all the interior required was six candlesticks and a crucifix to be ready for a pontifical liturgy. Note its extreme length. Source.

2. Proportions: Ralph Adams Cram, the great churchbuilder, is our best authority on this point, and in his book Churchbuilding makes much the same point about the rather underwhealming communion table which was at the time installed in the vast open chancel of Trinity Church, Boston, describing the empty sanctuary as "dead," the "black walnut table of small size" overshadowed in one photograph of the period by rather silly floral arrangements placed around the eagle lectern, itself infelicitously placed at the center of the chancel steps. Cram suggests that the church's principal altar should have a width of around one-third that of the nave; he suggests somewhere between 8 and 12 feet, the higher end of the scale being determined by the upper limit of altar height (3 feet 4 inches, in Cram's mind, a fairly comfortable number; J.B. O'Connell, about forty to fifty years later, suggests 3 feet 5 inches). These are not necessarily ritual requirements, but that of "art; which is also a question of religion, since art in the service of the Church, is simply art as an incentive to religious emotion." One may rightly question if it is only that, but Cram's point is well-taken.

A large altar set in a suitably spacious sanctuary; it could be improved slightly by the addition of candlesticks and perhaps even a hanging rood. Source.

3. Dimensions: Cram is, above, speaking primarily of altars intended as part of a larger composition including a reredos, which itself acts as something of a magnifier for an altar in a large church; his rule of thumb is a good one, but probably should be adjusted by sight for a freestanding altar with tester or baldachin. I am sure I have also seen reredoses with engaged altars that are longer than 8 feet, though perhaps the inevitable elongation is, as Cram points out, not particularly suitable. Probably about 12 feet would be the upper limit in most older churches. Most rubrical sources suggest that a bare minimum of 6 feet should be the starting point for length, if only because that length recalls the tomblike symbolism of altar's relic sepulchre. As a practical matter one could probably celebrate the old mass on a mensa of 3'-10" in width but it would have to be a very low (or narrow) mass indeed. I would be inclined to think that 6 feet be the bare minimum length, and seems rather small to me.

Preconciliar sources (such as J.B. O'Connell's Church Building and Furnishing suggest the mensa depth (not including a tabernacle or gradine) ought to be between 1'-9" to 1'-11" with a large altar, and four feet if one has a tabernacle with altar cross placed behind it. Cram suggests 2 feet even. Both of these seem to me rather impractical in a modern context. Most freestanding altars today will not (sadly) include a tabernacle directly on the mensa, but ought to be designed with space for a row of candlesticks and crucifix, so at least three to four feet seems like a safe starting-point. Given that it is easy for an altar to become overcrowded with ciboria at large masses, I would think one could perhaps even push it to five feet in depth if the sanctuary was large enough. A logical rule of thumb is to ensure that objects placed in the center can be comfortably moved without access to a stepstool from one or the other side of the altar, which would preclude anything over five-and-a-half or six feet in depth. Mocking up the altar first might be the most sensible option.

4. Placement: Most altars today are placed well forward of where they might have been located fifty or sixty years ago. This may well be a positive development in theory, but it has not been one in practice. The almost total abandonment of altar steps has also been exceedingly unfortunate, though that is a topic for another time. O'Connell suggests circulation space of at least 2'-6" between the back of an altar and the wall if it is to be consecrated (following the rubrics then in force in 1955) and that dimension is a useful one to consider when trying to determine the bare minimum of circulation space around an altar. Considering this probably does not even take into account assisting deacons, altar boys, and the rest, there should probably be considerably more space than that before one gets to the walls, sedilia, or other impediments. The space in front of the altar, beyond its raised steps also ought to be particularly deep if possible.

As I have said repeatedly in the past, most altars today are placed in sanctuaries not designed for them. The modern altar placed at the level of the chancel is occupying space originally intended for the graceful movements of the sacred ministers at high mass. Given that most freestanding altars will probably be used from both sides at some point in their lifetime, probably the space around it needs to be twice as deep as it usually is, and somewhat broader, given older altars usually did not require circulation space on the short (north and south) ends. Most sanctuaries today go the opposite route and seem to shorten the depth and widen the breadth to almost shelf-like proportions.

A good example to study are churches built in the era immediately before the Council, where some experimentation had begun with freestanding altars and versus populum liturgy but it had not become normative. Some churches placed the altar at the crossing (often an architecturally messy proposition) but still ensured there was enough space around it on the raised sanctuary platform to avoid it turning into a catwalk. On the whole, an enclosed sanctuary, even if it may not be as visible from the transepts, may result in a more satisfactory architectural solution.

The ciborium magnum of the National Shrine in Washington, D.C., gives a good impression of the amount of space required to properly accommodate a large baldachin. Source.

Another important matter to consider is whether there is to be a ciborium magnum or baldachin, which, when placed in a smaller sanctuary, can cause acute circulation problems both around the altar and around the entire structure. If there is not ample space around it, one might consider thinning down the baldachin's members--there are quite a few handsome examples of delicate metalwork ciboria--or simply adopting a hanging tester or canopy instead.

The altar, as Cram says in the quote above, is the font of the life of the church structure, and its apex and summation. It is not enough to simply apply some traditionalizing edging to a liturgical coffee table, but we instead must ensure that this cornerstone must fit with perfection into its surroundings as the noble site of our bloodless participation in Christ's sacrifice.

We Predicted This Ages Ago. Sort of.

2010-10-13T08:34:00.001-04:00

We at the Shrine occasionally like to do our impression of Johnny Carson as the fortune-telling, future-predicting mock-clairvoyant Carnak the Magnificent (As the man himself said, "AWACS missal"--opens envelope--"What Fulton Sheen is holding in the new Madame Tussauds Exhibit"), by making our own predictions about the future of the Church, even if we do not personally own our own turban.

For instance, Drew of the Shrine predicted the Anglican Ordinariates in some form not long after Benedict got elected, as well as, also, in some form, the Motu Proprio. Meanwhile, it appears some of the (wholly imaginary) Holy Whapping Television Network's (HWTN) programming has inavertently come to life in the form of the new major motion picture There be Dragons. (Is it possible to describe a film as an Opus Dei Action-Adventure flick? I mean, one without Dan Brown in it). Admittedly, it's not the Clint Eastwood ripoff The Outlaw Josemaría Wales I was hoping for, but still, impressive.

Well, Jolly Old Saint Nicholas was Greek, After All

2010-10-11T21:58:00.006-04:00

For the record, it's not Photoshopped, and no, I don't have a clue what's going on, either. Anyone care to take a crack at a caption?

Memo to Self: Remember Your Audience

2010-10-09T13:19:00.003-04:00

A friend writes regarding my comments on Constantine's extravagant taste in imperial robes:

"One favorite quote: 'That's why the Emperor Constantine presided over the Council of Nicaea in golden robes like he was... Michael Jackson or something.' (Too soon?)" I think nearly 2 thousand years is long enough after Constantine's death, but I agree that with all those medals and decorations General Sir Michael David "Mike" Jackson GCB, CBE, DSO, ADC, DL does have some
crazy outfits.

I meant...you know...the pop singer...with the one glove...oh, never mind. It's not worth it.

An Edifying Way to Waste Time

2010-10-08T12:13:00.003-04:00

I have become a tremendous fan of the Institute for Catholic Culture and its amazing online library of recorded lectures, on all conceivable topics from Irish history to the French Revolution and the Reconquista. One of my favorite speakers is the engaging, erudite and frequently hilarious Dr. Brendan McGuire, who just finished a series on the medieval papacy, which is both substantive and quite fun to listen to. It's a bit like listening to the muppet Rowlf the Dog channeling Lord Kenneth Clark. (That's a good thing.) One favorite quote: "That's why the Emperor Constantine presided over the Council of Nicaea in golden robes like he was... Michael Jackson or something." (Too soon?) Some of his descriptions of interactions between various Christian and Muslim potentates during the reconquest of Spain verge on sounding like Bob Newhart telephone routines. You can find pieces by him, and many other speakers here. Enjoy!

Okay, Something Amusing to Try to Make Up for My Absence

2010-10-08T11:49:00.002-04:00

My apologies. I am Lazarus, come back from the dead--it's been a busy two months. I hope to be a better and more conscientious blogger from now on. One problem is all my serious stuff tends to go up on the NLM, leaving The Shrine as a receptacle for all the usual Catholic weirdness you know and love, though unleavened with serious commentary. Keep an eye out on the NLM, by the way--there's a good piece up I did there on altars, and a few other items coming up. But if you had wanted something serious, you'd probably not go to a website named the Holy Whapping. Anyway, some various amusements for you below.

Yours truly was also recently out dining in Madison (otherwise known as "84 square miles surrounded by reality") and the lawyer I was eating with started chatting with the waitress, and mentioned that I was still relatively new to the area. Conversation follows:

Waitress: Madison's a great place to make friends. It's very laid-back and liberal.
Me: I'm neither laid back nor liberal, I'm afraid.

A friend writes: I was supposed to meet up with three clerics and a couple of laymen for dinner. I wasn't sure if I was at the right restuarant, so I
asked the the hostess, "Did a group of priests come in?" "What were
they wearing," she asked. I told her, "Clerical collars." In fact,
when I did catch up with them, one would be wearing a cassock. "No,"
she told me. Then she asked with a smile, "Did you check the bar?" Rum, Romanism and rebellion, it'd seem, is still the default combination. (It turned out he was at the wrong restaurant, unfortunately.)

I was recently a groomsman in a wedding, and getting fitted up for white tie and tails. My pants had to be hemmed again so, rather than sit in the dressing-room resembling the half-dressed recipient of some sort of Drones Club prank, I put on my khakis, in combination with my tailcoat, and sauntered back out to where the other groomsmen were standing. It was commented by the groom-to-be that I took semiformal a bit too literally.

A good friend of mine from Queens wants to start a lifestyle magazine entitled Thicket & Moat: The Misanthrope's Quarterly Guide to Good Living.

In a recent primary election I neglected to realize Treasurer was an elected office and so didn't know any of the three candidates on the ballot from Adam, Eve or Seth. I had been quite conscientious about researching all the other offices on the ballot, even beyond the usual traditional American qualifications of which candidate was taller and what color of tie he was wearing (or, for woman, pantsuit). For a moment, Wisconsin almost got its first write-in vote for Dr. Otto von Hapsburg, but I behaved myself and randomly picked one. A grad-student pal of mine comments, "Wisconsin should be so lucky."

Umberto Eco, in his novel Foucault's Pendulum, on God creating the universe via telegram. "Fiat Lux. Stop. Epistle follows."

Last, a snippet of conversation overheard on a recent return to the Big Apple, between two hipster employees of The Strand (8 miles of used books, and the happiest place on earth after Loome Theological in Stillwater, Minnesota):

Hipster One: Did I tell you that my grandfather made his living carving tombstones?
Hispter Two: I did not know that.

2010-08-09T10:20:00.002-04:00

On a recent telephone call home, my mother pointed out to me this amazing depiction by that great Venetian Tiepolo of a usually rather gory scene, The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew (1722). Quite stunning and extremely moving, if perhaps less, er, anatomical than most medieval depictions of the event.

A Warm Welcome to Readers of Terry Mattingly's Column

2010-08-08T08:17:00.002-04:00

I'd like to offer a warm welcome to readers of Terry Mattingly's syndicated column "On Religion", who was kind enough to cover in his most recent (August 8) piece [which can be found here and here] an article I wrote for this website, "Five Things Any Parish Can Do to Improve Sacred Space," which can be read below. It also appeared in the more scholarly context at The New Liturgical Movement, where I am the architectural correspondent, and where I post with greater frequency.

Just to introduce myself, I am a design consultant, church furnishing designer, and professional illustrator based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and a frequenly published writer and lecturer on liturgical matters. Some examples of my built work and my designs can be found at my website, Matthew Alderman Studios. I also sell prints of my illustration work. I am presently involved in the design of furnishings for a parish renovation and classical/traditional design consulting on a larger construction project, while proposals for my services under consideration by several local, out-of-state and international clients. I welcome inquiries about my services via email at matthew@matthewalderman.com. You can also find my business on Facebook and my work on flickr.com.

If you are interested in my thoughts on liturgical design beyond what Terry was able to include in his column, you might enjoy reading this scholarly article on church design I wrote for the journal Antiphon: A Journal of Liturgical Renewal last year, which was based on a lecture I gave at the national Society for Catholic Liturgy conference some years ago.

I'd like to expand on a comment I made to Terry when he interviewed me last week, regarding statuary in churches, simply because there's only so much one can fit into a column. I think the inclusion or addition of traditional statuary to newer churches is an important part of any renovation. But it needs to be placed in the interior with care and with an eye towards the bigger picture, and, while they should not be crudely modernistic, should at least be designed in such a way to find common ground with the architectural language of the interior. Old-style catalog statuary, unless it is of a very high quality, should be avoided. They should reinforce the primacy of altar and tabernacle, and also should not simply be plopped down in some convenient corner without a lot of thought.

I'd like to thank Terry for his sensitive and thoughtful and very sympathetic treatment of the subject of renovations and my ideas about the matter of renovations, and hope you will enjoy your visit to the site. Have a look round, poke into the archives, and don't forget to go over to matthewalderman.com, too!

From the Archives: Another St. Lucy

2010-08-08T07:54:00.000-04:00

Matthew Alderman. Sancta Lucia. December 2008. Private collection, Iowa.

Most of you know this image already, but it's a favorite of mine, and some of our new readers may enjoy it. My red-and-black image of St. Lucy has proven particularly popular with patrons. I have done at least three original versions at various points in the past few years. This one (for a priest's niece in Iowa) I am particularly satisfied with, as it works out some of the problems that had found their way into my last two renditions of the subject. At some point in the future I may consider doing some other virgin-martyrs in a similar pose, to form a matched set, St. Casilda and St. Apollonia and other similar saints done in a very different style but in roughly the same processional posture and level of fanciful costume by Zurbarán in the 17th century. Also, another saint would be good as I am starting to run out of variant Lucy-related attributes for her to hold.

An Amazing Resource for America's Golden Age of Building

2010-08-05T00:26:00.001-04:00

Cram and Goodhue's proposal for Los Angeles (Episcopal) Cathedral

I recently stumbled onto a wonderful collection of scanned books and images posted on Flickr all pertaining to American architects and architecture of the early twentieth century, a period which may well have been the apex of our nation's cultural progress: Sargent and Whistler were painting, Cram building churches, Henry James novelizing, Cass Gilbert and Louis Sullivan trying civilize the skyscraper, McKim designing banks and pleasure-palaces and Stanford White getting shot on top of them. (Too soon?) Architecture had suddenly and rather abruptly cast off a quirky and rather provincial Victorianism and was rediscovering both authentic ancient precedent, and its imaginative and often innovative reuse. Here are posted numerous scans from books and magazines of the period, both secular and sacred, which will be of great interest to our readers. I include a few samples below, taken from, I believe, the two-volume Cram-edited American Churches. The image above, incidentally, is taken from a work entitled Drafting Room Practice.

The two middle images are taken from one of Cram's many proposals for trying to bridge the cavernous crossing space of St. John the Divine in New York, which still remains one of the least resolved and most unsatisfactory aspects of the building in its present unfinished state. They are from what may well be the most intriguing proposal put forward, which placed two large spires directly before the north and south transepts, while capping the crossing with a rather low nondescript cube.

The design intrigues me, though I believe there is good reason it was superseded by other proposals. The arrangement is not as strong seen approaching the church from the rear, and would have been a bit more elegant had the towers been placed directly over the transepts, as in Scott's initial proposal for Liverpool Cathedral, and a large bridgelike space raised between them to cover the crossing. (A truly horrible rendering of Scott's otherwise competent first design can be found here; I have yet to find another online.) Furthermore, the contrast between the towers on the front facade and those at the crossing, while creating an interesting, almost Piranesian shift in scale, seems almost unsettling and combative on closer inspection, rendering the otherwise gigantic westwork puny and even toylike by comparison. It is still an interesting "what-if?" in the realm of American sacred architecture, and commendable in its mixture of boldness and precedent.

Cow Tools: Some Remarks on What Historians Do

2010-08-04T09:27:00.001-04:00

I was recently talking with a friend who was raised Catholic, and had retained an amateur's interest in theology, and the conversation turned to religion--though in a quite affable sort of way. My friend asked, as we moved into the depths of the conversation, with quite cheerful curiosity, "But have they found any evidence any of this happened? Man, I had high hopes for the Shroud of Turin. Has anyone looked into any of this?"

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to frame a response for him, since our chat was interrupted--though I managed to comment the Turin Shroud had so many supremely odd things about it that the dubious radiocarbon results were hardly enough to disqualify it as an entrant in the authenticity sweepstakes. There are plenty of tales one hears of the whether the face of the Shroud matches that of the Veronica, or the Sudarium of Oviedo's bloodstains, or whether the spear-point of the holy lance fits its broken-off shaft, or whether the Holy House's foundations in Nazareth match up with its walls in Loreto. I am inclined to believe at least some of such stories, or at the very least to not disbelieve them (I find the long preservation of said objects often better evidence than the objects themselves as they existed in a vacuum, or even carbon-dating, which can easily stray into false positives and negatives; also, their numerous miracles, but that isn't exactly historical evidence), but mentioning them brings up the matter of what precisely can be called historical evidence, and the larger question of what historians actually do. Historical research is not so much a matter of CSI-style swoopy Science-with-a-capital S-and-exclamation mark as it is reading the laundry lists, receipts, and newspapers of our ancestors.

Which is to say that texts, often the least reliable bits of evidence in the popular mind, are considerably more useful to the professional "scientific" historian than the very tangible if inexplicable souvenirs of past epochs. Gary Larson once did a Far Side cartoon with a cow standing behind a series of lumpy, inexplicable domestic objects it had made. Naturally we, not knowing the context, are clueless as what the heck all these things do. (One of the reason relics do not really fall into this situation--with the exception of silly faddy things like the so-called "Jesus ossuary" is we usually have the paper trail, though sometimes only up to a certain point in some cases.)

