Religion
25 november 2004
Laocoön
Laocoön, priest of Apollo, and his two sons
sculpture by Agesander, Polydorus and Athanodorus (?)
Vatican Museum, Italy
"'O my poor people,
Men of Troy, what madness has come over you?
Can you believe the enemy truly gone?
A gift from the Danaans, and no ruse?
Is that Ulysses' way, as you have known him?
Achaeans must be hiding in this timber,
Or it was built to butt against our walls,
Peer over them into our houses, pelt
The city from the sky. Some crookedness
Is in this thing. Have no faith in the horse!
Whatever it is, even when Greeks bring gifts
I fear them, gifts and all.'"
(Virgil, The Aeneid, Book II, 59-70)
One of the major discoveries of the Italian Renaissance, this sculptural grouping was found in Rome in 1506 in the ruins of Titus' palace. It depicts an event in Vergil's Aeneid (Book 2). The Trojan priest Laocoön was strangled by sea snakes, sent by the gods who favored the Greeks, while he was sacrificing at the altar of Neptune. Because Laocoön had tried to warn the Trojan citizens of the danger of bringing in the wooden horse, he incurred the wrath of the gods.
G.A. Montorsoli, protege of Michelangelo, restored the sculpture 's missing right arm wrongly, instaed of a bend arm he replaced it with an outstretched one. The original arm was only found in 1906.
Laocoön by other artists (notice the difference in the right arm...)
painting by El Greco. Laocoön. c.1610. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA.
drawing by Giovanni Antonio da Brescia 1506
Düsseldorf, Kunstmuseum
The Finding of the Laokoon 1773 by Hubert Robert (1733 - 1808)
Oil on canvas, 119 x 163 cm
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond
Posted by willy at 06:45 pm to 50 - Priest | Religion | Comments (2)
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La Tour's St. Jerome
Repenting of St. Jerome 1628-30 by Georges de La Tour
Oil on canvas - Musée de Grenoble, Grenoble, France
St. Jerome
Patron of Librarians
Born at Stridon, a town on the confines of Dalmatia and Pannonia, about the year 340-2; died at Bethlehem, 30 September, 420.
He went to Rome, probably about 360, where he was baptized, and became interested in ecclesiastical matters. From Rome he went to Trier, famous for its schools, and there began his theological studies. Later he went to Aquileia, and towards 373 he set out on a journey to the East. He settled first in Antioch, where he heard Apollinaris of Laodicea, one of the first exegetes of that time and not yet separated from the Church. From 374-9 Jerome led an ascetical life in the desert of Chalcis, south-west of Antioch. Ordained priest at Antioch, he went to Constantinople (380-81), where a friendship sprang up between him and St. Gregory of Nazianzus. From 382 to August 385 he made another sojourn in Rome, not far from Pope Damasus. When the latter died (11 December, 384) his position became a very difficult one. His harsh criticisms had made him bitter enemies, who tried to ruin him. After a few months he was compelled to leave Rome. By way of Antioch and Alexandria he reached Bethlehem, in 386. He settled there in a monastery near a convent founded by two Roman ladies, Paula and Eustochium, who followed him to Palestine. Henceforth he led a life of asceticism and study. St. Jerome owes his place in the history of exegetical studies chiefly to his revisions and translations of the Bible.
Posted by willy at 02:05 pm to 54 - Martyr | Religion | Comments (0)
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La Tour's St. Sebastian
St Sebastian tended by Irene (1649?) by Georges de La Tour (1593-1652)
Musée du Louvre (Paris, France). 167x131 cm.
Georges de la Tour (1593 - 1652)
Georges de La Tour was born on March 13, 1593 in the town of Vic-upon-Seille, in Lorraine. His baptism document indicates that he was the son of Jean de La Tour, baker, and Sybille de La Tour, née Molian (or Malian).
In 1620 he established his studio in Luneville and painting religious and genre scenes. In 1638 Lunéville was sacked and burnt, the house and studio of the artist with all its pictures were destroyed by fire. The family found shelter in Nancy.
In 1639, La Tour was in Paris by the king's order. The King presented him with 1000 francs for some service (what kind of service it was, is unknown). Though from now on he was referred to as ‘Sir George de la Tour, painter of his majesty’. In 1645, the king appointed one Henri de La Ferté-Senneterre the governor of Lorraine. The new governor loved arts. He immediately established good relations with La Tour and became his patron. On January 15, 1652 La Tour’s wife, Diane, died. Soon after her, on January 30, La Tour died, deeply depressed.
