The LION & the CARDINAL

CARMEN FIGURATUM of HILDEGARD of BINGEN

Thu, 9 Sep 2010 06:05:15 -0600

Sarah Higley:

Hildegard was... familiar with [the Prophet Daniel's interpretation of Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin]... and her biographers Gottfried and Theodoric attribute a similar story of interpretation to her - this time of five mysterious letters. In book three of the Vita it is told how a priest at Rudesheim entered the church one evening and found two candles burning at the altar. He asked his assistant why he has neglected to extinguish them. When the assistant swore that he had, the priest went to the altar and found a cloth unrolled as if for the divine service. When he touched it, his servant fell to the floor, shouting the words of Jeremiah 12:12: Gladius Domini occidit nos! The student told the priest that neither of them would die if they read the writing on the altar cloth, where five letters, written by no human agency, were inscribed.

Sixteen years later, the priest heard that Hildegard had traveled the world spreading enlightenment. He sought her out and she interpreted the letters: Kirium, Presbyter, Derisit, Ascendat, Penitens, Homo: A priest mocked the Lord, may he ascend a penitent person.

...

This puzzle [in the Berlin Manuscript] is much more elaborate than that described in the Vita: around each capital letter are written words (vertically and horizontally) that begin with that letter, like an odd acrostic: kirio, kristum, kristo is written vertically around K; habet, hauriendo, habet written horizontally around H; altare, ascende, alas written horizonatlly around A; deest, derisit, decrimine written vertically around D; and poculum, pupille, prespiter, plangitur, primum, prespiteri written around the middle P both horizontally and vertically. In order to read these sentences, one must turn the page to the left and then back to the right:
[Vertically] Kirio prespiteri deest. Kristum primum derisit. Kristo plangitur decrimine.
[Horizontally] Altare poculum habet. Ascende pupille hauriendo. Alas prespiter habet.
The inscription refers to the salvation of an errant priest through the power of Christ:
For the Lord there is lack of a priest [who] first mocks Christ. For Christ's sake he is struck down by accusation. The altar has the chalice. Arise, O orphan, by drinking! The priest [now] has wings.
...

In order to read the first three sentences, one must turn the page to the left, the sinister side, which suggests the turning away of the false priest from Christ's teachings. Then, once the priest has been chastized, one turns the page back to the right, as in true conversion, and reads the last three sentences about the salvation and ascent of the priest through draining the cup. Poculum (cup) is in teh center of the page, as the chalice would occupy the center of the altar. Pupille (ward/orphan) is in the center of the space made by the P, and is intersected by the vertical primum, describing another cross and suggesting that the orphan, and all those in need of the Church, is the first concern of Christ. The errant perspiter of the first sentence is vertical, and under it the redeemed prespiter is horizontal, corrected and given wings.

[Hildegard of Bingen's Unknown Language: An Edition, Translation and Discussion by Sarah L. Higley. Palmgrave MacMillan: New York, 2007]

NATIVITY of the BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 10:42:05 -0600

The story, according to James of Voragine.

Sequence by Adam of St. Victor:

Salve, mater Salvatoris,
Vas electum, vas honoris.
Vas coelestis gratiae;
Ab aeterno vas provisum,
Vas insigne, vas excisum
Manu Sapientiae!

Salve, Verbi sacra parens,
Flos de spinis, spina carens,
Flos, spineti gloria!
Nos spinetum, nos peccati
Spina sumus cruentati,
Sed tu spinae nescia.

Porta clausa, fons hortorum,
Cella custos unguentorum,
Cella pigmentaria:
Cinnamomi calamum,
Myrrham, thus et balsamum
Superas fragrantia.

Salve, decus virginum,
Mediatrix hominum,
Salutis puerpera;
Myrtus temperantiae,
Rosa patientiae,
Nardus odorifera!

Tu convallis humilis,
Terra non arabilis,
Quae Deum parturiit;
Flos campi, convallium
Singulare lilium,
Christus ex te prodiit.