In the popular mind, the historian is only a few steps away from being Indiana Jones. If he (or if the popular mind is trying to score with the 18-24 male demographic, she, i.e., Lara Croft, Holy Sepulchre raider) is pouring over ancient texts and dusty tomes, they are codices and scrolls he found deep in some cave in Upper Egypt. This isn't to say this doesn't happen, as astounding tales like that of the Dead Sea Scrolls or the discovery of St. Peter's tomb underneath the Vatican (exactly where we said it was this whole time, mind you--this comes of the problem of trying to treat a living faith as if it were the religion of the Pharaohs), do happen from time to time. But most of the time, a historian's work is sifting through old texts for things he or she (in this case, "she" is probably Caroline Walker Bynum rather than Lara Croft) might have missed or misinterpreted or trying to track down even older texts that might have gotten misfiled in some moldy monastic basement during the reign of Charlemagne.

Often it is something as simple as parsing linguistic tics. Admittedly, some of this can get a bit out of hand, as in the rather casual and highly theoretical habit of slicing up the Bible and tying the fragments to alphabetical authors on the basis of somewhat plausible if shifting evidence, which—though this sometimes it turns up something useful, as when we discover a certain bit of Paul is written in translation-style Greek, suggesting the interpolation of an even more ancient Aramaic Christian hymn addressed to Christ as God.

Much is made in the popular mind of the comparative paucity of evidence regarding Christ's life. Yet Christ's life is far better attested than that of Shakespeare's, and was written down (even with the latest dates) far closer to His life and death than that of the Buddha's, and few people would think to disbelieve either of these important historical figures were figments of someone else's imagination. Indeed, one scholar (whose name I have, unfortunately, and I admit, quite conveniently, forgotten) has commented we have more evidence for the historicity of Christ than we do for the world-spanning conqueror Alexander the Great.

Partially, this doubt comes through automatically disqualifying the Gospels on sectarian grounds, and partially through the fact that the popular mind has not caught up with the most recent scholarship. Or they don't realize there even is scholarship on the issue that goes beyond History Channel talking heads. People have been trying to find holes in the Gospel narrative for ages; such complaints and examinations are old hat to Catholics.

This is even more unfair than trying to write a biography of Shakespeare without admitting the existence of his plays as evidence. (Though a good deal of bad history has been written by psychoanalyzing those plays, I will grant.) Certainly it would not really be provable through the confines of secular historiography that Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again, but it is fairly settled scholarship, even in the secular sphere of serious Biblical scholars and historians that at the very least Christ had lived. The Jesus-Myth school of thought of the 19th century is now mostly extinct; considering its strongest arguments were between pagan agricultural myths and the death and resurrection of the Lord, and that Christ appeared in the one culture of the Mediterranean with little to no interest in such myths in their own system of belief, it is perhaps not a surprise. Even today, the most liberal Jesus Seminar folk admit He at the very least existed, and start with the canonical texts--even if they sift them by a voting method that just about every mainstream historian finds hard to take seriously.

In any case, I suspect this prejudice in the popular mind has much to do with our notions of science and history and what might be called "Science!" with an exclamation mark. Chesterton once said something to the effect that people think we know more about cavemen than about medieval man. The opposite is certainly true--a good historian would never think to identify the use of, say, even a potsherd, without some written evidence to back it up. Otherwise, we're looking at cow tools. While certainly we can make educated guesses about our distant ancestors, our more recent ones have, at least, the advantage of something close to real memory for us to tap into (that is, tradition and written records), which is, even allowing for lapses and legend, a truly living thing inscribed on parchment, rather than the dead bones of a nameless Neanderthal. The historic past is knowable.

Heaven Made Manifest

2010-08-03T11:10:00.006-04:00

Gentle readers will be pleased to note that, due to the kindness of Fr. Kocik over at the Society for Catholic Liturgy and the generosity of Stratford Caldecott at Second Spring, my article "Heaven Made Manifest: An Architectural Solution for The Spirit of the Liturgy," which appeared last year in the scholarly periodical Antiphon: A Journal of Liturgical Renewal is now available in PDF form at the Second Spring article archive. I have also posted a link on my personal website. Enjoy!

Jesuit Art from my Pen for Today's Feast

2010-07-31T08:25:00.001-04:00

Matthew Alderman. The Triumph of the Society of Jesus in the New World and the Orient. June 2008. Collection of the church of SS. Peter and Paul, Mankato, Minnesota. Commissioned to hang in the parish hall in honor of 150 years of Jesuit service in the parish. Click for larger.

Ralph Adams Cram and Our False Inevitability

2010-07-28T10:39:00.001-04:00

East Liberty Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, designed by Ralph Adams Cram (source)

Stuart Chessman has a great piece up on the St. Hugh of Cluny weblog about the great social critic Ralph Adams Cram, who is probably better known to our readers as the famous neo-Gothic architect Ralph Adams Cram. It is not a surprise that the builder of such masterworks as St. John the Divine and St. Thomas, Fifth Avenue, might hold that, "[i]n a way[,] the eleventh century may be considered one of the most marvelous centuries in all history," or that an Episcopalian of his Catholic leanings might consider the corruption of the Renaissance and the tumult of the Reformation to among history's great tragedies. Indeed, he describes it as a "weirdly assorted couple" in one instance--though later in life he came to appreciate the more contiguous and medievalizing glories of the Spanish Renaissance, if not its Italian cousin. And this was not mere table-talk among like-minded friends, but the substance of a stream of numerous and popular books and articles.

But what may startle you was this great traditional radical was on the cover of Time magazine in the late '30s, and considered at one point the pre-eminent architect and architectural theorist in the realm of academic and collegiate architecture, to the point he essentially invented the modern American college campus through his work at Princeton, Rice, and elsewhere. We're talking about a man who advocated a quasi-monastic organization for architecture schools, and yet was taken seriously by the faculty at MIT and was even made Vice-President of the American Institute of Architects at one point. (Today, more than a century after his death, he seems almost unimaginable to most critics, and his cultural contributions are either ignored, elaborately reinterpreted, or thinly psychoanalyzed away.) While even within that milieu, he was defiantly counter-cultural, the fact the culture at large was willing to give him a listen, suggests that the cultural dominance of modernistic thought, art and architecture, was hardly as assured or as easy a progress as we have been led to believe. We often read in books of the Liturgical Movement era of the coming golden age of Gregorian chant and popular participation, with the same inevitable assurance one heard in subsequent decades of Jetsons-style flying cars, neither one of which has come to pass.

For a time, though, it looked like the future was going to get medieval all over the culture. Cram's introduction to the 1929 publication of American Church Architecture of Today, speaks of a return to "the best types of the pre-Reformation art of Christianity," and contrasts it not only with the "curious fad of modernism," which he seems largely to ignore, but, more intriguingly, with the banal carpenter Gothic and catalog art of nineteenth-century Christianity. In our occasional idolization of the period, his (admittedly snarky) aside that "the Roman Catholic Church [in America] remained impervious to any infiltration of beauty and propriety" until comparatively late in the Gothic revival, ought to be remembered. And this, from a man, who for all his northern tastes, was Catholic enough to passionately love the art and culture of the Mediterranean, and often recommended in southern climes, even to his Episcopal clients, the use of the Spanish mission or even Baroque styles. Cram was radical in his love of tradition--going to the root and the heart of it--and never reactionary or narrow in his appreciation of the past and its application to the problems of today. In some respects as a social critic and diagnostician, he has the nuance and range that Pugin, painting with a broader brush in a coarser era, was denied. Some, used to a straw-men traditionalism in architecture, may find this baffling, but even we classicists are capable of subtlety.

Cram's comment on the "pathetic impudence" of "modernism," that it will never "obtain a foothold" in the United States, may seem dismissively and shortsightedly triumphalist, but it does show us that the great divorce between the modern age and history was not nearly as inevitable or as relentless as it has been painted--nor, given the cultural wasteland that Cram himself emerged from, and helped himself make into a blooming garden, is its continued triumph quite as assured as one might think. If we work hard enough, his description of the progress of his own time might apply, in a century or two, to our own future:

Stained glass has made surprising progress during the last twenty-five years, while the last five have witnessed the advent of at least three very able sculptors, at least one of which finds no rival during the past three centuries. [...] If the various religions in America will recognize the indispensable nature of good art, the essential wickedness of bad, and will demand the best, accept only the best, then there is no reason why the "Great Recovery" begun just half a century ago, should not go on to its high fruition in another fifty years.

Admitted, when one turned on the television in 1979 one saw Bob Newhart ensconced in shag carpeting and plywood and not linenfold paneling, but the fact it might not have been, and was not supposed to be, is electrifying.

It is especially interesting to note that this "Great Recovery," while thoroughly Catholic in feeling, was a highly ecumenical venture. Cram the Anglican wrote numerous articles on art for Catholic publications and from a Catholic view, while congregations of Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists and even Unitarians often put up splendidly medieval edifices of a surprising (if under-utilized) liturgical purity. The revival of an authentically Jewish synagogue architecture was also an important facet of this movement. Cram once commented that the only thing that was lacking to render the vast chancel of his masterful East Liberty Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh ready for a high mass was the addition of six candlesticks and a crucifix. There is an image of the Mother of God in its stained-glass windows, though it is not entirely clear to me that the clients actually realized this. (By way of apology, I will comment some of the most morally faithful Christians, and the most enthusiastic Gothicists I have met and worked for, were Presbyterians!)

Such stylistic unity may seem superficial to us today, rather like the curious fad of "Anglo-Catholic Congress Baroque" architecture in Britain around the same time, that sought reunion with Rome through the strategic deployment of Continentally-inspired roccoco curlicues, but both in the case of Cram's Gothicism and of the Congress Baroque school, there was a real and sincere passion for a healing of Christendom. Cram's clients may have opted for Gothic as a way of reconnecting with the past, or simply because it was fashionable, but it did re-establish visual continuity in a way that is almost impossible to fathom today. In America, a century ago, the stereotype of the church building was the clapboard Puritan meeting-house; today, for all our sins, it is the liturgical Gothic edifice, if at least Hollywood is to be believed.

Admitted, in some instances, this old architecture was often allied with a new and novel religion (as in the instance of Riverside Church in New York, or the various Unitarian or Universalist societies that opted for the Gothic) but it also introduced numerous, formerly-iconoclastic denominations to the Catholic arts, however tenuously. Today, when groups of Anglicans are rallying to Rome and often we find ourselves with more common moral ground with the Eastern Orthodox, Presbyterians and Baptists than certain fellow Catholics, there is a lesson and a precedent here worth remembering. The Great Recovery, cut short by the Depression and the Second World War, may yet be re-started, if we but try.

Lawrence Klimecki Interviews Me on Art and Architecture

2010-07-27T10:38:00.001-04:00

Matthew Alderman. The Espousal of the Blessed Virgin with SS. Joachim and Anne. Ink, 2010.Cover for a wedding missalette. Private Collection, Minnesota.

I was recently interviewed by Deacon Lawrence Klimecki of Gryphon Rampant Studio about my my work in art and liturgical design. Lawrence is a seasoned and very talented graphic artist in his own right, incidentally, with considerable skills in the digital realm as well. Perhaps it is a bit vainglorious to quote from your own interview, but I think both Deacon Klimecki's questions and my answers will be of interest to our readers, if only to generate further thought and discussion on the subject of sacred art. The article is accompanied by examples of my illustrations and designs. Some extracts:

LK: Tell us some more about your work.

MGA: [...] I have a lot of admiration for the medieval model of sacred art, which saw the highest form of art as indelibly religious, and more importantly, tied to both the liturgy and to a received culture. It's one reason I love taking commissions, as it forces me to submit my own interests and preferences to bigger needs and wants. At the same time I'm not trying to turn the clock back. I see myself as engaging in a search-and-rescue operation for much of the remainder of Western Culture that emerged after the Renaissance, which is why I often incorporate elements of later styles--art nouveau, art deco, and even some fairly modern influences, etc.--into my work, though always subject to larger, older traditions. [...]

Concept for an Altar to Our Lady incorporating an 18th century Spanish-American portable shrine. Designer: Matthew Alderman, 2008.

I also have worked in the field of architecture, sometimes as a member of a firm, sometimes as a designer of church furnishings or as an independent design consultant working in association with an architect. The design consultant creates aesthetic concepts for an interior or exterior that an architect develops in terms of details, structure, and materials. [In addition to my illustration work,] [d]esign consulting and church furnishing design is what I am doing at present, which gives me both the opportunity to focus on the more intellectual and aesthetic aspects of the project while working with an experienced architect with an understanding of structural issues. A local classical firm which I have great relations with has been very helpful thus far along this path, and has offered to be the architect of record when I need one, or when the client hasn't obtained one already.

Altarpiece and tabernacle shrine for Vladivostok Proto-Cathedral. Construction completed 2009. Designer: Matthew Alderman. Architect of Record: Pavel Manomov. (More here.)

LK: In your opinion what is the role of the artist in our culture?

The problem is art has become something of a closed circle. [...] Essentially, [contemporary artists] say, "Here is my vision," while pounding into our heads that art is a necessity, even if we find it incomprehensible. The odd thing is even the wealthy and au-courant types still love the old masters, and will pay through the nose to support some blockbuster Rembrandt exhibit, but the idea of producing something genuinely new within that tradition simply does not seem to be an option for them in many cases. In an odd way, we've become a very "conservative" culture in terms of actually producing anything. [...]

For me, an artist's job is to follow the rules and conventions set down by received tradition [...] But that doesn't mean he can't work within those conventions to produce something wonderful and beautiful and genuinely new. [...] The central problem is our culture now has very little content--whether in terms of the Faith or even in terms of a central secular story. We have nothing to celebrate, nothing to impart, and thus as a consequence rather than, say, decorating our airports with great allegorical and historical images of flight, or of national virtue, or of the patron saints of the air, we get safely non-controversial art generated by a contest among our schoolchildren, or, at most, something abstract designed carefully not to offend. How are we supposed to get inspired by this? How are we supposed to discover what it means to be the inheritor, as a nation of immigrants, of some of the best cultural traditions of the west and the east as well?

Matthew Alderman. Christ the Youth. Ink, 2010. Private Collection, Kansas.

I think a lot of people find this sort of traditional culture "elitist" or "imperialist," which drives me crazy, as I think often when you get down to it you can find more in common among the traditional cultures of the whole world than the secular universe you have nowadays. [...] Ideally, inclusion within culture would be represented by a series of statues of the great philosophers where you have both Socrates and Confucius, who the Jesuits actually first translated and introduced to the west. Nowadays you just don't have any statues at all. [...]

In architecture, it's a bit different... [...] Most of us who work for classical or traditional firms (quite a few of which exist, and in usual economic conditions, even flourish) have to fight a two-front war between people who assume we're dangerous reactionaries ([Deconstructivist par excellance] Peter Eisenmann once called an audience of classical students, to their face, a bunch of "terrorists"), and those who want something traditional but don't know where to look and thus end up asking Bob's Discount Architects for a Georgian home that appears to have been molded out of plastic. And then, nobody wins, save perhaps Bob. [...]

Matthew Alderman. Madonna and Child. Ink, 2010. Private Collection, Michigan.

LK: How is your faith reflected in your work?

MGA: Considering most of my work consists of images of various saints and other religious figures, it's everywhere! There's always a slight tension between when I treat an illustration I'm doing as an exercise in composition, and as an aid to devotion, or to illustrate a particular theological point. I think ideally there should be no such clash, as they ought to be perfectly beautiful and perfectly suitable for their purpose, but working out that relationship can be tricky. I think, though, there is a tendency among purists to want to reduce religious art to a series of flat theological diagrams, which is simply not part of the Western Catholic tradition, which has had room for some limited artistic freedom (admittedly sometimes abused) for six or seven centuries or more. While I could stand to be more systematic, I do pray while I work, and try to ask God and the saint I am drawing to find that balance between composition and intelligibility--I usually ask God to let me do a worthy drawing, but also to have a bit of fun with the subject while I'm at it. And that "fun" also has a component of Faith to it, as it usually manifests itself in the details where I work in another subtler level of symbolism. An ornamental edging of a dress worn by the Virgin might have seashells worked into it, for her title of Stella Maris, for instance. I am reminded of the work of the architect Edwin Lutyens, who once designed light fixtures resembling cardinal's hats for a Jesuit chapel, with the humbling and subtle joke behind then that the red hat was always just a bit above reach for most Jesuits.

Matthew Alderman. Conceptual Sketch for a Basilican Interior in the style of Otto Wagner.

In architecture, it's much the same. It's easy to assume a "Catholic" church building will have some saints here, some pointy windows there, maybe a dome--and it often should have these things--but if you don't get the essence right, if you don't adhere to those fundamental underlying codes, it'll look superficial. The way we lay out the sanctuary, the way we plan the location of the altar, or install a baldachin or pulpit, the spatial arrangement of all these is critical in elucidating what we believe. Is the altar and the tabernacle the center or focus of the church, or is it the people? What do these choices tell us about what we believe? It's not enough to simply smear a coating of badly-done "traditional" ornament over a modern shell-though ornament, well-done, is extremely important as well. You just have to get the soul and structure right first. In some places, of course, this may not be possible--in which case you have to use space cleverly and find subtle ways to redirect people's attention to the points that matter.

The full interview can be found here. Images are derived from here and here.

Five Things Any Parish Can Do to Improve Sacred Space

2010-06-29T12:44:00.000-04:00

I am currently involved or looking into a number of interior or church furnishing design projects, which are becoming more prevalent these days as parishes attempt to bring a sense of tradition and beauty to their chancels and naves without having to break the bank by resorting to the wrecking ball. There are two paralell issues here: one is re-renovating churches that had their furniture disarranged or their paintwork dulled-down in the sixties and seventies, while the other involves trying to add a traditional element to a more modern interior. While there may be lavish budgets in places, often this has to be done on a shoestring. Here are five suggestions that can be done with a modest budget:

1. Rearrange the Furniture. The rather Zen-like, insubstantial quality of most modern church furnishings--except when they are Flinstones-style neo-primitive monstrosities--may actually be to your advantage here. Moving the freestanding portable altar in a few feet, shifting the clergy seating so they face inward rather than at an angle, and moving the tabernacle stand back to the center may be enough, at least initially, to restore order to a seriously compromised sanctuary. Such items can be slowly replaced by more dignified furnishings over time, or augmented with new additions such as a tester, altarpiece, or new paraments and hangings. The main issue here is ensuring that the new arrangement confirms to sound liturgical principles, such as highlighting the tabernacle and altar, as well as allowing for easy circulation of the sacred ministers. This is particularly important in older churches which were not designed with freestanding altars in mind.

