Ad Imaginem Dei: Paris Attacks

Saturday, November 14, 2015

Paris Attacks

Saints of France, pray for Paris, for France and for all of us.

Saint Joan of Arc

Jules Bastien-Lepage, St. Joan of Arc
French, 1879
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Saint Genevieve

Jules Cebron-Lavau. St. Genevieve Repulsing Attila
French, 1900-1925
Angers, Musée des Beaux-Arts

Saint Louis

Saint Louis Carrying the Crown of Thorns
French (Tours), c. 1245-1248
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cloisters Collection

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux

Maurice Denis, Apotheosis of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus
French, 1939
Autun, Musée Rolin

Saint Martin of Tours

Saint Martin of Tours
from Sacramentary of Mont-Saint-Michel
French, 1050-1065
New York, The Morgan Library
MS M 641, 173r

Saint Denis

Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres, St. Denis, First Bishop of Paris
French, 1844
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Jean Bourdichon, St. Bernard with Chained Devil
from Hours of Frederic of Aragon
French, 1501-1504
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 10532, fol. 330

Saint Peter Julian Eymard

St. John Vianney

Stained Glass Window, Saint John Vianney
French, c. 1920
Paris, Church of Sainte-Marguerite

Saint Michael the Archangel

Eugene Delacroix, Fall of the Rebel Angels
French, 1854-1861
Paris, Church of Saint Sulpice

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Uniquely among the monotheistic religions Christianity permits the use of images of God. Why? The answer lies in the Christian belief in the reality of the Incarnation. Since God has assumed human nature and form the Biblical prohibition against making images of God ceases to apply. As the second Council of Nicea declared in 787 "Following the divinely inspired teaching of our holy Fathers and the tradition of the Catholic Church (for we know that this tradition comes from the Holy Spirit who dwells in her) we rightly define with full certainty and correctness that, like the figure of the precious and life-giving cross, venerable and holy images of our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ, our inviolate Lady, the holy Mother of God, and the venerated angels, all the saints and the just, whether painted or made of mosaic or another suitable material, are to be exhibited in the holy churches of God, on sacred vessels and vestments, walls and panels, in houses and on streets."
(Council of Nicaea II: DS 600)

This decree of Nicea II was promulgated for the entire church, both Greek and Latin speaking, and was a response to the strongly held beliefs of the iconoclasts, who wished to suppress the use of images, which had convulsed the Byzantine Empire and the eastern churches for almost 100 years. In addition, St. John Damascene, last of the Greek Fathers and a staunch defender of images, had written in De imagine ("In Defense of Images") "Of old, God the incorporeal and uncircumscribed was never depicted. Now, however, when God is seen clothed in flesh, and conversing with men, (Bar. 3.38) I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter." (St. John Damascene, De Imagine, Part I, 15-16, from Internet Medieival Sourcebook.)

The ways in which this imaging of the divine has been accomplished in the course of time is the subject of Christian iconography. To quote from the Merriam-Webster dictionary, iconography is "1: pictorial material relating to or illustrating a subject; 2: the traditional or conventional images or symbols associated with a subject and especially a religious or legendary subject; 3: the imagery or symbolism of a work of art, an artist, or a body of art".

The iconography of any subject develops and changes over time. Christian iconography develops and changes too, as reflection on the Gospels and Tradition develops over time and as the act of making art develops and changes as well. This is the background for this blog.

Ad Imaginem Dei

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Saturday, November 14, 2015

Paris Attacks

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Central Park Sunset

Oscar Wild 1997(?)-2014