Tu coelestis paradisus
Libanusque non incisus,
Vaporans dulcedinem:
Tu candoris et decoris,
Tu dulcoris et odoris
Habes plenitudinem.

Tu thronus es Salomonis,
Cui nuUus par in thronis
Arte vel materia:
Ebur candens castitatis,
Aurum fulvum charitatis
Praesignant mysteria.

Palmam praefers singularem
Nec in terris habes parem,
Nec in coeli curia;
Laus humani generis,
Virtutum prae caeteris
Tenes privilegia.

Sol luna lucidior,
Et luna sideribus;
Sic Maria dignior
Creaturis omnibus.

Lux eclipsim nesciens
Virginis est castitas,
Ardor indeficiens,
Immortalis charitas.

(Dum venerabilis Adam sequenti versiculo Beatam Mariam Virginem salutaret, ab ea resalutari et regratiari meruit.)

SALVE, MATER PIETATIS,
ET TOTIUS TRINITATIS
NOBILE TRICLINIUM.
Verbi tamen incarnati
Speciale majestati
Praeparans hospitium!

O Maria, stella maris,
Dignitate singularis,
Super omnes ordinaris
Ordines coelestium:
In supremo sita poli,
Nos assigna tuae Proli,
Ne terrores sive doli
Nos supplantent hostium.

In procinctu constituti,
Te tuente simus tuti,
Pervicacis et versuti
Tuae cedat vis virtuti,
Dolus providentiae.
Jesu, Verbum summi Patris,
Serva servos Tuae matris,
Solve reos, salva gratis,
Et nos Tuae claritatis
Configura gloriae. Amen.

Englished by Digby S. Wrangham:

Hail to thee, our Saviour's mother!
Vessel, honoured o'er all other!
Chosen vessel of God's grace!
Vessel, known before creation!
Noble vessel, whose formation
'Neath the All-wise hand took place!

Hail, the world's own mother holy!
Sprung from thorns, but thornless throughly!
Flower a thornbrake's glory born!
We the thornbrake are, surrounded
With sin's thorns, and by them wounded,
But thou art without a thorn.

Closed gate! fount through gardens pouring!
Storehouse, precious spikenard storing!
Store of unguents sweet to smell!
Cinnamon's sweet-scented reed,
Incense, balsam, myrrh, indeed
Thou in fragrance dost excel!

Hail, fair type of maiden grace;
Mediatrix of man's race!
Of salvation brought to bed!
Continence's myrtle-tree!
Rose of love and clemency!
Nard whence sweetest scents are shed!

Lowliest of valleys thou,
Soil that never felt the plough,
Which to God himself gave birth!
Meadow-flower! lily fair!
Which the valley, peerless, bare!
Christ of thee was born on earth!

O thou paradise in heaven!
Lebanon no axe hath riven,
Breathing sweetness all around!
Virgin whiteness, beauty's brightness,
Finest flavours, sweetest savours,
Plenteously in thee abound!

Thou the wise king's throne appearest.
Which, in shape and substance, fairest,
'Mongst all thrones hath ever been:
Chastity in ivory's whiteness,
Charity in red gold's brightness,
Shadowed forth, therein are seen.

Peerless is the palm thou bearest,
Peerless thou on earth appearest,
And in heaven amongst the blest:
As the praise of all man's race,
Thee peculiar virtues grace,
Given to thee above the rest.

As the sun outshines the moon,
And the moon each twinkhng star,
Mary is than every one
Of God's creatures worthier far!

Light, that no eclipse can know,
Is her virgin chastity;
Heat, which ne'er will cease to glow,
Her love's deathless constancy!

(As the venerable Adam was saluting the Blessed Virgin Mary in the following stanza, he was himself in return saluted and thanked by her.)

MOTHER OF FAIR LOVE, WE NAME THEE!
FAMED TRICLINIUM WE PROCLAIM THEE,
WHICH THE TRINITY ALL SHARE;
Though thou dost a special dwelling
For the majesty excelling
Of the Incarnate Word prepare!