This private chapel, with furnishings collected and arranged by a Benedictine monk, shows what can be achieved with a logical, liturgical and orderly arrangement of even fairly simple furnishings. While this is intended as a temporary chapel, in a more permanent situation the interior could be ennobled further with color and stencilling intended to highlight the altar and crucifix.

Alternately, one solution might be to eliminate some of the furnishings, or temporarily remove them on an ad experimentum basis. Most older churches were designed to focus on their high altar, and the removal of a freestanding altar--either temporarily, for special occasion masses said at the old high altar, or non-Eucharistic liturgies such as vespers--can do much to restore a sense of ordered clarity to an interior, especially if accompanied by an appropriate liturgical catechesis. More and more parishes are opting to consider this idea, which might have been unthinkable only a few years ago, and rediscovering the wisdom and beauty of facing liturgical East during mass. You will also be amazed at how much circulation space it opens up.

Fr. Chris Marino, a priest of the archdiocese of Miami, renovated Visitation Parish during his time there. Note the results that adding a little color and marble (above) can achieve to an otherwise unremarkable interior (below).

2. Consider a New Color-Scheme. Many older church interiors have been whitewashed or painted beige over the past forty years, while new ones are often characterized by fairly timid paint-jobs. If new furnishings are not possible, it may be possible to restore a sense of sacrality and hierarchy to an interior by using color strategically in such a way that it highlights the altar and sanctuary. A predominantly white interior might have greater amounts of color and guilding within the sanctuary, while an interior with a light-colored marble altar or reredos might be repainted with deeper, vivid colors on the surrounding walls. It is important to avoid large uninterrupted blocks of color or striping along cornices to avoid a cartoonish look; stencilling and ornamented borders can help break up such areas and create a sense of texture and variety within the space. The strategic addition of marble or other stonework in some areas may fulfill a similar function.

Note how stencilling can break up and add interest to large unrelieved areas of color.

3. Add New Paraments and Hangings. Wall-hangings can cover a multitude of sins, from cracked plaster walls to hideous glass-block windows, and, when placed strategically, can highlight the most important elements of an interior. A simple cloth dossal behind the altar and tabernacle, well-draped, can do a lot to restore a proper sense of directional focus, especially if paired with matching frontals. Color is an important factor here. It may not be practical to change large-scale hangings with the liturgical seasons. A color should be selected that harmonizes with the interior, though one should note traditionally green was used as the color of choice for permanent sanctuary hangings. An inexpensive alternative to a proper hanging tester might be one made of draped cloth hung over a couple of ornamental rods. Spreading a good-quality Oriental carpet on the sanctuary floor would also revive a medieval tradition in this context. With regards to windows, the Italian and Spanish habit of hanging light canvas curtains over them to control lighting might be revived here, though in an effort to dull the brash colors and crude patterns of much modern stained glass.

This interior, already handsome, could be made even more beautiful by removing its carpeting, moving the server's chairs to one side of the sanctuary, and either replacing the existing altar or disguising with new frontals. I note, with approval, that the freestanding altar has its own footpace or predella as opposed to being simply left at the same level as the chancel, though perhaps at the expense of some of the liturgical circulation space.

4. Put in a New Floor. In older churches that were lightly re-ordered in the 1960s, often the only thing that cannot be set right by rearranging the furnishings a bit is the floor, which is often covered with an ugly, sound-deadening layer of carpet, often in a dubious color. Wall-to-wall carpeting plays havoc with accoustics, is often dingy and hard to clean, and instills an uncomfortable institutional or domestic note in otherwise glorious interiors. Simply removing the carpeting may reveal a perfectly usable floor underneath. Damaged floors can be replaced with tiles, woodwork, stained concrete--which can be surprisingly handsome--or even some artificial floor-coverings. New flooring can be added gradually, beginning with the sanctuary or the central aisle of the church and expanded over time.

There is nothing wrong with each of the individual elements here, but they have been combined in a somewhat muddled way. While placing relics within an altar--even visible through a glass front--is traditional and appropriate, this sort of arrangement on shelves is more suitable for a large reliquary cabinet independent of the altar, much less below the mensa of one. Reliquary altars work better if all the relics are placed in a large casket occupying much of the interior, or within a recumbent figure of the saint. The individual statues, each of different sizes, seem placed somewhat haphazardly. Perhaps if they were on brackets underneath the arms of the cross it might be better. The stenciling could also be altered to highlight them in some way, while the presence lamps would be better suspended on chains rather than crowding the gradine.

5. Re-Organize Well-Meaning Clutter. Quite a few parishes assume simply adding catalog-bought statuary, flowers, and candelabra to a bland contemporary design they will be able to bring beauty and tradition to their church. Often the result is distracting and the contrast can even make older elements, not properly engaged with their surroundings, appear museum-like, more like artifacts than aids to devotion. New statuary should never simply be plunked down on a pedestal without considering their place within the church. Rather than simply installing a statue, consider creating some sort of aedicule or altarino-like shrine to mediate between the sculpture and its surroundings. It should feel like a permanent element of the interior and not merely a late addition. The same goes for indiscriminately-arranged flower arrangements, potted ferns, and other odds and ends. Try to create logical relationships between these elements and other furnishings like votive candle racks and kneelers. Nartheces, with their pamphlet-racks and literature tables can fall particular victim to this disease.

An example of one of the Stations of the Cross in a traditional style that could harmonize with a more modernistic interior.

A good example of a consistent application of a modernistic style to a traditional layout. The reredos, while somewhat abstracted, nonetheless includes a centrally-placed tabernacle, crucifix, and prominent images of the saints, and ennobles the style of the interior without clashing with it.

Finally, one overall principle: Work with what you have, and don't work against it. You may not be able to turn your 1950s A-frame church into Chartres, but if you try to find art that harmonizes with its perhaps now rather quaint attempts at futurism, while at the same time seeking to reconnect it with tradition, the result may have a pleasing consistency to it. Simply dropping garish plaster statuary in a dull modern church results in a museum diorama of the history of American Catholic bad taste. Try instead to find common ground, while at the same time ennobling it in some fashion. Many of the examples of the "other modern" we have showcased on this website may give you ideas. While it may lack the grandeur of Rome or Florence, it can still become a beautiful, unified expression of the Faith.

A stylistic "clash," though a fairly minor one. This image of Our Lady of Grace is a very good quality example of a more traditional plaster statue, unlike many today. However, it is somewhat removed in style from its more modernistic/art-deco influenced surroundings, which are actually fairly traditional in their symbolism and layout if not their lines. A more simple Art Deco or Romanesque-influenced sculpture might complement the interior with more success. The placement of a votive-candle stand tucked to one side of the altar shows a very intelligent and orderly use of space that minimizes clutter while filling up largely unusable space, though two smaller flower-vases on either side of the devotional statue, towards the back of the mensa, might work better.

In Honor of St. Thomas More's Feast

2010-06-22T13:25:00.005-04:00

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.

Introducing Matthew Alderman Studios!

2010-06-21T16:52:00.002-04:00

After years of people asking, "Do you have a website?" and lamely answering that my drawings, furnishing designs, and writing were spread rather thinly across a large chunk of the Catholic blogosphere, I have finally gone and planted my flag on a stretch of digital real estate and established Matthew Alderman Studios at matthewalderman.com. There, you will find information about my abilities as a church furnishing designer, classical design consultant, professional illustrator, public speaker, and also information about commissioning new work, buying prints, having me speak to your organization on liturgical or artistic matters, and a great deal more for your amusement and edification. I am also branching out into the design of liturgical elements like chalices, vestments and other elements, having just completed a tapestry for a parish and eager to do more of the same.

I have also set up a flickr.com photostream of my ink drawings, which will be updated frequently with new work, and a small but growing storefront for buying prints, notecards and other Catholic tchotchkes with my work on them. I also hope to have the capability of selling prints online in the near future, once I am satisified with some quality-control checks. In the mean time, you can continue to email me about purchasing prints, or, if you are located in the greater Minneapolis area, visit the sacred gifts department at Loome's.

I have a number of interesting design consulting and furnishing projects in the pipeline for a variety of churches and chapels across the U.S. and hope to write more about them as the designs develop, but in the mean time, I am always interested in discussing providing my services to interested individuals, parishes and organizations. I can be reached variously at my NLM email account, or at my new email address of matthew (at) matthewalderman.com. Welcome, and enjoy your visit!

Eastern Orthodox Humor Even Fr. Vasily Could Love (Maybe)*

2010-06-18T12:40:00.002-04:00

We at the Shrine love Eastern Orthodox humor, as anyone would know from our fondness for the long-running The Onion Dome, which recently closed its doors (is outrage!). Much to our delight, we have found another ecumenical fix for inter-church humor, with the doodles of Orthodox blogger Stephen Robinson over at Pithless Thoughts. A sample:

And, continuing our relentless, out-of-place ninja meme:

Also, someone who illustrates a post on bad chanting with the Saturday Night Live skit "Season's Greetings from Tarzan, Tonto and Frankenstein" must have something good going for him.

*Was there fancy graphs in 19th century Russia? ...Er...I'm not sure.

An Interesting Folkloric Fossil

2010-06-14T22:14:00.002-04:00

I am told, in the late Middle Ages, that the candles used in the Candlemas procession were often taken home afterwards by the laity and used as a powerful sacramental. Indeed, just as church bells were rung during thunderstorms to ward off lighting strikes (the bells are blessed after all), the Candlemas candles were lit on similar occasions. (I attended the Candlemas procession at Kenrick-Glennon and kept my candle stub in case of just such eventuality, by the way, though come the first thunderstorm of the year I forgot to do anything about it.) Indeed, in Poland, there is a devotion, I think, to Our Lady of the Blessed Thunder Candle, that arose from this practice (though she is also shown with a wolf at her feet. I haven't a clue what's up with that). What I thought was particularly interesting was when I mentioned some of these customs to my dad, he said his late mother (Irish-American Catholic) had sometimes lit candles during thunderstorms, and not necessarily because of a power failure, though not for any discernable sacramental reason, either. Presumably the practice must have survived in some highly distented, habitual way in some places, even if devoid of its original significance. Or maybe she was just readying herself for the power to go out.

Chocolate in my Peanut Butter, Marxism in my Nihilism

2010-06-14T21:55:00.002-04:00

This evening while poking around the local Barnes and Noble, I noticed a book entitled Marx: A Very Short Introduction. The author is Princeton academic Peter Singer, the famous ethicist (cough) and proponent of the theory that animals have rights while mentally-handicapped newborns do not. (Let's leave it at that; it gets worse from here). It occurred to me there's a golden opportunity for shameless cross-promotion here: "Marx and Singer together: Now with twice as many bad ideas!"

Also, memo to the lady talking to her friend in the Shakespeare section: "Temptest" is not a word.

I Really Wish I Knew the Context. Or Maybe It's Better This Way.

2010-06-11T09:46:00.000-04:00

Overheard in a conversation between three schoolgirls (possibly carefully-disguised ancient alien astronauts on vacation) talking very loudly on the other side of the street:

"But you, YOU, nearly destroyed an entire civilization!"

The other alternative is the school play this year is entitled Big Bad Cabeza de Vaca*, or When Conquistadors Attack! or or somesuchlike.

*Sung (poorly) to the tune of Big Bad Leroy Brown, obviously. Not to be confused with Arthur Brown, who was merely the baddest beaux-arts architect in San Francisco town, and who, I believe, had a protractor and not a razor in his shoe.

Hilaire Belloc: Wild and Crazy Guy

2010-06-11T06:52:00.002-04:00

From Wikipedia's entry on the, er, back half* of our good friend the Chesterbelloc (emphasis mine):

An 1895 graduate of Balliol College, Oxford, Belloc was a noted figure within the University, being President of the Oxford Union, the undergraduate debating society. He went into politics after he became a naturalised British subject. A great disappointment in his life was his failure to gain a fellowship at All Souls College in Oxford in 1895. This failure may have been caused in part by his producing a small statue of the Virgin and placing it before him on the table during the interview for the fellowship.

*Unfortunately he did have some rather, er, back-half moments on occasion, and certainly was the crankier part of the dynamic duo. But then, Chesterton had enough good humor for four men of normal size.

St. Margaret of Scotland and St. Nicholas Owen

2010-06-10T08:57:00.007-04:00

Matthew Alderman. St. Margaret of Scotland. March 2010. Private Collection, Virginia.

Matthew Alderman. St. Nicholas Owen. March 2010. Private Collection, Virginia.
While her feast-day in the modern Roman calendar is much more familiar to me, today is the feast of the Hungarian-born Anglo-Saxon princess St. Margaret of Scotland in the old pre-1970 calendar, so-placed because of an oversold seating conflict with St. Gertrude the Great on her actual November 16 death-date. On account of this, I thought I'd share two recent drawings I did for a client and friend in Virginia, of the saint, and also of St. Nicholas Owen, the dwarf Jesuit carpenter responsible for the most impenetrable and complex priest-holes devised during the Elizabethan and Jacobean persecutions. I decided to borrow some elements from the late 19th and early 20th century "Glasgow School" design style popularized by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and incorporate them in the drawing. This doesn't have too much to do with the symbolism (and indeed, it is not an explicitly religious style, though I know of at least one church built in this manner) but it is a local (if slight) nod to St. Margaret.

St. Margaret is usually shown with a book and a cross or crucifix, repeated here. I had to elaborate a bit further on her relatively limited iconography to flesh out the drawing; and while not truly a symbol of hers, she is often shown with her hair in plaits or braids like I have shown. The cross shows Christ the King, chosen as she was a queen, and the book has the arms of Scotland (the lion) and the cross of St. Andrew (Scotland's patron) on it. The brooch at her neck has the arms of Edward the Confessor, her uncle, on it. The flowers are a fairly generic representation of her feminine virtue and qualities, and there are some slight suggestions of Celtic knotwork in the border.

There is even less of an iconography for St. Nicholas though there are a few fixed points: lay clothing, lumber, and some sort of carpentry tools. The few images I saw of St. Nicholas show him in civilian clothes (with one rather anachronistic exception), hence the hat and ruff. I have added a large and vaguely clerical cloak to suggest in a loose way his status as a laybrother, though it is not meant by any means literally. It also suggests a bit of his mystery--as a Jesuit secret agent of sorts and patron saint of escape artists, he ought to have a little bit of dash to him. The little IHS is for his status as a Jesuit. The item in his left hand is the weight that was attached to his feet while he was tortured and eventually caused his chronic hernia to go critical and kill him. The three nails embossed on the weight are a reference to the Passion and also sometimes incorporated in the Jesuit monogram. In his left hand are a builder's square, stacked lumber, and a planing blade of some sort; I'm not sure what it's called but it's used to shave off excess wood. The angel is holding a model of the English manor where, I believe, he was finally arrested. One image I have seen shows him with a similar model, though I do not know if it is meant to represent all recusant houses or a specific one.

The relative proportions of red and black between the two images indicate that one was a martyr and the other not. The two were intended as a set, and the patron chose to use a reddish-brown wood for the frame, which nicely picks up on the red in the drawings.

I am currently planning out much of my summer and fall drawing and work schedule, so please feel free to contact me regarding future illustration commissions.

My Friends Understand Me

2010-06-09T10:39:00.002-04:00

A recent crie-de-coeur text message from a friend: "Church in the round - why??"

Previously, on All Souls Day, the same pal sent me just one word via text: "Catafalque!"

Correction: Maltese Knight-Pirate-Samurai-Ninjas

2010-06-09T09:53:00.005-04:00

In a previous post, I compared (or implied the comparison) the Knights of Malta in terms of their massive awesomeness to ninjas. On sober reflection, it occurs to me that the proper and more accurate comparison, because of their swordsmanship and their brilliant navigational and naval warfare skills, is to pirate-ninjas. (They wear black and have ships. Full stop.) In fact, in cold, hard, objective terms, during their days of attacking the Ottoman fleet, they effectively were pirate-ninjas, or at even something like pirate-Shaolin monk-samurai-ninjas.* Which makes it even more awesome. Okay, maybe ninja-privateers.

That is all.

*Okay, no more TVtropes.com for me.

Well, Obi Wan Kenobi Does Dress a Bit like Simon Stock

2010-06-09T08:46:00.003-04:00

Overheard at a lecture on Carmelite spirituality:

Man: I was enrolled in the Green Scapular for healing as a child. If I get the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, will that be a problem? Do they build on one another?
Friar: (jokingly) There's not going to be a disturbance in the Force, no.

New Book Out on Harry Clarke

2010-06-08T13:07:00.003-04:00

Readers of this website will recall my longtime interest in the work of Irish illustrator and stained-glass designer Harry Clarke, whose stunning and somewhat idiosyncratic style represents some of the most creative and unusual work done in the liturgical and ecclesiastical sphere. While always innovative and drawing on a vast network of both sacred and secular precedents (it is difficult whether to classify him as Art Nouveau, Symbolist, Celtic Revival, or something else entirely), his designs always drew on his own deep knowledge of Christian symbolism, theology, history, and lore, and while sometimes controversial, were praised by the likes of even the cranky Dom Roulin in his Modern Church Architecture.

I read with interest in the Irish Times that it seems a new book, Strangest Genius: The Complete Stained Glass of Harry Clarke, has been published showcasing the artist's 160 stained-glass windows, which will be a worthy successor to Nicola Gordon Bowe's excellent (if rare) 1989 The Life and Work of Harry Clarke, whose largely black-and-white illustrations afford a somewhat inevitably limited view of the subject. It appears itself to be the work of a considerable amount of leg-work and original research on the part of the authors. I have not been able to obtain a copy, but the website set up to promote the book looks quite promising. It appears the full content of the website itself will be launched in association with RTE (Irish Television) in October of this year. If anyone knows anything else about this project, I would be interested in hearing more.

(Image source: here).

David Clayton Profiles My Work!

2010-06-08T09:14:00.004-04:00

I apologize for the long hiatus in entries. The last few months have been hectic, even by my usual rather stringent standards, while last week I rejoiced in the quiet (if somewhat foggy) arcadia of Acadia National Park off the Maine coast with my family, where I hiked, feasted on large quantities of helpless lobsters, and read most of the late Michael McCarthy's handsomely-illustrated last treatise on ecclesiastical heraldry. In any case, things have quieted down somewhat back at GHQ in Wisconsin and I hope to resume with daily postings here and over at The New Liturgical Movement.