Although his initial work was executed in a Mannerist style, he later showed influence of Caravaggio. La Tour’s work went unrecognized after his death in 1652 but was rediscovered by a German scholar in 1915.
Posted by willy at 02:00 pm to 54 - Martyr | Religion | Comments (0)
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Rubens' St. Sebastian
St Sebastian (c. 1618) by Peter Paul Rubens(1577-1640)
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin (Germany)
Posted by willy at 01:56 pm to 54 - Martyr | Religion | Comments (0)
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Mantegna's St. Sebastian
St. Sebastian by Andrea Mantegna ca. 1480
canvas: 255 x 140 cm; Musee du Louvre, Paris
St. Sebastian
Roman martyr, his feast day is 20 January.
little more than the fact of his martyrdom can be proved about St. Sebastian. In the "Depositio martyrum" of the chronologer of 354 it is mentioned that Sebastian was buried on the Via Appia. St. Ambrose ("In Psalmum cxviii"; "Sermo", XX, no. sliv in PL, XV, 1497) states that Sebastian came from Milan and even in the time of St. Ambrose was venerated there.
The Acts, probably written at the beginning of the fifth century and formerly ascribed erroneously to Ambrose, relate that he was an officer in the imperial bodyguard and had secretly done many acts of love and charity. When he was finally discovered to be a Christian, in 286, he was handed over to the Mauretanian archers, who pierced him with arrows; he was healed, however, by the widowed St. Irene. He was finally killed by the blows of a club. These stories are probably unhistorical. The earliest mosaic picture of St. Sebastian, which probably belongs to the year 682, shows a grown, bearded man in court dress but contains no trace of an arrow. It was the art of the Renaissance that first portrayed him as a youth pierced by arrows. In 367 a basilica which was one of the seven chief churches of Rome was built over his grave. The present church was completed in 1611 by Scipio Cardinal Borghese. His relics in part were taken in the year 826 to St. Medard at Soissons. Sebastian is considered a protector against the plague. Celebrated answers to prayer for his protection against the plague are related of Rome in 680, Milan in 1575, and Lisbon in 1599.
Posted by willy at 12:19 pm to 54 - Martyr | Religion | Comments (2)
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24 november 2004
Hildegard von Bingen
Liber Scivias, a manuscript by Hildegard von Bingen
Cosmic Man
Cosmic Egg
In 1098 Hildegard von Bingen was born into a noble family of Bermersheim (Rhinehesse) and was educated from the age of eightat the benedictine monastery of Disibodenberg. Her education consisted mainly in learning how to sing and mastering various approariate crafts.
In 1136 Hildegard became the abbot of this monastery and founded new monasteries on Rupertsberg near Bingen and in Eibingen. As a highly sensitive person with a deeply inquisitive nature and scholarly disposition, she wrote numerous treatises on theology, natural sciences, medicine and general knowledge. She also became known as author of musical compositions and religious songs.
Early in her life a divine voice instructed her to note down her mystical experiences. Her profuse literary activity made her well known, revered and famous already during her life time. Emperors, popes and noblemen were in correspondence with her. What attracted and attracts people even today, (after 900 years of her birth, is her vision of a harmonious universe, in which each element has its well-defined place: the stones and the stars, the clouds and the flowers, the animals and the human beings in its centre, all pay a perfectly concordant role in the symphony of the universe. Conflicts occur when the human beings play a discordant sound and thereby disturb the harmonious cosmic network of friendship, mutual concern and care for the other. Critically she looked down upon sick people who do not want to be cured but are enchanted with their plight, or those who have lost the vision for the beauty of nature. Even emperors and popes, interlocked in struggles for supremacy, were not spared of criticism from her side, and she condemned the bloody crusades as the dark sides of the human being. Hildegard died at the age of 81 at the Rupertsberg monastery.
What a powerful mind Hildegard von Bingen must have had that her mystical experiences, her writings and her musical compositions are still relevant today!
(Hildegard von Bingen, mystic and church reformer, concerned with the plight of the human being in universe, lived from 1098 to 1179.)
Posted by jacob at 03:00 pm to 52 - Nun | Religion | Comments (1)