Mary, Star o'er ocean glowing!
Rival none in honour knowing!
Foremost in precedence going
'Mongst all ranks around God's throne!
Placed in highest heaven, commend us
To thine Offspring to befriend us,
And from fear of foes defend us,
Lest by guile we be o'erthrown.

Safe, in battle-line extended,
May we be, by thee defended;
May foes' force and shrewdness blended
Bow before thy virtues splendid,
And their craft 'neath thy foresight.
Christ the Word, God's generation!
Guard Thy mother's congregation;
Pardon guilt, grant free salvation.
And with the illumination
Of Thy glory make us bright! Amen.

ST. DISIBOD

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 19:42:16 -0600

Prose by Hildegard of Bingen:

O presul vere civitatis,
Qui in templo angularis lapidis
Ascendens in celum
In terra prostratus fuisti
Propter Deum:

Tu peregrinus a semine mundi
Desiderasti exul fieri
Propter amorem Christi.

O mons clause mentis,
Tu assidue pulcram faciem aperuisti
In speculo columbe.

Tu in absconso latuisti
Inebriatus odore florum
Per cancellos sanctorum
Emicans Deo.

O culmen in clavibus celi,
Quod propter perspicuam vitam
Mundum vendidisti!
Hoc certamen, alme confessor,
Semper habes in Domino.

In tua enim mente
Fons vivus clarissima luce
Purissimos rivulos eduxit
Per viam salutis.

Tu magna turris
Ante altare summi Dei,
Et huius turris culmen obumbrasti
Per fumum aromatum.

O Disibode,
In tuo lumine
Per exempla puri soni
Membra mirifice laudis edificasti
In duabus partibus
Per Filium hominis.

In alto stas
Non erubescens ante deum vivum
Et protegis viridi rore
Laudantes deum ista voce.

O dulcis vita
Et o beata perseverantia,
Que in hoc beato Disibodo gloriosum lumen
Semper edificasti
In celesti Ierusalem.

Nunc sit laus Deo
In forma pulcre tonsure
Viriliter operante.

Et superni cives gaudeant de his,
Qui eos hoc modo imitantur.

GERMAN-EARLY CHRISTIAN ORNAMENT

Mon, 6 Sep 2010 23:01:00 -0600

Selected plates from Styles in Ornament by Alexander Speltz, published in 1906:

THEFT of MEMLING'S DOOM

Mon, 6 Sep 2010 06:04:23 -0600

1000 Masterpieces of European Painting:

In 1467, Hans Memling, who at the time was living in Bruges, received a commission from the Florentine banker Angelo di Jacopo Tani to create a monumental altarpiece depicting the Last Judgment with the Arcangel Michael as the Weigher of Souls. The painting was probably intended to be mounted in the chapel of St. Michael's Church in Badia Fiesolana in Florence...

Memling's triptych... was a gigantic work for its time, especially since it was intended to be exported. Six years after Memling received the commission the altar was completed and ready for transport. The Last Judgment left the Bruges harbor on the ship San Matteo, filled with cloth, furs, rugs, spices and other valuable goods. The planned itinerary lead first to London, then to Italy.

However, the ship never reached its port of destination. War raged between England and the Hanseatic League, and although the San Matteo was sailing under the neutral flag of Burgindy, it was attacked off the coast of England on 27 April 1473, by the caravelle Peter of Danzig. After a bitter struggle the ship was seized and the booty distributed in the north German city of Bremen. The altarpiece was designated for the Church of St. Mary in Danzig, where it was erected in the George Chapel. Negotiations over the return of the painting or any retribution for the thievery failed in spite of the intervention by the Medici, Pope Sixtus IV, and the Duke of Burgundy, whose help had been enlisted by the influential patrons.