In any case, this item is about a week overdue, but will be of interest to our readers in any case. David Clayton, who I have written of in these pages before,and who is a talented iconographer and artist of considerable experience, very kindly wrote up a thoughtful article on my own graphic design and illustration work. He comments:

He talks about his art as though its just a hobby on the side, but I find it interesting. He has, in my opinion, a natural sense of composition and his lines flow gracefully and rhythmically. He fills up the space without it being too cluttered. [...]

Although I can say with certainty I like his work, I find it difficult to pigeonhole as well. Clearly, the subject matter reflects his faith, featuring lots of saints (and he has Catholic figures such as Dante there too). [...] it [draws] me in and make me curious about the personality of the person depicted. These seem to me to be just the qualities that are needed in illustrations, which accompany text. I wonder, Matt, do you get any requests in this regard?

I appreciate his compliments, as well as his critique, and I agree from my own perspective, my art is rather hard to pigeonhole. David considers it through the lens of illustration, which delights me, as ultimately I consider myself more of an illustrator than a fine artist--though I also consider Dürer, Harry Clarke, Martin Travers, and Alphonse Mucha, some of my primary influences in style though not always content, to be primarily illustrators as well. David himself comments that:

Much of the quality artwork of the last century has come from illustrators. This point was made to me years ago when I was working as a lowly freelance sub-editor at the The Sunday Times in London. The art critic, Frank Whitford (who was a charming gentleman) always used to include reviews of illustrators’ art exhibitions in his weekly round-up. I can remember him reviewing a show of the work of E.H. Shepherd, for example, the creator of the images of the characters in the Winnie the Pooh books. I asked him why he included so many illustrator’s shows. He said it was because illustrators were, in contrast to most artists nowadays, trained in the skills of drawing and painting and were directing their skills i conformity to an external purpose (rather than self-promotion). Consequently they very often produced the most interesting and original work around

This is something I have found myself--aside from the intrepid handful of traditional painters and artists like David and my other artist friend Anthony Visco, the only true advances in art these days are coming from children's book illustration. (Just as, outside of the classical world, probably the most interesting bit of architecture undertaken in the last twenty years were the computer-animated sets for the second round of Star Wars movies, which almost makes up for the dialogue, plot, acting, and bad theology. Almost.)

As to David's question, I have in the past come close to doing book illustration, but unfortunately the stars have never quite aligned. My work is becoming less and less of a side hobby these days and is now rather in the line of a small subsidiary business, so I hope I will have the opportunity to take on larger projects like this in the future.

I would like to respond, though, to David's comment that he is not sure he could use my work in a devotional or liturgical context, while thinking them well-suited to illustrative work. I do understand what he is getting at, as there is always a tension between the devotional and the decorative, and that balance is hard to achieve. I appreciate that he is nonetheless able to appreciate the illustrative and technical quality of my work in spite of this. I am always still learning. Certainly, ink illustrations cannot be used as decoration in a church, and my style might need some adaptation in that context, but in addition to being illustrative, I do see a devotional function it as well. I hope in time to provide inexpensive prints of my work similar in function though better in quality to the old holy-card style prints, oleagraphs and woodcuts, that hung in people's houses as ensigns of popular piety.

I think part of David's reticence lies in the perceived similarity to the work of Aubrey Beardsley in my own style, which has been remarked on in the past. When someone told me that, I went and looked at some of his designs and actually, with the exception of his use of blocks of black, I didn't find much I liked (his cherubs always look kind of sinister, among many other things). I am also now experimenting with less black backgrounds, for the sake of variety, though I choose them mostly because they help the delicate linework stand out better.

My own style, while definitely strongly influenced by Art Nouveau, derives much more from other artists and illustrators of the same period, as well as, in lesser amounts, medieval and early Renaissance precedents, Liturgical Movement graphics, a little bit of Baroque decorative ornament, and about a dozen other things. (Though more and more, as it all blurs together, it is becoming very hard to tell where I get what from who anymore). But in any case, I do appreciate his comments and his great generosity in writing such a kind, complimentary and thoughtful review of my own work, especially as I am still quite new in this field and lack his own considerable experience! I am still developing and there is much room to grow.

To those of you who may be considering commissioning work, please remember I am always in the market for such projects, and this summer it looks like I will have a good bit of free time to devote to them. I look forward to hearing from you.

This Fellow Needs to Get Out a Bit More

2010-05-26T19:54:00.001-04:00

From Balkan Ghosts, Robert D. Kaplan, p. 122:

In the cathedral lay the reputed bones of St. [Paraskeva] in a gold coffin whose lid was open. I watched a throng of Romanians wait in line to touch and kiss the skeleton. What struck me was the fervor and terror of the faces waiting in line. Not merely were the people repeatedly crossing themselves but they were doing so with knees on the floor, and some of them were sweating profusely. They were truly drenched in sweat, even though the air felt cooler in the cathedral than outside. Several worshippers scribbled notes to the saint--but not just one note. Each supplicant seemed to be writing as fast and intensely as he or she could, note after note after note. Only in Shiite holy places in the Middle East had I experienced such a charged and suffocating religious climate, rippling with explosive energy.

After reading this, speaking as a Catholic nerd, I was tempted to add, "Or as we call it around here, just another Tuesday afternoon."

From the Sketchbook

2010-05-25T23:48:00.004-04:00

A few loose sketches I whipped up to entertain myself this evening of a number of variations on a simple small church facade and a variety of bell walls, bell-cotes and other elements. A few are combinations of brick and stucco, simply stucco, or wood clapboard.

Denis McNamara on Sacred Architecture

2010-05-24T22:14:00.002-04:00

I am currently beginning to write a magazine review of Denis McNamara's excellent new work on churchbuilding, Catholic Church Architecture and the Spirit of the Liturgy, and I was pleased to see that the excellent Institute of Catholic Culture had recently had him give a lecture on the subject, which is now available online at their website, along with the accompanying slide show. Dr. McNamara's talk is in many respects a capsule version of his book, and will be of particular interest to our readers in that while he often refers to both Gothic and classical precedents, he provides a deeper and more probing theological rationale by which any and all styles, ancient and modern, might be judged as suitable for ecclesiastical use.

The lecture, like the book, is possibly the best comprehensive analysis of the theology of church architecture and aesthetics I have seen all together in one place in quite a while. It is definitely worth your listening time.

Something else significant which Dr. McNamara brings up (briefly here and at greater length in his book), is the issue of iconography in both the eastern and western context. Dr. McNamara challenges us to go beyond just plopping Mary and Joseph on either side of the crucifix and calling it "tradition," and instead seeking out a more ancient and truly liturgical precedent which turns the sanctuary into a representation of the heavenly liturgy, God among the saints and angels of the Book of Revelation.

Incidentally, if you are unfamiliar with the Institute's work, this lecture is a fine introduction. They have been sponsoring a continuing series of lectures by a variety of distinguished Catholic speakers, mostly in parishes in the Arlington diocese in Virginia. They keep a free sound library of previous talks on their website. Previous speakers have included my liturgical colleague Fr. Kocik speaking on issues of liturgical reform, and a range of talks on Church and secular history by some of the faculty of Christendom College, including a delightful and at times rather witty series on the Crusades by Brendan McGuire. Readers may also appreciate Fr. Fessio's piece on the relationship between Pope Benedict's program for the liturgy and for the Anglican ordinariates, which may be found here.

Photo source here.

Good Proportion Does Not Cost Extra

2010-05-18T23:24:00.003-04:00

I was privileged to meet David Clayton, the well-known painter spearheading the new sacred art program at Thomas More College, when I popped up to give a lecture at the place back in February of last year. (The weekend which followed included, in varying amounts, John Zmirak, John Singer Sargent, a beagle named after the late Austrian emperor Franz-Josef, drive-by Cram sightings, the movie Gran Torino, and the then-engaged, now-married POD power couple of a young Anglican vicar and his girl lawyer fiancee, both of whom are great fun and both of whom are probably reading this right now.) Mr. Clayton is both thoughtful and very talented, and, unusually for most Catholic artists, is both trained in traditional Byzantine iconography and the traditions of Renaissance classicism, two vital streams of Catholic thought which must be considered in any future restoration of Christian art. To ignore one would be an act of archaeological narrow-mindedness, to ignore the other would be to cut tradition off at the roots.

Mr. Clayton has recently started his own blog, in addition to having taken on the role as sacred art correspondent for The New Liturgical Movement, where he has posted a number of very intelligent essays in the past few months. One particularly good piece deals with proportion not just in sacred art, but in secular architecture--even quite humble secular architecture. He makes the point that even in the most workmanlike public housing and factory projects our Victorian forefathers paid attention to proportion, scale and (in appropriately limited amounts) ornament. Good proportion, as Cram once said, doesn't cost any more than bad proportions. It may even cost you less as David's article points out, as it adds considerable intrinsic value to a project. (And not only is good proportion pleasing to the eye, I think it affects us at even a subconscious level. There's a reason we feel troubled in triangular rooms, or that wide, low spaces oppress us.)

The article cites Victorian English structures, but I can think of some absolutely gemlike little workers' townhouses, simply ornamented but with fine proportions and well-thought-out brickwork, that I once ran across in Brooklyn when I lived out in New York. While probably intended for those on the lower end of the scale, I suspect today only the very wealthy can afford to live there. It is sad that today even low-end craftsmanship from days past is light-years ahead of even the highest of our high-end work. (Which is a thought that leads to another question--what the large-scale societal effects might be, or have been, of such skilled blue-collar craft jobs being reduced, for no good or logical reason besides minimalist fashion, to obscure niches. But that is a subject for another discussion.)

Anyway, read the piece here, and check back for updates!

More Status Updates from Yours Truly

2010-05-18T19:09:00.002-04:00

Apologies for the long blogging silence. In the hopes of distracting you, dear reader, from your disappointment, some slice-of-life humor from the singular world of Planet Matthew:

April 27: Lecturer: "If you really want to start an argument, ask someone their opinion about anything involving the liturgy." Everyone turns around and looks at me.

April 24: I am probably the only person who impulse-buys small statues of the Virgin Mary. Except probably at least 50% of the people I know on Facebook...

[And naturally, most of them replied with photos of their own. I love my friends]

April 21: I wonder what would happen if you put Charles Fort and G.K. Chesterton in a room together? It'd be entertaining to watch, if probably loud, argumentative and kind of weird.

April 20: Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History would make a great disaster movie; it's a bit like watching Nero stomp through a badly-made model of Tokyo while a soap opera plays in the background. The amazing thing is, it's all true.

[Okay, mostly true.]

April 14 Strategic North American Lego Supply would make a good name for a band.

[I'm omitting the update involving using incidents in 30 Rock as proof the subdiaconate ought not to have been abolished that generated a lengthy discussion among my friends and I as to whether John Knox and Vatican II existed in the in-show 30 Rock universe. One major flaw: to work, the theory we finally hashed out requires taking Tracy Jordan's outburst "I'll tell you why, because the Pope owns Long John Silver's" at face value.]

Padre Pio and the Slightly Squashed Armadillo

2010-04-30T21:07:00.003-04:00

(Suddenly, the pilgrim glanced up, alerted something horrible was about to happen from the approaching rendition of the Theme from Jaws.)

What is it these days with mod church architects and armadillos? The Taj Mahoney looks like a giant cubic space-armadillo from the Vogsphere, and now Renzo Piano's humble little gigantic slightly-smaller-than-St. Peter's shrine to Padre Pio in Puglia has been described--by a journalist in a glowing review, no less--as a "slightly squashed armadillo." I learned this fun fact (as well as the fact that St. Pio is best described as a "shaman," apparently) while reading up for an article I just finished writing on the subject and which will probably make it into the next edition of Sacred Architecture if they have enough room. I tried very hard to be objective, which is why the following phrases and sentences do not appear in the article. Think of this as the gag reel.

"Blaming the Masons for the church's design problems is, at the very least, unimaginative. For one thing, the Masons have better taste."

"It does not help the tabernacle resembles nothing so much as the scary black monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey." It does, by the way, I'm not kidding.

"...and it will not work, unless we adopt a Eucharistic theology which is positively Lovecraftian to explain it..."

A reference to Elvis sightings, Roswell, and weather ballooms (it made sense in context, and then, on re-reading it, it didn't.)

"...resembling the shell of a turtle but with none of its organic charm."

"One reason the campanile is more successful is it appears to have accidentally wandered in from another building."

"I am afraid that altar cross is going to come to life and eat me in my sleep."

"...Piero Marini, the poster-boy for liberal liturgy and favorite chew-toy of traditionalists..." (including, despite my efforts to be charitable, myself)

I did, however, manage to find a way to fit in the phrases "medieval zoo" and "High Church Episcopalian pillow-fight," though the latter was a quote from a Boston Globe columnist concerning the fracas over Piano's successful attempt to get his mitts on the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's proposed expansion.

Let's See if I Can Squeeze This In Before the Feast of St. Peter Martyr (1962 Calendar) Ends in About an Hour

2010-04-29T22:43:00.000-04:00

A Matt drawing project from blog postings past:

Matthew Alderman. S. Peter Martyr. 4" x 6", ink on vellum. September 2008. Private Collection, Virginia. (Click image for larger version).

A work commissioned by a client (and friend) in Virginia as a Christmas present for her younger brother, whose confirmation saint is S. Peter Martyr.

Her response: "A perfect balance of blood, awash with profundity and Dominicanism!" (She's a writer. They're allowed to say stuff like that.)

She reports on her brother's reaction: "He has been showing it off to anyone who will listen as 'the best gift of the entire year'!"

Which comes, not so much as a puff-up of pride, but a great relief! The artist always risks getting boxed up in his subjectivity if he is not careful. Admittedly, so long as it is directed by a properly-formed conscience and a deep artistic sense of decorum and precedent, this subjectivity is one of the artist's great assets. However, he always runs the risk of ruining that particularly valuable facet of himself by falling into egotism. Such comments, and such abilities to bring a little modicum of happiness, always come as a great relief as a result! Especially if the work, true to traditional iconographic form, involves a gory meatcleaver.

The story of S. Peter Martyr runs thus:

Born at Verona, 1206; died near Milan, 6 April, 1252. His parents were adherents of the Manichæan heresy [ie, Cathars or Albigenses, those sexually-repressed, suicidal dualist weirdoes so beloved of sub-Dan Brown fictioneers], which still survived in northern Italy in the thirteenth century. Sent to a Catholic school, and later to the University of Bologna, he there met St. Dominic, and entered the Order of the Friars Preachers. Such were his virtues, severity of life and doctrine, talent for preaching, and zeal for the Faith, that Gregory IX made him general inquisitor, and his superiors destined him to combat the Manichæan errors. In that capacity he evangelized nearly the whole of Italy, preaching in Rome, Florence, Bologna, Genoa, and Como. Crowds came to meet him and followed him wherever he went; and conversions were numerous. He never failed to denounce the vices and errors of Catholics who confessed the Faith by words, but in deeds denied it. The Manichæans did all they could to compel the inquisitor to cease from preaching against their errors and propaganda. Persecutions, calumnies, threats, nothing was left untried.

When returning from Como to Milan, he met a certain Carino who with some other Manichæans had plotted to murder him. The assassin struck him with an axe on the head with such violence, that the holy man fell half dead. Rising to his knees he recited the first article of the Symbol of the Apostles, and offering his blood as a sacrifice to God he dipped his fingers in it and wrote on the ground the words: "Credo in Deum". The murderer then pierced his heart. The body was carried to Milan and laid in the church of St. Eustorgio, where a magnificent mausoleum, the work of Balduccio Pisano, was erected to his memory. He wrought many miracles when living, but they were even more numerous after his martyrdom, so that Innocent IV canonized him on 25 March, 1253.

His murderer later became a Dominican laybrother himself, and is venerated as Blessed Carino of Balsamo. (It was a popular cult and it is unclear to me if it ever got approved by Rome, as the paperwork got lost at some point. Really.) His accomplice, Manfredo, lighted off for the Alps and took refuge with the Waldenses, an obscure proto-Protestant sect founded by one Waldo (really), who are now best known for renting out their space in their small number of Roman churches to touristy opera concerts.

Peter's dying witness to the faith handed down to us by the Apostles later inspired a party snack of mine, incidentally. (Look, we're Catholic. Some of us think stigmata cookies are a good idea. We smile because the saints are joyous in heaven, and perhaps the ketchup reminds us we're called to nobler sacrifices.)

Back to the drawing. A finished work is never perfect, and the artist always feels his greatest project is the one next up on his drawing board. There are always problems, things you'd wish you'd been able to fix, rework, or study more carefully, as well. On the other hand, dissatisfaction or even failure can also be remarkably salutary as well, as while liturgical art can exhort and challenge the faithful to remember the suffering of the martyrs--and thus have a certain positive hagiographic shock value--you have to at least get your foot in the door first with beauty, tradition and a sense of psychological complexity when the subject demands it. Or perhaps, depending on the audience, the splatter comes first, and then the serenity.

This is the Dictionary Definition of Awesome (Hint: It Involves Maltese Knights)

2010-04-28T00:16:00.006-04:00

The Santa Anna: A 16th-century ironclad* warship belonging to the Knights of Malta. Not even ninjas could make this more awesome. There were also a windmill, three forges, and several ovens, as well as a garden on board, as well.**

*Okay, technically it's lead-clad. Shut up.

**I'm not sure, I admit, that adds to the awesomeness unless perhaps there was a forest of topiary trees trimmed by roving bands of Maltese ninja gardeners. The topiary trees would be in the shape of bears, obviously.

"They're Always There"

2010-04-27T23:51:00.001-04:00

As our readers know, I was in St. Louis, Missouri, a few months back, to lead a workshop on sacred architecture with about sixty of the seminarians at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary. (You can find recordings of the the lectures here.) If the Pontifical North American College is the Church's West Point, then Kenrick-Glennon must at the very least be its Annapolis. I hope eventually to set down my reflections on what I saw there, but one detail was particularly telling.

There was a small chapel directly across the hall from my guest room, a pleasant, dim little space where the Sanctissimum was reserved atop a simple but very traditional altar up against the wall that could have served as a textbook illustration for O'Connell or one of the other rubrical guides from before the Council--no gradines, the altar strong and clear in its shape and properly vested, God in His little round-sided house covered fully with a white veil, the tent of the presence, a little set of big six candlesticks and two low mass ones, if I remember correctly. A large, straightforward crucifix hung above it.

Wherever the Sacrament is, there is something of heaven, but I was particularly struck at how this well-known constellation of simple objects, with a bit of simple but subtle lighting and the power of memory and recognition, could transform a plain little room--and there was little on the walls save paint and, perhaps, a few icons here and there--into a true place of prayer. I was pleasantly surprised to hear the chapel had only recently been set up there, and was not, as one might assume, a relic of past ages.

This was, however not the detail that struck me. Several times I popped in to the chapel during my visit, a few times to pray and a few times in the hopes of taking a photo of this pleasant little sacred space for future inspiration should I ever need to design such a little chapel, and every time, well into the night, there were always at least two or three seminarians in there, kneeling and praying. I have to admit that, camera in hand, I was a bit annoyed--I didn't want to disturb them, but I did want a photo. It was by now nine-thirty at night and I was getting up the next morning at four-fifteen for the first flight back to Milwaukee. Forgive me, but it is hard to tell folks who design things--artists, architects and all the rest--that they're ever off duty. And, slightly and selfishly frustrated, the thought popped into my head: They're always there. But then I realized, yes, of course, they're always there, before the Eucharist.

I never did get a photo, but I left happy. This is why I have such high hopes for the future of the Church.

George the Victorious (and Bacon)

2010-04-23T13:58:00.004-04:00

In honor of the great warrior-saint, protector of England, Greece, Catalonia, Aragon, Canada, Cappadocia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal, and Russia, the cities of Amersfoort, Arcole, Appignano del Tronto, Beirut, Fakiha, Bteghrine, Cáceres, Ferrara, Freiburg, Genoa, Ljubljana, Milan, Pomorie, Preston, Salford, Qormi, Rio de Janeiro, Lod, Barcelona, Moscow and the Maltese island of Gozo, patron invoked against leprosy, against plague, against skin diseases, against skin rashes, of agricultural workers, archers, armorers, Boy Scouts, butchers, cavalry, chivalry, Crusaders, farmers, horses, knights, saddlers, the Romanian Army, sheep and shepherds, Teutonic knights and fieldhands, I will repost this piece I did on the subject back in May 2004. I have added a few comments in brackets. It's one of my favorite posts:

A Bedtime Story for the Eve of St. George's Day

from the Shrine's Resident Knight-Errant

The historian Gibbon, with his usual lack of charity and clarity, calls him a corrupt bacon salesman and Arian bishop of Cappadocia. However, as much as the dark side in our consciences enjoys tripping up the occasional sanctoral legend, St. George's martyrial crown is here to stay. We know that for certain. Any other identifications (whether knight, martyred deacon or heretic bishop) are spurious.

Apart from the historical fact of his martyrdom, we have little else save for a decidedly fictitious Acta condemned by the Council of Nicaea for being too weird for words. His legend is, unsurprisingly, full of blood and wonder, with all sorts of apocryphal embroideries that tell of his four martyrdoms--cut-to-pieces, buried alive, consumed by fire, decapitated--his conversion of the Empress (and subsequent saint) Alexandra, timbers bursting into leaf, and the miraculous flow of milk from his severed neck. Despite all the well-meaning attempts by the medievals to remove any trace of credulity from the story of St. George [though, of course, today we too easily shout "legend," more so than our ancestors might shout "miracle." --MGA, 2010], he nonetheless survived the pruning of the calendar in 1969, and he still remains today one of the most beloved of saints. Admitted, the fairytale dragon and the beautiful princess perhaps helps his mythic appeal, but the reality of his ancient veneration is undisputable.

The early pilgrims record his shrine as well-established by as early as the sixth century, at Lydda or Diospolis, and one church dedication under his name at Thessalonica may go back as early as the 300s. San Giorgio in Velabro at Rome is another ancient dedication, while a monastery under his protection was founded by King Clovis in France in 512. A cultus like this doesn't spring up out of whole cloth. We're not talking about a sketchy old wive's tale like, say, St. Wilgefortis (the bearded lady of hagiography) or an incongruous Buddhist import like Barlaam and Josaphat.

But who was he?

Certainly that wonderfully odious foe, the dragon, bulks large in our minds. Sometimes it is spiky and Gothic and maddeningly insectoid, as in the Bosch-like fantasies of Swedish woodcarvers, while in canvases and panels from England to Greece (Ghiorghios ho megalomartyr), this red-cross knight in his meteor-black armor thrusts his lance down the gullet of everything from jeweled lion-headed bats to comical snail-like serpents looking like armored lengths of green intestine.

It's a rather late addition to the story, an apocalyptic Johannine pun on Diocletian or Dadianus, persecutors given the epithet of ho bythios drakon at their serpentine crimes. Some people prefer to see his dragon-slaying work as the mark of a Christianized Perseus, but his reputation as martyr, and even as martyr and knight, long predates the emergence of his legendary combat in folklore. [Which is a rather lazy trick of folklorists, one has to say, as if the Christian imagination could not put forth such flourishes on its own. --MGA, 2010].

Still, it's a story worth telling, even if Mother Church, tucking us into our beds, smiles and tells us not to fear, that there are no such things as dragons. Flesh-and-blood ones, anyway. Caxton, in his quaintly Englished version of Blessed Jacobus's Legenda Aurea Sanctorem popularized it in among the already Georgeophile English populace, adding the stunning green serpent to the pre-existing stark red and white cross of the British heraldic imagination.

(But on his breast a bloody Cross he bore,
The dear remembrance of his dying Lord,
For whose sweet sake that glorious badge we wore
And dead (as living) ever he adored. Thus Spenser.)

So, once upon a time, in illo tempore, a vicious dragon was terrorizing the country around Silene in the land of Libya, and the townspeople offered up to this beast two sheep to hold him at bay every day. And after a time, naturally the people discovered they were running low on sheep and sent a man and a sheep for the worm to gorge himself upon. So it happened that each time they offered a man, he would be chosen by lot, whether he be gentle or rude, rich or poor. This system also had some problems, as the King discovered when the lot chanced to fall on his beauteous daughter.

The king planned to backslide, but when a large number of his subjects showed up at the drawbridge of his castle with Where-is-the-evil-Dr.-Frankenstein torches and pitchforks and threatened to burn the place down, he reconsidered and sent his only child out into the slithering clutches of the great monster, garbed in the pure dress of a bride. This latter detail was something of a cruel joke, as the King had wept to think he'd never see his girl settle down with some nice fellow from Cyrenica and have enormous quantities of grandchildren for him to spoil.

Now, as this sorry state of affairs was about to pass, a young knight named George happened to be cantering by on his white palfry. His white charger was being led along behind him by his squire, no point in wasting a good horse on the road. His shining armor, as well, was packed up and he was simply dressed, as any sensible warrior would be on the road between jousts.

George, it being his vocation in life to save damsels in distress and also wondering why on earth someone would be tramping through the mud wearing a wedding dress, asked the girl what was going on and told her not to fear. She explained her sad predicament, while George suddenly exclaimed "Fair daughter, doubt ye no thing hereof for I shall help thee in the name of Jesu Christ!" And then she, being resigned to her fate to being flame-broiled, shot back, "For God's sake, good knight, go your way, and abide not with me, for ye may not deliver me."

While they were arguing about whether she would allow him to save her or not (she was, I presume, a very modern princess), the dragon prompty showed up and cut the conversation short. St. George, being Action Man, lept on his white charger and took up his sword and, as the Blessed Jacobus puts it, "garnished him with the Sign of the Cross." He then did some serious smoting with his lance and finally knocked the great beast to the ground.

The girl, being female and thus practical, suggested he should tie the beast up with her girdle, which the knight gallantly did. The dragon followed her, and was, in medieval-speak, "a meek beast and debonair." (To which St. George muttered to himself, "What is it with you people and that word 'debonair'? First Trajan is debonair, then St. Gregory is, and...oh, never mind.")

She led the beast in on her lead to her father's city and the townspeople naturally went nuts. St. George said, in his usual chivalric grand manner, which a knight is perfectly entitled to, "Ne doubt ye no thing, without more, believe ye in God, Jesu Christ, and do ye to be baptized and I shall slay the dragon!" And he did, lopping the beast's head off with one stroke. Ta da!

The darned thing was so big it took four carts to haul it out of the city, and doubtlessly the farmer whose land it was dumped on was uniquely annoyed. Though I am told on the best auctoritates that dragons make good fertilizer.

So, then, the King had a church built and dedicated to Our Lady and St. George (to which St. George murmured, "I'm not martyred yet, your Majesty") and a fountain of healing water sprung up in that place and many were cured of their sickness. While some people, like Mr. Spenser, like to say he got the girl in the end, like any good melodrama, I'd like to believe what Bishop Jacobus said. That he gave the King a few bits of good advice to follow as a newly-made Christian. Maybe he even got a rewarding (and chaste) kiss from the Princess (saying the Greek equivalent of "I'll never strigil this cheek again"), And so he rode off into the Libyan desert sunset in the grand tradition of the Western.

Then, of course, he ended up being martyred, but that's another story.

And what is the moral of all this, anyway, if it's just a bedtime story? The fantasist in me would like to believe that maybe, just maybe, there were dragons once, just as there were once giants in the earth, or ghosts, or longaevi like the centaurs [The story is a late addition to his biography, and hardly an essential part, but given how in every part of the world there are scores of tales of serpents and worms and dragons, one does wonder, just a little bit. Someone ring the cryptozoology squad... --MGA, 2010], but the truth is there are worse things out there than dragons, like the ancient serpent whose head was crushed by Our Lady and Her Child.

[In this day and age, though, I am frankly more worried about those who seem to scoff at the existence of knights-in-shining-armor; and as for evil dragons, we probably are more dangerously inclined to excuse their failings than deny their existence. --MGA, 2010]

And there are plenty of brides needing rescuing these days, menaced by serpents. Our Mother Church sticks out as the most important candidate at the moment, but there are plenty of others, like Lady Poverty, like Temperance, like Fortitude and Chastity, Justice and Peace. They're all cute, by the way, and are looking for husbands to live happily ever after with.

We may not know that much about St. George besides his undisputed historical existence. As Pope Gelasius put it in 495, he is one of those holy men "whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose actions are only known to God." But why do we call him the Great Martyr (ho megalomartyr) and dedicate every cause and country to him from Greece, to Spain, to Boy Scouts and Catalans, to England (and always)?

The fact he slayed the dragon of sin in his martyrdom is alone enough to merit that crown. He is the Unknown Soldier of Christianity, the parfait gentil knight through his meekness, through his bending his neck to the executioner's sword, even if he never wielded a blade himself. We are all called to spiritual knighthood of some sort, whether as Knights of the Immaculate, as Legionaries of Mary or Christ, or a footsoldier in the forgotten Blue Army. The spiritual battle is even fiercer than the material battle, even in these days of missiles and terrorism.

Also, ladies, a word in your beautiful ears. St. Joan, dear, dear, practical, sensible, ornery little St. Joan (4'10" according to one source) has shown you can take care of yourself in good stead and are spiritual knights yourselves. But every now and then, will you let a gentleman in shining armor rescue you? We're good at that sort of thing. That and opening mason jars.

A Couple of Observances to Remember

2010-04-17T11:11:00.005-04:00

Yesterday, as you probably know already, was the 83rd birthday of our much-suffering domnus apostolicus, Pope Benedict XVI. I didn't have time to post anything, though I feel a great sadness for him at present, celebrating this happy moment in the midst of all that he is having to deal with within and outside the Church. Let us all pray for him, that God give him the strength to perservere.

Also, I don't know where the Tartarus (words chosen carefully) they're saying he looks "evil in photos." I've met him (well, for about five minutes in a receiving line). He's a lovable little fuzzball. Sort of the kittens-playing-with-yarn to Pope John Paul II's happy smiling dolphin and John XXIII's lovably cranky pizzeria owner. The guy looks like everyone's sweet, adorable grandfather, and if there are moments where he looks like the Emperor from Star Wars, well, there are some pretty gloomy, Marlon Brando-as-the-Godfather-ish Pantocrators out there. He looks intimidating, not bad--and I like it that he can still look intimidating when needed. God save the Pope, the great, the good.

Oh, and I find your lack of Faith disturbing.

*

Today, meanwhile is the date of the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. As I have written before, Cuban history can seem to vacilate between high tragedy and dark comedy, especially when viewed through the wrong end of the telescope that is the usual US view of Latin America. Unfortunately, in reality, this was simply a tragedy, and probably a particularly futile and perhaps even avoidable tragedy. The emblem of the exile brigade is a cross and a Cuban flag, a very telling and interesting bit of religiosity for a people that had perhaps in the past lacked the fervency of its Iberian mother.

I wrote about the invasion and its anniversary (which is, to the son and grandson of a Cuban exile family who had a relative among the troops, distinctly personal) some years ago:

On this day, April 17, 1961, four 2,400-ton chartered transports (named the Houston, Río Escondido, Caribe, and Atlántico) transported the 1,511 men of the Cuban exile Brigade 2506 to the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast of Cuba, where they came up against the soldiers of Castro's revolutionary army. Reports of what followed describe a full-scale tank engagement, with air attacks on the exiles leaving one transport damanged and other sunk. Despite a few preliminary air attacks in the days preceding the landing, promised U.S. air support was almost wholly denied, leaving the tiny Brigade 2506 virtually crippled, with 1,189 taken prisoner and 115 killed. A number were executed, while the remainder languished in prison camps under a thirty-year sentence for treason. Almost two years later, they were returned to the United States after a torturous series of negotiations.

To this day, the communist government of Cuba refers to the exile warriors in their official propaganda solely as "mercenaries."

These are the facts. Remember them.

Martin Travers at RIBA

2010-04-16T00:29:00.005-04:00

The excellent Royal Institute of British Architects image archive has some wonderful little tidbits of the work of English church furnisher (and the inventor of what is sometimes called Anglo-Catholic Congress Baroque) Martin Travers--memorial plaques, roods, stained glass, all delightful. Some highlights--and don't forget to click to enlarge, as it's definitely worth it:

The Disappearance of Adulthood (or, perhaps, the Recrudescence of Adolescence)

2010-04-15T16:00:00.003-04:00

"...back when there were children and there were schools..."

--Dr. Anthony Esolen

Continuing our postmortem (begun some months ago in this post) on the late Neil Postman's curious sociological text The Disappearance of Childhood, we turn now to the author's contention that childhood today has effectively vanished. It is important to note the author in fact wrote this book in the early eighties and mostly restricts his commentary to the cultural phenomena of that most peculiar of decades, the 1970s (id est: disco, polyester, and Watergate), effectively the sleazy late adolescence of the culture of puerile idealism that characterized the fourth quarter of the sixties. When the book was republished in the mid-nineties, right before the Internet lurched onto the scene, Postman felt no need to reassess his conclusions, it is important to note. Postman traces the collapse of childhood in his era back to Samuel Morse, of all people, he of the telegraphy and the anti-Catholicism (and the gorgeous daughter known to all habitues of the Metropolitan Museum from her portrait as the American Muse.) Well, actually he traces it back to the movies and television that eventually flowed from Morse, so it is somewhat less silly a point.

Still, like his conclusion childhood was "invented" by the Renaissance as an outgrowth of the printing press and the general spread of literacy, this is all a little too clever by half. As we discussed before, the Middle Ages certainly had a general conception of childhood, even without the threshhold requirement of general literacy, and even then, the cossetted, vacuum-sealed childhood he uses as the exemplar of the type would have been unrecognizable to all but the most sheltered of boys and girls, and belongs more to the Rousseauian sentimentality of the eighteenth century than anything before or after. Certainly Huck Finn would have been rather surprised by it.

Still, his point is worth considering. The general growth of literacy, in his conception, had imposed a longer period of schooling on children, and placed a more necessarily definable line between childhood and adulthood in the post-Renaissance period. One may question if that line existed in most quarters, though with different signposts (apprenticeship, Confirmation, physical prowess, etc.), but certainly in a few more privileged quarters childhood did become more sheltered and exclusive, if only because of the extension of upper-class comfort to the middle classes, a phenomenon he essentially ignores. Education, in this environment, came primarily from parents and teachers, and was clearly hierarchically defined, in Postman's opinion. One may rightly question if Postman has ever met any children before when he makes this assessment as surely children before Morse had their playground gossip, their prurient half-heard tales from older brothers and sisters (with wildly inaccurate speculations on the anatomy of the opposite sex), or from a misread encyclopedia or contraband penny-dreadful. So, the problem is not so much that electronic media disturbed this pristine hierarchical pedagogy, as it simply bored holes in a sieve that has always been more than a little leaky. It has always been so, I am sure.

The same is to be said of his contention that the invention of the telegraph and the television changed news. Ever since the invention of the broadsheet, news has been a commodity, and certainly gossip has always been the "news from nowhere" that is so exemplified from the sourceless, incessant broadcasting that Postman considers characteristic solely of modern media outlets. "While not necessarily wholly new, certainly it has increased radically in the past century, even more so with the coming of the internet and the blogosphere. It is the easiest thing now for a child to circumvent the parental and pedagogical net placed around them; no doubt Postman would boggle at the thought of toddlers surfing the internet, though I gather that is not too far from the truth nowadays. As someone who only learned to type in eighth grade, this is quite astonishing. Continuous coverage" means simply in the interests of satisfying the yawning maw of ratings, any taboo must be thrown out. And of course now you can get hot and cold running smut every hour of the night as well.

His analysis of television itself is also worth careful consideration. He sees it as a pre-literate medium--one needn't know how to read, or even think much, to really appreciate it. Its programs are limited to a half-hour or at most a full hour, and are turned into a hash by the series of bright and shiny non-sequiturs known as commercials. No wonder, one must conclude, we have trouble thinking critically today. He also comments on the problems of educational television, which do not cultivate the sort of concentration required to absorb a concept--something I can heartily agree with from my own experiences. Sesame Street mostly baffled me. I'd watch five minutes of animation composed of swirling hearts and someone singing Amor, Amor, Amor, and I'd think to myself, "What the heck was that?" (This is especially embarassing on my part as about 3/4 of the family members I spent most of my time around were native Spanish speakers!)