[1000 Masterpieces of European Painting by Christiane Stukenbrock and Barbara Töpper. English edition edited by Julia Muney Moore. Könemann: Cologne, 2000]

LILY CROSS at GODSHILL

Sat, 4 Sep 2010 08:21:21 -0600

John Donne:

At once a Sonne is promis’d her & gone,
Gabriell gives Christ to her, He her to John;
Not fully a mother, Shee’s in Orbity,
At once receiver & the legacy.
All this, and all betweene, this day hath showne,
Th’Abridgement of Christs story, which makes one
(As in plaine Maps, the furthest West is East)
Of th'Angels’s Ave & Consummatum est.

Anne Marshall:

Godshill’s name, according to the legend attached to the foundation of the church sometime in the reign of King Edward the Confessor, comes from the story that the builders tried three times to build the new church on a specific site, only to find each time that the stones had been moved overnight to a different location. Since the new site was therefore clearly one chosen by God himself, the church was built there - on God’s hill. The Lily Cross, unique in English wallpainting, is in the south transept, the gates of which may be locked (this photograph was taken through its bars). It shows Christ crucified on a lily, flanked by painted curtains with inscriptions on scrolls. The curtains once had painted or carved figures, perhaps of Mary and John, on or in front of them, and the outline of these is still faintly visible. Above, two hovering angels hold more scrolls, that on the left showing reasonably well. As is tantalisingly common, the various inscriptions are just below the threshold of decipherability.

It is likely that the Lily Cross refers to the calendrical coincidence whose paradoxes Donne explores with obvious delight; several times in any given century, Good Friday falls on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation. In the Middle Ages, various beliefs seem to have clustered around this doubtful day of Feast or Fast and one of them, perhaps unsurprisingly, was that it heralded the Last Day and imminent Judgement. A variant belief, specifically English, was that it meant disaster for the realm, encapsulated in a rhyme: When the Lord’s Day falls in Our Lady’s lap / England shall meet with a great mishap.

The crucified Christ, long-limbed and thin to the point of emaciation, has a short loincloth and what looks like a spiky cap of thorns, rather than the more usual woven thorn-wreath. The branching lily has three stems, no doubt to symbolise the Trinity. The whole painting is of very high quality, particularly the lily itself in a delicate grey-green pigment, perhaps malachite.

GREEN CHILDREN of WOOLPIT

Sat, 4 Sep 2010 08:20:04 -0600

Thomas Keightley:

Another wonderful thing, says Ralph of Coggeshall, happened in Suffolk, at St. Mary's of the Wolf-pits. A boy and his sister were found by the inhabitants of that place near the mouth of a pit which is there, who had the form of all their limbs like to those of other men, but they differed in the colour of their skin from all the people of our habitable world; for the whole surface of their skin was tinged of a green colour. No one could understand their speech. When they were brought as curiosities to the house of a certain knight, Sir Richard de Caine, at Wikes, they wept bitterly. Bread and other victuals were set before them, but they would touch none of them, though they were tormented by great hunger, as the girl afterwards acknowledged. At length, when some beans just cut, with their stalks, were brought into the house, they made signs, with great avidity, that they should be given to them. When they were brought, they opened the stalks instead of the pods, thinking the beans were in the hollow of them; but not finding them there, they began to weep anew. When those who were present saw this, they opened the pods, and showed them the naked beans. They fed on these with great delight, and for a long time tasted no other food. The boy, however, was always languid and depressed, and he died within a short time. The girl enjoyed continual good health; and becoming accustomed to various kinds of food, lost completely that green colour, and gradually recovered the sanguine habit of her entire body. She was afterwards regenerated by the layer of holy baptism, and lived for many years in the service of that knight (as I have frequently heard from him and his family), and was rather loose and wanton in her conduct. Being frequently asked about the people of her country, she asserted that the inhabitants, and all they had in that country, were of a green colour; and that they saw no sun, but enjoyed a degree of light like what is after sunset. Being asked how she came into this country with the aforesaid boy, she replied, that as they were following their flocks, they came to a certain cavern, on entering which they heard a delightful sound of bells; ravished by whose sweetness, they went for a long time wandering on through the cavern, until they came to its mouth. When they came out of it, they were struck senseless by the excessive light of the sun, and the unusual temperature of the air; and they thus lay for a long time. Being terrified by the noise of those who came on them, they wished to fly, but they could not find the entrance of the cavern before they were caught.