However, where he falters is where he claims that TV content is somehow a reflection of this infantilization. TV kids are "adultish" because people find this amusing and cute and unusual, not because it is a reflection of society. TV adults are "childish" because it is also funny. (Though I sympathize with him when he comments the only adult on television in this day and age is the finicky Felix Unger. I am also slightly frightened.) I would also question his contention that TV advertisements are anti-capitalist because they appeal to the emotions rather than engaging in a free exhange of goods and services, as it sounds like something only a man who has never had to try to sell something would say. (This, and his contention commercials are in fact a species of pseudo-religious literature--"The Parable of Ring Around the Collar"--is less strange than it sounds, but also seems like academic silliness for silliness's sake as well, and is not really worth digressing about here.)

Also, while perhaps more programs are watched by children and adults alike (like, say, the old Muppet Show), frequently the adults and kids laugh at different things. And, while the airwaves are lousy with kiddie sitcoms (an adult genre, in theory) they are just as loud, hyperactive and annoying as any oversugared little squirt could love. (Though I will grant on those occasions when I have had to sit through watching kid-coms on TV, I was exhausted and probably hallucinating mildly from exhaustion brought on by bouts of the flu or food-poisoning--and thus too tired to change the channel--so I could well be wrong here.)

The problem is his central thesis requires on assuming a sort of childhood dependant on a certain type of pedagogy and the witholding of certain secrets, like the mysteries of sex and death. Childhood is hardly dependant on that, nor historically has the Adult Conspiracy (as the old Nickelodeon show Pete and Pete, which would probably cause Postman's brain to overheat with its knowing slyness, might put it) been very good on keeping a lid on such things. Otherwise we wouldn't be hearding kids into confessionals at age 7.

Postman's adultish child is not so much an adult as a brat with too much information syndrome, and indeed, some cultural developments he cites to support his thesis, like the overscheduled, cutthroat world of little league actually seems to represent a strengthening of the hermetic bubble of childhood against the encroaching darkness of kidnappers, gangs, and crime.

However, he is definitely on to something when he speaks of the childish adult that our society has bred--the forty-year-old in sneakers, who has become even more common now than at the time of writing. Being an adult is no longer the fine thing it was in times past is hard to doubt, if only if one stands up Tom Cruise next to Cary Grant. Yet, I am not sure this has to do so much with television, which was still in its squeaky-clean, wobbly infancy (Leave it to Beaver, etc., as opposed to the sassy sitcom kids of later years) when these future childlike adults were presumably in diapers. Indeed, it seems more of an exaltation of childhood that can be blamed for such antics--the generation of the Sixties having been raised on the indulgent Dr. Spock as well as Theodore Cleaver. No wonder they had little desire to throw off childish things when they came of age, with that sort of upbringing. This is the ultimate growth, not of Morse playing with electricity, but with the Rousseauian apotheosis of childhood that is exemplified by Spock and now seems to have reached its apex with a nearly total abdication of parental authority among adults--whether to the state, the school, pop culture, or to nobody in particular, I'm not sure.

The result is not so much, though, a childish adult (as the youth culture of the Sixties didn't sit around playing with Legos, but with one another), but an elderly adolescent. Now everything seems to fall into place--what we have here is a puberty that starts about 8 and ends around forty in the fortunate, and with death with the rest. Adults acting like kids on TV are still funny because it is an anomaly. An adult acting like a huffy teenager is another thing, and actually would hardly be noticeable as abnormal today.

Adolescents flip awkwardly between being a child and desiring the freedom of adulthood. Given our age's mantra of "choice," that our culture's denizens can decide if they're thirteen or thirty every day of the week should come as no surprise. (I suspect Dr. Postman would have a field day with Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute if he were alive today--both adolescents of a sort, and characteristic of the faux-family environment that plagues many contemporary workplaces; and he could probably get a multivolume work out of Lorelei Gilmore and her Hello Kitty Waffle-Iron.)

Postman considers this development of the childish adult a bad thing, and while I dispute the causes of this outgrowth, and even perhaps some of its name and substance, I agree with his troubling assessment. It is especially chilling, thirty or forty years on that pretty much with the exception of Pope Benedict XVI and the Queen of England, most of the world is ruled by overgrown children in suits (and not even overgrown, if one factors in the relative heights of Kim Jong-Il and Dennis Kucinich). He offers no solutions, and certainly would probably consider my own view of the world to be rather medieval, but for me it comes down to the rediscovery of those hard and antiquated facts of honor and gentle authority. Mothers must be mothers, fathers must be fathers and not hesitant friends with car-keys. Yuppies must remember children are people, not projects or fads or substitutes for pets. Old men should demand to be called Mister, not Bob or Bill. Families--not insurance companies, or offices, or banks, or Caesar--must be families. Repentant hippies must face up that a little pseudo-hypocrisy never did much harm--"how can I tell little Muffin not to smoke you-know-what when I lit up every day when I was sixteen?" It is not their own personal integrity that backs them up here, but that of a whole civilization, or the ragged remainders of it, anyway. And while I'm certainly not going to stop chucking at The Muppet Show (which certainly has its grown-up jokes, sly or otherwise), maybe we could all watch, say, something in black and white with men wearing hats a bit more often. Or maybe just read.

In other words, man up (and woman up), people.

That being said, please don't bother me right now to start the crusade, it's milk 'n' cookie time and I have to draw the line somewhere.

St. Josaphat's Monastery, Glen Cove, New York

2010-04-12T13:14:00.001-04:00

It's always interesting to hear and see how they pick out locations for films. Some seem obvious, inevitable, even. Castle Howard doubled as Brideshead in both film versions of the book, for instance. And others have to do more with expediency, as it seems the entire world can be found within a 50-mile radius of, variously, Los Angeles, New York, and, increasingly, Vancouver.

I was particularly interested to see, as a correspondent pointed out, on this film locations-scouting company webpage this beautiful Byzantine Catholic monastery ensconced in a grand old Long Island Tudor mansion. Sadly there appear to be no shots of the chapel, though the elaborate wood screen at one end of one of the mansion's grander rooms would make a wonderful iconostasis with a bit of work. Also, they have, presumably inherited from the previous owners, a pool-table. (This should not shock you. Even Cistercians are allowed to play pool periodically.)

I am also relieved, and a little pleased, that the location people have carefully noted on their website that there is "NO NUDITY WHATSOEVER" permitted in film shoots out there. The fact that had to be brought up at all suggests in a nutshell a whole week's-worth of outraged letters to Fr. Vasily Vasilievich.

Beneventan Chant for Easter: Pascha Nostrum

2010-04-09T07:54:00.000-04:00

Victimae Paschali Laudes: Completely Bombastic Edition

2010-04-08T22:48:00.002-04:00

(I mean that in the good sense, of course.)

Yes, I Know, Vidi Aquam is Probably More Correct Now

2010-04-08T09:10:00.002-04:00

Courtesy Alert Reader Penny S., we have a shot of this candidate for automobile blessing by full immersion...

Update: A non-Catholic friend caught a glimpse of this picture on my desktop and thought it had something to do with Asperger's. Er. Um. No comment.

A Forgotten Setting of Victimae Paschali Laudes

2010-04-07T08:37:00.002-04:00

...can be heard here, from the brilliant Mexican Baroque composer Manuel de Sumaya. While perhaps lacking the virile dignity of the old chant, it makes for delightful listening during Easter Week.

The Easter Sermon of St. John Chrysostom

2010-04-04T13:11:00.004-04:00

"Is there anyone who is a devout lover of God? Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival! Is there anyone who is a grateful servant? Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!

"Are there any weary with fasting? Let them now receive their wages! If any have toiled from the first hour, let them receive their due reward; if any have come after the third hour, let him with gratitude join in the Feast! And he that arrived after the sixth hour, let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss. And if any delayed until the ninth hour, let him not hesitate; but let him come too. And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour, let him not be afraid by reason of his delay.

"For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first. He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, as well as to him that toiled from the first. To this one He gives, and upon another He bestows. He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor. The deed He honors and the intention He commends.

"Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord! First and last alike receive your reward; rich and poor, rejoice together! Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!

"You that have kept the fast, and you that have not, rejoice today for the Table is richly laden! Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one. Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the cup of faith. Enjoy all the riches of His goodness!

"Let no one grieve at his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed. Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Death of Our Saviour has set us free. He has destroyed it by enduring it. He destroyed Hades when He descended into it. He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh. Isaiah foretold this when he said, “You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below.”

"Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with. It was in an uproar because it is mocked. It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed. It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated. It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive. Hell took a body, and discovered God. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.

"O death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy victory?

"Christ is Risen, and you, O death, are annihilated! Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down! Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice! Christ is Risen, and life is liberated! Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead; for Christ having risen from the dead, is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

"To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!"

[A blessed Easter to all our readers. Now, that done, where did I put that package of cookies? --MGA]

The Midwest and the Middle Ages

2010-03-25T10:58:00.002-04:00

From G.K. Chesterton, What I Saw in America, Chapter 6: In the American Countryside:

If a man had gone across England in the Middle Ages, or even across Europe in more recent times, he would have found a culture which showed its vitality by its variety. We know the adventures of the three brothers in the old fairy tales who passed across the endless plain from city to city, and found one kingdom ruled by a wizard and another wasted by a dragon, one people living in castles of crystal and another sitting by fountains of wine. These are but legendary enlargements of the real adventures of a traveller passing from one patch of peasantry to another, and finding women wearing strange head-dresses and men singing new songs.

A traveller in America would be somewhat surprised if he found the people in the city of St. Louis all wearing crowns and crusading armour in honour of their patron saint. He might even feel some faint surprise if he found all the citizens of Philadelphia clad in a composite costume, combining that of a Quaker with that of a Red Indian, in honour of the noble treaty of William Penn. Yet these are the sort of local and traditional things that would really be found giving variety to the valleys of mediaeval Europe. I myself felt a perfectly genuine and generous exhilaration of freedom and fresh enterprise in new places like Oklahoma. But you would hardly find in Oklahoma what was found in Oberammergau. What goes to Oklahoma is not the peasant play, but the cinema. And the objection to the cinema is not so much that it goes to Oklahoma as that it does not come from Oklahoma. In other words, these people have on the economic side a much closer approach than we have to economic freedom. It is not for us, who have allowed our land to be stolen by squires and then vulgarised by sham squires, to sneer at such colonists as merely crude and prosaic. They at least have really kept something of the simplicity and, therefore, the dignity of democracy; and that democracy may yet save their country even from the calamities of wealth and science.

But, while these farmers do not need to become industrial in order to become industrious, they do tend to become industrial in so far as they become intellectual. Their culture, and to some great extent their creed, do come along the railroads from the great modern urban centres, and bring with them a blast of death and a reek of rotting things. It is that influence that alone prevents the Middle West from progressing towards the Middle Ages.

For, after all, linked up in a hundred legends of the Middle Ages, may be found a symbolic pattern of hammers and nails and saws; and there is no reason why they should not have also sanctified screw-drivers. There is no reason why the screw-driver that seemed such a trifle to the author should not have been borne in triumph down Main Street like a sword of state, in some pageant of the Guild of St. Joseph of the Carpenters or St. Dunstan of the Smiths. It was the Catholic poetry and piety that filled common life with something that is lacking in the worthy and virile democracy of the West. Nor are Americans of intelligence so ignorant of this as some may suppose. There is an admirable society called the Mediaevalists in Chicago; whose name and address will strike many as suggesting a certain struggle of the soul against the environment. With the national heartiness they blazon their note-paper with heraldry and the hues of Gothic windows; with the national high spirits they assume the fancy dress of friars; but any one who should essay to laugh at them instead of with them would find out his mistake.

In Honor of Tomorrow's Solemnity

2010-03-24T22:06:00.003-04:00

The Virgin Annunciate. Antonello da Messina (Italian, ca. 1430–1479). Oil on panel; 13 5/8 x 17 3/4 in. (34.5 x 45 cm). Galleria Regionale della Sicilia, Palermo.

This Should Have Been Posted on St. Patrick's Day, But I Forgot

2010-03-24T20:33:00.004-04:00

St. Blog's resident Cistercian just darn can't remember who last week's green-vested saint-o'-the-day was. Hilarity ensues.

***

I seem to remember he was Romano-British by birth so I presume this means last week we ought to have been chowing down on a two-course meal of sphaghetti and steak and kidney pie, right? I have no idea where all the soda bread and corned beef is coming from... (Ducks angry shower of flying potatoes). *

***

The strangely brief life of St. Patrick written up in the Golden Legend places him, weirdly enough, in Scotland (though considering, for instance, the Irish-born philosopher is called Scotus Eriugena, there seems to have been some etymological blurriness about the local geography in Latin) , and is only long enough to repeat that unfortunate incident when he accidentally stuck the spike of his crozier through the foot of a local king he was baptizing. The chieftain, a hardy soul, thought it was part of the ritual 'til explained otherwise.

***

A friend of mine commented recently something to the effect that she was neither Italian (St. Joseph, which came this last non-penitential Friday to a church basement near you) nor Irish (duh), and therefore was splitting the difference and going out and partying on St. Cyril of Jerusalem's day last Thursday.

*I'm 1/4 Irish (I think), so I'm allowed to make jokes like that. Or at least that's my excuse. Also, corned beef is utterly unknown in Ireland, or at the very least isn't considered particularly representative. Like 90% of the odd stuff associated with St. Paddy's (Green Beer, I'm looking at you), it's what one Irish-from-Ireland friend of mine calls "Oirish," or faux-Hibernian, at worst the product of Hollywood moonshine and at best more Irish-American than Irish per se.

Holy Roman Macaroni

2010-03-21T01:59:00.003-04:00

Assorted Facebook Status Updates from Yours Truly:

February 7 at 9:21 PM Tony Stark meets Sister Bertrille: "I AAAAAMMMM FLYIIINGGGG NUUUUNNNN!!!"

February 14 at 12:42 PM The one downside with having effectively switched over to the 1962 calendar is that I can no longer ask everyone why they're celebrating St. Cyril's day with red hearts and candy...

February 21 at 10:24 PM I was very good last night and resisted the urge to sing "God Save Emperor Franz," when that Austrian chick got the gold medal for skiing. AEIOU.

March 3 at 9:25 PM The Pope in the movie Becket sounds like he runs a pizza place in Queens. [NB: This joke blatantly stolen from Dan of the Holy Whapping.]

March 8 at 6:34 PM: Something just occurred to me. Has anyone ever seen Pius IX and William Shatner in the same place at the same time?*

*(A priest-friend of mine trained in Rome tells me he sees them at the Caffe Greco having coffee all the time. So there goes my whole idea for a blockbuster conspiracy novel. On the other hand, I'd pay good money if Shatner did an audiobook version of the Syllabus Errorum.)

March 20 at 11:01 PM "Why does everything come in Giant Size, King Size, and Holy Roman Empire size boxes? A package of macaroni as big as a Japanese car is not what I need." --P.J. O'Rourke

Further comment by yours truly: This got me thinking. Does a Holy Roman Empire-sized box mean it's one giant box filled with 300 tiny fun-sized boxes of macaroni? Or, given the religious situation in the HRE, 200 tiny boxes of macaroni and 100 tiny tins of lutefisk?

New Line Art from Matthew Alderman

2010-03-19T15:35:00.002-04:00

Matthew Alderman. S. Dymphna of Gheel. Private Collection, Minnesota. January 2010.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

There are at Gheel fragments of two simple ancient sarcophagi in which tradition says the bodies of Dymphna and [her confessor and fellow martyr] Gerebernus were found. There is also a quadrangular brick, said to have been found in one of the sarcophagi, bearing two lines of letters read as DYMPNA. The discovery of this sarcophagus with the corpse and the brick was perhaps the origin of the veneration. In Christian art St. Dymphna is depicted with a sword in her hand and a fettered devil at her feet. Her feast is celebrated 15 May, under which date she is also found in the Roman martyrology.

From time immemorial, the saint was invoked as patroness against insanity. The Bollandists have published numerous accounts of miraculous cures, especially between 1604 and 1668. As a result, there has long been a colony for lunatics at Gheel; even now there are sometimes as many as fifteen hundred whose relatives invoke St. Dymphna for their cure. The insane are treated in a peculiar manner; it is only in the beginning that they are placed in an institution for observation; later they are given shelter in the homes of the inhabitants, take part in their agricultural labours, and are treated very kindly. They are watched without being conscious of it. The treatment produces good results. The old church of St. Dymphna in Gheel was destroyed by fire in 1489. The new church was consecrated in 1532 and is still standing. Every year on the feast of the saint and on the Tuesday after Pentecost numerous pilgrims visit her shrine. In Gheel there is also a fraternity under her name.

(More).

Bishop Baraga Miracle!

2010-03-18T00:02:00.000-04:00

Bishop Frederic Ireneus Baraga--some of our readers were introduced to this local Slovenian-born Midwestern holy man when I posted an illustration I had done of him for a recently-ordained priest. I reproduce it below. Some of you (the Yoopers in the audience especially) know him well already, and I received a number of very kind notes from his fans among my readership. You all will be delighted to hear that a possible miracle attributed to his intercession has surfaced, and is under investigation by the diocese of Marquette, the bishop's home turf. As I believe he has not gotten to even the status of Venerable yet, this is very exciting, and, if the miracle proves to pass muster, it could mean my part of the world will get its very own Blessed in the near future. More here!

Christmas Day Snowball Fight at Clear Creek

2010-03-17T00:27:00.000-04:00

The Benedictines out in Oklahoma at Clear Creek are known for their austerity. However, like all good monastics, they know how and when to cut loose, as these photos posted on their website show. You can see the foundation of their future Thomas Gordon Smith-designed church in the background.

Also, What of Baritsu?

2010-03-16T22:40:00.002-04:00

To the lost soul who came here looking for the answer to the Google search question should catholic girls do karate what does the saint say, I really am not entirely sure how to answer. One must logically assume that the Vatican's elite cadre of nunjas must recruit their loyal followers from the ranks of pigtailed convent schoolgirls, though the photographic evidence seems to suggest that consecrated virgins actually prefer the simple persuasiveness of shotguns in terms of advancing the front lines of the Church Militant. And perhaps some sort of kendo with comically oversized rulers.

That being said, if anyone has photographic evidence of a churchlady tearing a phonebook in half...

Caption Contest!

2010-03-15T13:37:00.001-04:00

The chapter of canons of the Collegiate Church of the Holy Zebra mark their titular feast-day.*

(Also, photo stolen from the wonderful Catholic eye-candy weblog The Far Sight 2.0).

*Actually, as I am fond of repeating, there really was a "Church of the Holy Zebra," a nickname given to an earlier, riotously stripey Siennese Romanesque building that housed a New York Unitarian congregation; their current place of worship is a rather austere Deco take on Colonial. I used to walk past it every time I made the mammoth multi-block trek down to the nearest Kinko's.

A Lost Cardinal

2010-03-11T12:45:00.000-05:00

A good friend sends this little tale of humility along, taken from a long-ago item in the New York Times:

On the day of the consistory the Cardinal-designate waits in his apartments, dressed in beautiful robes, usually surrounded by friends, until the papal Master of Ceremonies, formally announces the honor to which he is about to be raised and accompanies him to the Vatican. [...]

Cardinal Barnabo, on the other hand, forgot all about the consistory, and, on being searched for, was found hearing confessions while the court awaited him at the Vatican.

The majority of the piece seems to spend way too much time censoriously agog at the cardinals' elaborate traditional wardrobe (one wonders how it might compare in comfort and extent to the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts of their day, just as pricey but far more drab), but this reminds us that men who wear red silk are quite capable of being humble.

Caption Contest!

2010-03-10T13:31:00.001-05:00

Pope Benedict is delighted to discover he is the 1 millionth prelate to visit Gamarelli's.

(Image brazenly stolen from somewhere in the archives of The Crescat.)

Musica Sacra Florida Conference, March 19-20, 2010

2010-03-10T10:25:00.001-05:00

A good friend passes along the following:

The Florida Chapter of the Church Music Association of
America is pleased to announce:

The 2nd Annual Musica Sacra
Florida Gregorian Chant Conference
Sponsored by the Florida Chapter of the
Church Music Association of America in conjunction with the Department of Music, Ave Maria University, Ave Maria, Florida.

Friday & Saturday, March 19-20, 2010

This two-day workshop will present both beginning and advanced musicians with lectures, breakout sessions, and rehearsals that will enrich their knowledge of Gregorian chant and its use in the Roman Catholic liturgy.

Led by a faculty of chant specialists from around the state, attendees will learn more about the history of Gregorian chant and its role in the liturgy as well as experience the chant in the context of both the Divine Office and the Mass. Beginning chanters will be introduced to the basics of notation and rhythm according to the classic Solesmes method. Experienced chanters will learn new repertoire and advance their understanding of rhythmic and interpretive nuance. Resources and practical methods for the cultivation of Gregorian chant in the life of the parish will also be discussed. A special breakout session will be devoted to helping priests and deacons with their liturgical chants.

This workshop is ideal for choir members, parish music directors, music students, teachers, parents, seminarians, deacons, priests, and anyone who is interested in learning about the heritage of sacred music within the Roman Catholic Church.

Registration fees are $40 or $15 for students (with I.D.) and include the price of instructional materials and instruction. Overnight accommodations will be available at AMU’s Xavier Conference Center. Participants can choose among various options for room and board. For prices and options, go to http://www.musicasacra.com/florida

Pre-registration is required. Deadline: Friday, March 5th, 2010 [This deadline has been extended; last-minute registrations will be permitted. Just get moving! --MGA]

To register, visit: http://www.musicasacra.com/florida

Contact Information: Susan Treacy (239) 280-1668 or susan [dot] treacy [at] avemaria.edu

Faculty:
Keynote Speaker: Jeffrey Tucker – Managing Editor, Sacred Music
Mary Jane Ballou – Director of the Schola Cantorae, St Augustine, FL
Jennifer Donelson – Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Timothy McDonnell - Ave Maria University, Ave Maria, FL
Michael O’Connor – Palm Beach Atlantic University, West Palm Beach, FL
Susan Treacy – Ave Maria University, Ave Maria, FL
Jamie Younkin - Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL

Registration:
Registration fees are $40 and include the price of instructional materials and instruction. Students (with I.D.) are $15. Payment is accepted online or due upon arrival at the conference. Pre-registration is required. Deadline: Friday, March 5th, 2010. [See above. This deadline has been extended; just get moving.] Registration is available at: www.musicasacra.com/florida

Room & Board Options:
Overnight accommodations will be available at AMU’s Xavier Conference Center.
Participants may choose from among the following options for room and board.
Xavier Conference Center — Single occupancy $45
Xavier Conference Center
— Double occupancy ($30 per person) $60
Saturday Breakfast $5
Saturday
Lunch $7

Location:
Ave Maria University, 5050 Ave Maria Boulevard, Ave Maria, FL 34142
A campus map can be accessed at: http://www.avemaria.edu/uploads/pagesfiles/352.pdf
All events except the closing Mass are located in the Bob Thomas Student Union, labeled 05 on the campus map.

Hildreth Meiére, Hiding in Plain Sight

2010-03-10T09:38:00.001-05:00

One of the great joys of being an enthusiast of recent art history is the rediscovery that is under way of much of the twentieth century's heritage of traditional art and architecture. There are the big, dominating figures such as Comper and Goodhue, who did not so much disappear from memory as drift to the peripheries, and there are the numerous "minor" artists, architects and craftsmen who might not have towered in their day and age, nonetheless produced handsome portfolios of work that are worth revisiting. One of these artists, a muralist and painter, is emerging back into the light in the form of the first major exhibit of her work ever. Her name is Hildreth Meiére, and she is one of those folks who seems to have had the uncanny knack of hiding in plain sight. Her existence was just pointed out to me by Stuart Chessman at the Society of St. Hugh of Cluny; he has a great post on her here. There is a vast website dedicated to her here.

When I say she has been hiding in plain sight, I mean her work is immediately recognizable, though you would have never put a name to it, or assumed it all flowed from the same genius, yet when you finally realize it, you wonder how you could have never wondered, who came up with it? New York is just about encrusted with her work--the big metal tondi on the side of Radio City Music Hall, the altarpiece in Fordham's university church, the mosaics in St. Bart's narthex and the Torah ark in the synagogue across the street from the Central Park Zoo, even the front of the altar in the Lady Chapel at St. Patrick's Cathedral where, during my Manhattan days, I frequently attended a "young adult" mass featuring, as a pleasant surprise, good hymns, Gregorian chant and polyphony. Her funeral was at St. Vincent Ferrer, a twenty-minute walk from my old apartment, and possibly the most perfect church in North America. She did the mosaics at another Goodhue favorite of mine, the Nebraska state capitol. She is even, to my astonishment, responsible for some of the doll-sized furnishings in the miniature Gothic church interior on display in the basement of the Chicago Art Institute, which I have often admired, though perhaps questioning the historicity of a full-fledged Tridentine tabernacle in a fourteenth-century English Gothic church.

The exhibit sounds quite promising. It is at the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts at St. Bonaventure University in St. Bonaventure, New York, and is in the midst of a ten month run that began back in September.

Image sources: here, here and here. Originally posted on The New Liturgical Movement Friday March 5, 2010.

Unhappy Hipsters

2010-03-08T16:35:00.006-05:00

As the people (person?) behind the website Unhappy Hipsters knows, sometimes having too much taste is as bad as having none at all. A simple idea: add silly captions to pretentious, underbuilt, overdesigned interiors and exteriors ripped from the headlines of modish living magazines. The result is darkly funny social sature, or perhaps like reading a biography of Le Corbusier written by Edward Gorey:

"He deeply resented her insistence that their wardrobes coordinate."

"Babe, look! It says here that some people live in trailers, intentionally, without a hint of irony."

"Nutmeg sat stoically atop the cushions. Yet her internal dialogue was a cacophony of discordant thoughts, mostly centered on the absurdity of the double Nelson clocks."

"Unable to complete another painting, he surrendered to the realization that he was truly…madly…deeply in love—with plywood."

(More here).

While we're on the subject, why not have a look round Bad British Architecture?

A New Low in the Field of Hokey Pop Christian Art?

2010-03-05T15:05:00.006-05:00

So-bad-it's-hilarious Church Art from The Crescat: "When you only saw one set of footprints in the sand, that's when I let the bear eat you." (More.)

Hmm, actually that sounds kind of Donatist. Also, I'm amazed to have discovered a painting that makes Thomas Kinkaid look like Rembrandt by comparison.

Personally, there's potential: but only if Our Lord was riding on the bear and they were both in full armor. (Thus Colbert: "And, ladies and gentlemen, the number one threat to America... BEARS!"). Or maybe it should just be St. Corbinian.

Monophysite Cracker Would Make a Great Name for a Band*

2010-03-05T12:57:00.005-05:00

You Know You're a Catholic Nerd When the advertising slogan "Part pretzel, part cracker, all good," makes you momentarily want to play the "Spot the Christological Heresy" game.

By the way, why do marketing people assume that something flavored bright orange (the color, not the fruit) tastes like cheddar? As to the Christological analogy, I assume it has something to do with Artotyrite Montanism, whose reverence for cheese is only slightly surpassed by some of my fellow denizens of the Dairy State. Not that I am complaining. Now if you just got the Manichaeans in here with their melons, you could get an entire appetizer table.

*Actually, probably the cracker in question is more precisely speaking, Eutychian, though that is a subset of the Monophysite heresy. I'm thinking fig newtons are Nestorian, though, as it is a thing inside of another thing...or maybe that's more Monothelite....

It's Ten O'Clock: Do You Know Where Your Brown-Throated Three-Fingered Sloth Is?

2010-03-04T08:54:00.007-05:00

1. Whoever invented the term "pet parents" to refer to people who own animals should be hit on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. Pet parents? I actually saw it on a commercial the other day. Okay, there's no harm in folks getting sentimental about their pets...man's best friend and all that having a long and very noble history. Being not really a pet person, I suspect there are joys there I simply don't understand, and perhaps I'm missing out. Certainly the great Zmirak enjoys having beagles around his house, and in a very Catholic (i.e., fun and chaotic) sort of way. * And I admit a few "pet parents" may not bring down Western Civilization (we all know that will be due to Snuggies, Sudoku, and the implosion of the nuclear family). But, please, please, advertisers, for the sake of the poor English language, if not the declining Western birthrate, don't act like that's a real phrase. I beg of you. It's even worse than saying "with real au jus sauce."

I mean, parents? Sure, both kids and dogs poop indiscriminately all over the place, start out on all fours, and talk like Scooby Doo for a while, but eventually kids get better, or at the very least, more interesting, and in theory can take care of you in your old age. (Let's see a miniature schnauzer do that.) On the other hand, if you dress them in funny sweaters, small children are more likely to bite back, which only serves you right for trying.

(Which reminds me: the fifth greatest thing about Wisconsin is nobody dresses their pets in allegedly amusing sweaters. Midwestern dogs are very clearly outdoor creatures.)

2. On a related note: I'm willing to tolerate that an indulgent owner might want to feed Fluffy or Mr. Pittypoo or whatever you wish to call your cat, various flavors of luxury cat-food; animals do have tastebuds and seem to be very good at enjoying themselves (I will not make the worthwhile if somewhat irrational point that there are probably North Korean children who don't eat nearly as good as many American cats, as there is probably a logical fallacy somewhere in there), but one wonders why anyone in their right mind would buy a cat food designed to look like party mix. Cats don't know what party mix is. Heck, I'm not sure the concept of party actually means anything to them: considering 99% of their life is party time by human standards, it would be difficult to conceive of anything else but parties.

Perhaps a better alternative is the tree sloth. Vaguely anthropomorphic and cute in a weird, gangly way, this somnolent, shambling animal spends most of its day asleep**, is known to native tribes of its home range by names derived from various forms of the words, "sleep," "eat," and "dirty," and will give pet parents a taste of the joys of raising teenagers.

*And one of them is named Franz-Josef, and it's hard not to like that.

**Actually, a recent study says sloths only sleep 10 hours a day in the wild. That being said, I am not coming up with a new name for the sin.

***

Meanwhile, on the subject of sloths, we proudly present the greatest literary quotation of all time on the subject of the genus bradypus:

"In this bucket," said Stephen, walking into the cabin, "in this small half-bucket, now, I have the population of Dublin, London and Paris combined: these animalculae - what is the matter with the sloth?" It was curled on Jack's knee, breathing heavily: its bowl and Jack's glass stood empty on the table. Stephen picked it up, peered into its affable, bleary face, shook it, and hung it upon its rope. It seized hold with one fore and one hind foot, letting the others dangle limp, and went to sleep. Stephen looked sharply round, saw the decanter, smelt the sloth, and cried, "Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

--Patrick O'Brian, H.M.S. Surprise

***

The sloth, in Brazil, is often called bicho-preguiça, or "lazy animal." The word bicho is also Spanish as well as Portuguese, one of those oddly all-purpose bits of vocabulary one finds in other languages that, while I usually associate it (perhaps wrongly) with bugs and creepy-crawlies, is flexible to apply to animals as large as buffalo. Careful, though--I was rather surprised to discover it has a different slang meaning in Puerto Rico, which, this being a (somewhat dysfunctional) family website, I have no desire to reveal here.

***

Also, the correct answer to the title question is: where he always is, hanging from the slowly-rotating ceiling fan.

Toledo Cathedral (No, the Other One)

2010-03-03T12:09:00.000-05:00

Another brilliant example of underappreciated early twentieth-century liturgical work, Our Lady, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary in Toledo, Ohio, is the work of one William Perry, of Pittsburgh, and was begun during the tenure of Samuel Cardinal Stritch. It is frequently described as Plateresque in style, the Spanish architectural mode thought to resemble the delicacy of early Renaissance silverwork, though to me it looks more straightforwardly Cram-and-Goodhue Gothic with a few Romanesque and Hispanic flourishes. It is, however, quite stunning, and features an interior robed in murals even more brilliant than that of St. Joseph Cathedral which we chronicled below. Here are some great photos from flickr.com:

(NB: Someone seems to inexplicably placed the font where the high altar used to be, but, of course, this was not the original layout.)

And here is an exterior, from flickr.com user erozier2:

What is particularly fascinating is the image above was created by running an ordinary photo through a computer program to reduce the distorting perspectival effects of shooting from the ground up. More on this technique can be seen here, in an item written by the photographer himself.

Epistle Organ (1736), Mexico City Cathedral

2010-03-01T08:49:00.001-05:00

I know it's Lent, and thus (in the best of all possible parishes) the organs are mostly silent, but Mexican organs--even somewhat out-of-tune ones--are always a delight, and a testament to a venerable tradition in that country of Spanish-style organ-building and associated music that we are largely unaware of north of the border.

You Know You're a Catholic Nerd When...

2010-02-26T09:33:00.002-05:00

...You base your selection of cheap red wine for a friendly gathering solely on the fact the head of the winery producing the bottle is rumored to be a member of Opus Dei (dun dun DUUNNN), and indeed, the winery has had a few ludicrous conspiracy theories linked to it.*

*And that you know all this is because the only book you have ever read on wine was written by John Zmirak.

Edward Weber, the Unknown Architect

2010-02-25T11:00:00.000-05:00

Edward Joseph Weber is, in many respects, the José Carreras of the early twentieth century Gothic Revival. You have Pavarotti, Domingo, and...the other guy, just as you have Cram, Goodhue, and...the other guy. Indeed, I would not have known of his existence had not he published two well-illustrated books on Catholic ecclesiology that often served as extremely thinly-veiled showcases of his work. (He seems to have had a hyperactive publicity machine, though I am not quite sure if it ever quite gained the traction he deserved. I know next to nothing of his actual biography, which says something already.) While his Gothic sketches often have a rather fantastic air to them--one shows an unbuilt modern cathedral with a crossing-tower about as big as a skyscraper--his greatest finished work was the Byzantino-Romanesque Cathedral of St. Joseph in Wheeling, West Virginia, a stolid structure with a rather bland exterior and a vividly-frescoed interior that shows a brilliant coloristic boldness and use of liturgical-eschatological symbolism never surpassed by his more famous confrères, with their own tendency to ornate but ultimately grey Gothic. Here are some stunning photos I found on flickr.com (credit: photographer JM Bocan):

Bertram G. Goodhue in Cleveland

2010-02-24T23:12:00.008-05:00

The great early twentieth-century architect Bertram G. Goodhue, Ralph Adams Cram's sometime business partner and the designer of the Nebraska State Capitol, St. Vincent Ferrer in New York City, and, with Cram, much of West Point, was also the progenitor of numerous minor masterpieces scattered across the country. I was quite surprised to discover one of his church designs can be seen in Cleveland, a city already almost freakishly well-endowed with beautiful ecclesiastical architecture. Jocularly called the "Church of the Holy Oil Can" (okay, I can see it)* Epworth-Euclid United Methodist is certainly one of his more expressive and impressive designs, as you can judge from these photos below, taken off flickr.com. It is especially striking to my eyes as I have never seen it documented in any work on the man's oeuvre, and shows his dexterous ability to develop Gothic far beyond its roots while remaining firmly true to both its spirit and letter.

*There was, at one time, a Unitarian "Church of the Holy Zebra" in 19th century New York, so nicknamed for its wildly Siennese-style striped exterior walls.

The Encyclopedia of Cleveland (yes, isn't the Internet wonderful?) notes:

In 1919-20 the Euclid Ave. and Epworth Memorial congregations merged, creating the Epworth-Euclid Methodist Church and constructing a large building between E. 107th St. and Chester Ave. (1907 E. 107th St.). Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue was commissioned to design the church shortly before his death in 1924. Plans were completed by Goodhue's firm in association with the Cleveland firm of Walker & Weeks. Construction began in 1926 and was completed in 1928. The building is a modern adaptation of Gothic themes. The exterior is ornamented with figures by New York sculptor Leo Friedlander. On the interior, the roof is supported by 4 great arches, with a large rose window, arched transept windows, and 4 small lancets in the tower, the only openings. T. Owen Bonawit and Howard G. Wilbert designed the stained glass windows. The entire structure is faced in Plymouth granite.