This story is also told by William of Newbridge, who places it in the reign of King Stephen. He says he long hesitated to believe it, but he was at length overcome by the weight of evidence. According to him, the place where the children appeared was about four or five miles from Bury St. Edmund's: they came in harvest-time out of the Wolf-pits; they both lost their green hue, and were baptised, and learned English. The boy, who was the younger, died; but the girl married a man at Lenna, and lived many years. They said their country was called St. Martin's Land, as that saint was chiefly worshiped there; that the people were Christians, and had churches; that the sun did not rise there, but that there was a bright country which could be seen from theirs, being divided from it by a very broad river.

VIRTUES and VICES ~ HOURS of SIMON VOSTRE

Fri, 3 Sep 2010 08:49:52 -0600

Emile Mâle:

The idea of making certain famous men incarnations of Vices seems to have come from Italy. J. von Schlosser has cited two fourteenth-century manuscripts, both Italian, in which the Virtues trample heretics, philosophers and tyrants. Justice has Nero underfoot; Fortitude has Holofernes; Temperance has Epicurus; Prudence, Saranapalus; Charity, Herod; Hope, Judas; Faith, Arius...

The Hours of Simon Vostre [c1507] contains the first French examples of the Virtues crushing their most famous enemies underfoot. Faith has Machomet under hers, Hope has Judas, Charity has Herod, Prudence has Sardanapalus, Temperance has Tarquinius, Justice has Nero, Fortitude has Holofernes. We see that only two names, Machomet and Tarquinius, differ from those found in the Italian manuscripts. The relation thus seems clear and presupposes numerous intermediaries.

[Religious Art in France: the Late Middle Ages by Emile Mâle, translated by Marthiel Matthews. Princeton University Press, 1986]

ST. GILES

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 10:19:58 -0600

His life, according to James of Voragine.

Sequence by Adam of St. Victor:

Congaudentes exultemus,
Exultantes celebremus
Aegidii solemnia,
Qui triumphans de terrenis
Coronandus in supernis
Summa petit gaudia!

Hunc insignem pietate,
Virum plenum sanctitate,
Stirpe natum regia,
Templum Deo mox futurum,
Mundo satis profuturum
Procreavit gratia.

Qui in primo aevi flore
Quantus floret in virore
Praemonstravit gratia;
Data veste mendicanti
Confert diu languescenti
Salutis remedia.

Hinc, post mortem genitorum,
Plenus laude meritorum,
Sua vendens omnia,
Larga manu dat egenis,
Egens ipse, alienis,
Exsulat a patria.

Undis nautae fatigati
Portum petunt liberati
Per ejus suffragia;
Medicina dum rogatur,
Sanitati revocatur
Vidualis filia.

Pellitur sterilitas,
Succedit fertilitas,
Surgit messis copia.
Aegri reparatio,
Pulso morbi vitio,
Moestis fit laetitia.

Ad deserta sitiens
Properavit, fugiens
Hominum consortia.
Panis ubi deerat,
Christus tamen aderat
Parando cibaria;
Fame ne deficeret,
Affuit, quae pasceret
Virum Dei, bestia.

Sic latere voluit;
Sed latentem reperit
Regalis familia.
Per nutricem cognitus,
A rege commonitus
Struit monasteria.
Illic castra militum
Pro Christo certantium
Collocavit fortia.

Hunc devote qui precatur
Voto regis non frustratur,
Protestante Gallia;
Dum pro rege supplicatur
Qui commisso premebatur,
Impetratur venia.