The tower resembles, in Gothicized form, Goodhue's initial proposal for the "cimborio" (as he called it) or crossing-dome of St. Bart's on Park Avenue in New York City, the current, lower dome being an addition done by a successor firm after his death (mentioned here, and also in Christine Smith's excellent book on the structure, one of the first volumes I purchased at the Strand Bookstore when I was living in Manhattan). It also is interesting to compare it with another of Goodhue's more well-known works, Trinity English Lutheran in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which has a similar crossing-tower, though sitting much lower in the overall massing of the building, as can be seen here.

The School for Sinners

2010-02-23T09:46:00.000-05:00

"No longer is being divine; now the divinity is first being and cause of all there is. [...]

"Why is this important? Because it radically transforms the way in which God is to be thought. Philosophically, it becomes required that God is the first cause, and the ground of all being, and of every particular being in its being. God is the summum ens, highest being. The nineteenth-century return to antiquity overturned this metaphysical settlement in ways we are still living out today. It is this conception of God that Nietzche proclaimed he discovered to have found dead. Insofar as this conception of God lives on, he does so only in the minds of some Christian, or at best theistic, theologians. Perhaps this above all explains the shrill imperative tone, the virulent rage, that infects some contemporary theological discourse: you will believe in God! Moreover, it explains the extreme moralism of much -- especially supposedly entirely 'orthodox' or 'conservative' -- contemporary theology, Catholic as well as Protestant. It is only by 'right thinking' and 'right living' that you can have access to God at all (which is to miss entirely the point of the Church as a school for sinners.)"

--Rev. Dr. Laurence Paul Hemming, deacon of the Archdiocese of Westminster, Worship as Revelation: The Past, Present and Future of Catholic Liturgy, 2008

A Thurible from the Church of St. Anthony, Padua

2010-02-22T07:57:00.000-05:00

Source: Taken from the otherwise mediocre work Postwar Churchbuilding.

Blogging Jesuit, Hidden Tiger*

2010-02-19T08:03:00.000-05:00

A pal from my New York days, scholastic David Paternostro, SJ., is now writing entries on a young Jesuit megablog offering daily retreat meditations inspired by St. Ignatius himself. (Scholastics are essentially Jesuits in priestly formation, and are addressed by the title of "Mister," as opposed to temporal coadjutors, who are called "Brother." Presumably one of our readers can explain better than me, who is basing this on a 30-second glance at Wikipedia). Come on down and have a look!

And yes, Paternostro is his real last name. This is especially funny as the New York archdiocese also has a priest whose first name is Deogratias, if I remember correctly (!).

*Insert Matteo Ricci joke.

The Athanasius Kircher Society Resurfaces

2010-02-18T13:12:00.006-05:00

As many of our readers know, I have a great fondness for the Baroque Jesuit scientist Fr. Athanasius Kircher, the last man who knew everything. Kircher frequently got the wrong end of the stick (though not as often as one might think -- his universe was definitely a heliocentric one), but his work is so crammed with wonderful weirdness--a cat piano, a sunflower clock, dragon-shaped balloons with the words Fugite Divina ira inscribed upon them, and the most beautiful scientific diagrams to ever grace a page--it is easy to overlook them in an age when, for all its unfolding mysteries, science has all the fun of an Albigensian time-management seminar. Also, being a priest and a holy man, Kircher is sort of an unofficial patron saint of mine, and I even occasionally ask him to intercede for me.

I was, as a consequence, marvelous to discover the Athanasius Kircher Society, an institution dedicated not to the study of Kircheriana, but the kind of odd and exciting stuff he himself would have enjoyed studying himself, and sad to see its disappearance after a long and fruitful life as a website and even one extremely successful real-life meeting which featured a presentation of a scene from Romeo and Juliet in the international language of Solresol, a lecture by the Man Who Fell To Earth from Space (he was a test pilot or something), and a fellow whose brain made Rain Man look like Adam Sandler. But I was now delighted to discover that the Kircher society appears to be back--or at the very least, some successor group--under the name Atlas Obscura: Wondrous, Curious and Bizarre Locations Around the World, with entries on the beautiful Renaissance Villa Litta, the International Banana Club Museum, the British Lawnmower Museum, and a sphinx with Joseph Smith's face (which explains that whole "Reformed Egyptian" thing, I suppose.)

There is also a somewhat unnecessarily uncharitable entry on St. Bernadette (who we celebrate today on the 1962 calendar) and her incorrupt body, which seems a bit indignant that she currently has a wax face and hands, not realizing that is standard operating procedure for incorruptibles--miraculous doesn't always mean pretty. St. Rose of Viterbo, for instance, looks quite good for being 800 years old, but she's still missing her nose. On the other hand, she looks a lot better than the artifically-embalmed body of Mao, which I'm told has turned a rather unsettling Crayola-style shade of orange.

One other critique: I do think the automatic link generator at the bottom of the page needs some work as I really have no desire to see "Strange Photos from Russian Social Network," the top ten grossest foods, odd tattoos, faked Photoshopped photos, fake fake Photoshopped photos, that guy with a deformed skull (please, not during my lunch break), or off-color photographs of a tree shaped like something I can't discuss on a family website (even a rather dysfunctional family website like this one). I do like the Dubai elephant clock, though.

Incidentally, I see Kircher's monumental and profusely-illustrated 1675 work on Noah's ark can be found online, for those Latin buffs among us with too much time on their hands.

Fr. Vasily Explains it All: Lent Edition

2010-02-18T09:11:00.001-05:00

From the incomparable (and possibly imaginary) Father Vasily at The Onion Dome:

Dear Fr. Vasily,

I own a a tie that depicts milk chocolate that melts in your mouth and not in your hand. Is okay to wear this tie during Lent?

—M.M. from Memphis

Dear Memphis,

Is outrage! Father Vasiliy has seen this tie. You should be ashamed to be wearing this tie in any season, unless it was gift from your children. Then is most wonderful tie in world, and wearing during Lent is definitely okay.

—Father Vasiliy

Is (not) outrage!

I Speak From Personal Experience

2010-02-18T08:46:00.000-05:00

Yesterday may well have been the worst (second worst?) day on the Christian calendar to have Victimae Paschali Laudes stuck in one's head.

From the Archives: Set Apart: A Meditation on Ash Wednesday

2010-02-17T01:48:00.004-05:00

An oldie but a goodie, written one Ash Wednesday during my New York years. I hope you will forgive us going into reruns for the occasion:

There is a deep, dark black smudge the size of a thumbprint on my forehead, which makes me look even paler than usual. It is more of a dot than a cross, though if you look carefully you can see the transverse stroke. The effect is of a particularly morbid boddhisava. I've been wandering around the city with this thing since this morning. Nobody else in the office has got, one, not even the other Catholics, who will probably get their ashes in the evening, if they go at all. I've not gotten many strange looks, though, maybe because it blends in with my hair.

I have, with a mixture of curiosity and vanity, checked myself in the mirror at least once to see if it's still there, and it is, big and black. On one level, I know my little prideful "Super Catholic" moments of self-examination--the bathroom mirror, the brass of a doctor's nameplate-- are going against today's pericope to not "disfigure [your] faces so as to show others that [you] are fasting" in taking a little perverse pride in this last vestige of the more severe and straightforward Lent of ages long past. The Church clearly sees no contradiction with our call to "put oil on your head and wash your face," with this ancient penitential practice--otherwise She wouldn't have picked that reading in the first place. There's a world of difference between a ceremonial smudge and purposefully neglecting to bathe just to give off an appropriately holy aroma.

I'm not saying it doesn't cause more than a justifiable double-take, but sometimes we're too quick to jump on the inconsistency bandwagon about things like this--about the two creations of man in Genesis, about calling priests Father, about Christ's cousins, sisters and aunts, about what the heck to do with Mary, looming disconcertingly large to our skittish Protestant brethren--forgetting the Church has been there from the start, sifting scripture, defining canons, shaping culture, and She's heard it all before. It's all of a piece.

(For the record, aspiring professional fasters sometimes applied makeup to look hollow-eyed and pulled long faces for maximum pathetic affect in Christ's day.)

Chesterton once imagined a long procession of mysterious priests with their strangely-shaped mitres, hooked croziers, their incense and bells, and their sacred books--what possesses us to leap upon them, disregarding everything else, and seize the Bible from their hands, crying out for sola scriptura, when they, with all their antique ways of mind and worship, were the first to call it sacred? There's always a deeper logic there, if we dig, or if we simply choose to trust in the vast and occasionally cobwebby mansion that is both Tradition and tradition. Public penitence--whether flamboyantly physical or merely simply passing on the cheesecake--is part of the Catholic landscape, and the Catholic imagination. (And I won't pretend that can't get disturbing sometimes, but there it is, no apologies--though the Church has always stressed moderation). We're no angels. We're not supposed to be. While the best thing is a chastened soul, sometimes the only way to get there is via the body. No dessert menus, thanks. Check, please?

Still, as with all great art--and the corpus of the liturgy is truly the highest art--there's a dramatic tension between our outward ashes and the call to rend our hearts rather than our garments. Perhaps on one level, it's the oddity of our American praxis. In Italy, rather than New York, the marks on our foreheads--giant schmutzes or tiny daubs--do get odd and even frightened looks. A friend of mine once got smeared, American-style, at Santa Suzanna in Rome, and came out to find the rest of the city still pagan and brazenly bare-foreheaded. Turns out in Italy, they merely give you a dusting on the top of the head with the old Adam.

So many subspecies of ashen crosses. Heading to church in the grey morning, I see a couple in comfortable middle-age with faded smudges heading out the other way, the balding gentleman sports a vague squiggle that could almost be Arabic calligraphy. I spot a well-dressed, undersized Rory Gilmore clone in Grand Central, a gigantic trapezoidal cross filling her little forehead. An old man with grey-black whisps who could have been Indian, Black or a dozen other ethnicities, a generic American everyman. A blonde young walkure, all icy-white and gold, with a reticent but crisp black tilak smack in the center. The priests up at the altar today, crisp, with the polished air of Opus Dei, haven't gotten theirs yet. Do they do each other?

John Zmirak, with his usual wit, labels today "Catholic Mating Identification Day," and includes a recipe for a helpful dish called "Hey, I think You're Kind of Hot" Cross Buns. I will admit to having been distracted at times past by a coy lass or two with this anti-sign of Cain on her brow, but "Hey, we both have the same black smudge on our forehead" an even less successful subway pickup line than the last one I heard recounted by a female friend, "Hey, isn't that AM New York you're reading?" (The equivalent of asking the gal next to you in Coach if she's a fan of Skymall.)

But maybe he's on to something. In one of the prophet Ezechiel's visions, he receives the call to "Mark Thau [the letter T, Greek Tau, Hebrew Tav] upon the foreheads of the men that sigh, and mourn for all the abominations that are committed in the midst thereof," marking them as the saved, free from the impending doom of God's destroying angels. The Tav--the origins of today's Tau cross--in time became a symbol of Judaism a little before the time of Jesus, eventually adhering itself to the centinarian Anthony the Abbot and the Franciscans. The Apocalypse speaks in a similar way of the seal of the living God saving His people from destruction. The blood of Passover--also said to be cruciform--is probably at the back of all of this. It is no coincidence Our Lord ended up on a cross.

(I'm told in New York, the smudge doesn't really turn heads; just like random heathens turn up on Palm Sunday for freebees, sometimes an occasional Muslim or Jew slips in to get smudged. St. Agnes finds itself so popular on this fast-day that they have priests in the vestibule distributing ashes to folks coming in off the street. Other denominations imitate us. The Anglicans have their Solemn Liturgy of Ash Wednesday with all the usual choral trimmings, and even the Presbyterians--never one for mid-week liturgics--engage in a bit of smearing. Subsconsciously, we all want to be Catholic.)

I've got this black smudge on my brow, and it says I belong to God, whether I want to, or not. On the purely social level, this may get you stared at like a circus freak (especially in the South, where I come from, and the traditional white ethnics of Catholicism are comparatively thin on the ground), you might as well have a gigantic target on your back--hardly the sort of pats-on-the-back the extravagant hunger artists of Christ's day were looking for.

But beyond that it reminds us we're set apart, and we're supposed to behave that way. No shoving in the subway, no f-bombs, no "Hey, I'm walking here," no stuffing your face when you're supposed to be fasting, no surreptitious ogling of the espresso boy or the cute brunette down at the front of the bus (unless, I suppose, they've got the mark on them, too, and then, gents, please, keep it above the shoulders and ladies--well, I don't know where you look anyway, so just behave yourselves). It reminds you your name is Christian, your surname Catholic, and you're supposed to act that way. It's a uniform. For one day a year, you haven't got a choice in the matter, or you bring the whole Church in on your tacky behavior.

For one day you get to feel the way priests feel all day long under those collars of theirs. It's a bit humbling, isn't it?

One early Church Father, of a Platonist bent--perhaps Clement of Alexandria, I forget--once tried to sell Christianity to his proto-post-modern pagan audience by explaining of the exquisite manners and civic virtue of the ideal Christian--no burping gluttony, no hurtful jokes, no getting the help pregnant. Today's sybarites aren't much different from his audience--though their table manners are worse, and nobody knows how to fold a toga anymore. But they do respond to kindness. Don't disgrace the uniform today.

More Stained Glass by Harry Clarke and his Studio

2010-02-16T08:56:00.003-05:00

(Sources: here and here.)

The Disappearance of Childhood?

2010-02-15T07:54:00.000-05:00

I have been reading, in one of those fits of academic whimsy that I am sure overtakes everyone at one time or another, a rather strange little book, the late Neil Postman's The Disappearance of Childhood, a 1994 reissue of his 1982 work dissecting the curiously adultish quality of most modern children and the equally odd childishness of most contemporary adults. (Postman, a Marshall McLuhan-ish cultural critic who died in 2003, is best known for his 1985 work Amusing Ourselves to Death, on television.) There is a lot of fodder for thought here, though there are also numerous puzzling gaps to and odd ramifications springing from his thesis; he also lays the blame in equally peculiar places. One might claim that our current spate of adult adolescence lies more in the exaggeration and final end of our age's own cult of youth-worship than in its negation.

One of these difficulties, dealing with his discussion of what might be termed the history of childhood, is his contention there were no children in the Middle Ages. This is not that he claims medieval man emerged fully-sprung from his mother's womb, but that the child was not recognized as a separate category of human individual. There is something to be said for this; there is also even more to be said to his contention we are sliding into the same state today under the infantilizing tendencies of modern media. At the same time the idea seems curiously off somehow. The problem is there is a sizable difference between predominantly childlike adults and adultish children as well as the usual anthropological problem of studying humans like insects, and forgetting they're still quite human.

He cites as evidence the fact no medieval artist seems able to properly draw a baby--making them look instead like little men--and the crude, dirty, shameless behavior of medieval tavern-dwellers who seem to have never heard their mother say, of their loutish actions, "Not in front of little Junior!" He claims that, while the ancient Romans recognized the child, the decline of literacy, and thus the need for formal schooling in the manner we recognize, brought about this curious breakdown of the boundaries between child and adult as civilization ostensibly collapsed.

The problem here, and in his discussion of modern culture, is that Postman seems unable to define whether he is talking about the disappearance of childhood or the disappearance of adulthood (though it would seem the two phenomena are related). His medievals are childish illiterates whose best scholars are so defeated by the intricate stylization of early calligraphy (in contrast to the eminent legibility of Roman script) that they must torturously mumble their way through a text of Augustine like a kid learning phonics. This is not medieval history, this is the plot of the film Idiocracy as performed by the cast of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

While silent reading, when practiced, was considered something of a wonder, the verbal reading of medieval scholars certainly was not the stumbling, fumbling childish attempt he paints it as. Medieval calligraphy was highly ornamented, but certainly could be read by someone who was familiar with the script, as any medievalist could tell you. Could you imagine ten monks huddled around an enormous psalter trying chant and to decypher the letters in that fashion at the same time? Indeed, the Romans practiced verbal reading--the story of St. Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, reading aloud the Old Testament to himself while sitting in his carriage, suggests as much.

Certainly medieval children were treated more like small adults, at least more so than their Rousseauian 18th century counterparts. (Their elders had more commonsense, for one thing.) But that does not mean they were not loved in a way different from their older peers. To suggest, as he does, citing another auctoritee (if we're going to get all medieval here) on the subject, that parental love of children in the modern sense only goes back to the seventeenth century boggles the mind in the face of the great tenderness of even the earliest icons of the Christ-Child and His Mother, as odd as the little old man-baby might have looked. The entire cultus of the Infant Jesus is a counterexample to such an extravagant claim. The past may be another planet at times, but its inhabitants were not space aliens.

He might have also pointed out, based on the same evidence, that in the Middle Ages that some houses were missing their exterior walls so as to see the scenes within, or that kings slept wearing their crowns, or that the Egyptians had eyes on the sides of their heads, if we are to take artistic evidence that literally. Furthermore, to pretend that medieval schools were a small matter, and no line separated child from adult, is a bit of a stretch in light of the fact the university (Cambridge, Oxford, Paris, Salamanca, Bologna) as we know it was invented in this period. Primary and secondary schools were probably of less consequence than today, but to ignore them at all is rather a remarkable gap in his thesis.

What Postman sees as the discovery of childhood during the Renaissance (which he ascribes to the printing-press and the growth of literacy, despite the fact that Gutenberg was rather a johnny-come-lately to the period, which was in full swing in Italy at least fifty years to a century before he put print to paper, depending on how one reckons it) might instead be termed the rise of the middle class, and the ability to apply the more luxuried upper-class notions notions of human behavior to a wider audience. That Erasmus would write manuals on manners for children suggests not that kings and princes behaved like slovenly teenagers during the Middle Ages, but that the peasantry did; and even then, that may be ascribable less to the absence of childhood than the absence of germ theory. Brueghel's shameless scenes of general rejoicing are probably less representative of an adult population acting as if it were on spring break in Brughes than typical Catholic boisterousness and a lack of manners wholly appropriate to their class, rather than their age group.

Certainly, the cosseted and rather silly 19th century notion of childhood was absent in past ages, and much of what happened in the artificial environment of schools happened at one's mother's knee or the equivalent of on-the-job training, but to say that child and adult were indivisible in fifteenth-century Flanders, is rather hard to take. As to his contention that childhood is disappearing today--and that, at the same time, so is adulthood--that is another matter entirely, and deserves another post.