Mox nacturus praemia
Pro mundi victoria,
Subiit coelestia:
Quem coeli militia
Duxit ad palatia
Ubi pax et gloria.

Hujus festum veneremus,
Venerantes habeamus
Semper in memoria.
Hunc submisse flagitemus,
Flagitantes imploremus
Nobis dari gaudia,
Quo felices maneamus
Et cum Sanctis decantemus
Festivum alleluia ! Amen.

Englished by Digby S. Wrangham:

Let us joy with exultation,
And, exulting, celebration
Make to-day of Giles's rites,
Who, o'er things of earth victorious,
Seeks those joys of all most glorious,
And a crown in heavenly heights!

He, for piety most noted,
Full of holiness devoted,
Scion of a regal race.
Soon to be God's holy temple,
And earth's very bright example,
Was begotten of God's grace.

In his youth's first early flower,
What in riper age his power
Would be, he, through grace, foreshowed;
Clothing to a beggar giving,
Medicine too, his health reviving.
He on him, long sick, bestowed.

When his parents died, o'erflowing
With the praise due to well-doing,
Selling all, with open hand
Needy strangers he endoweth,
And, himself a pauper, goeth,
Exiled, from his native land.

Sailors, tempest-tost and wearied,
To the port they seek are carried.
Rescued by his earnest prayer:
To a widow he restoreth
Whole her child, while she imploreth
A physician in despair.

Barrenness away is chased,
By fertility replaced.
And a plenteous harvest comes:
Sick men with new health are filled,
Dire diseases thence expelled,
Causing joy in mournful homes.

To a bare and barren waste.
Sore athirst, he then made haste,
To escape from man's abode.
Christ Himself was present there,
Since but scanty was the fare,
To provide His servant's food;
Lest of hunger he should die,
A wild animal drew nigh
To sustain the man of God.

Hidden thus he fain would be,
But the royal family
Of his place of hiding hear:
Through his nurse discovered, there
At the monarch's earnest prayer
He a monastery near, -
Where he many a warrior bold.
In the cause of Christ enrolled,
By his side encamped, - doth rear.

Through this monarch's prayer, whoever
Prays to Giles devoutly never, -
France is witness, - prays in vain;
For, when for the king he prayeth
On whose mind a dark deed weigheth,
He his pardon doth obtain.

To receive those laurels soon
By his earthly triumphs won,
Hath this saint to heaven gone,
Whom the host about God's throne
To those mansions, where alone
Peace and glory are, led on.

Giles's feast then venerate we,
Venerating, consecrate we
In perpetual memory!
Humbly now let us entreat him,
And, entreating, supplicate him,
That true joys our portion be.
Where in bliss that endeth never
We may Alleluias ever
With the Saints sing joyfully! Amen.

ILLUSTRATION REPORT ~ AUGUST 2010

Thu, 2 Sep 2010 06:33:37 -0600

For a more detailed account of my artstic activity, please subscribe to my electronic newsletter by e-mailing danmitsui [at] hotmail [dot] com.

Please also e-mail me if you are interested in purchasing original drawings or prints, commissioning works of art, collaborating, licensing an image or selling my work in a store. I welcome questions, comments, advice and criticism.

I am very interested in bringing my work and my knowledge about sacred art to a broader audience than this web log, especially by speaking or exhibiting artwork for parishes, schools, youth groups, conferences and other organizations. If you know of any opportunities for this, or if you would like to invite me, please e-mail me.

My main web site has been redesigned, and now includes prices on all works for sale, most of which are in the sections on religious art, biological art and giclée prints.

During the past month, I have completed one large drawing on commission, one large drawing on speculation, and several small works. In the coming months, I will be participating in several art and craft fairs around Chicago, and in November, I will be exhibiting my work at the Gateway Liturgical Conference in St. Louis.

New Drawing: Last Judgment

This black ink drawing of the Last Judgment is one of the largest works that I have created on speculation in recent years. It includes figures of David and the Sibyl, and the 15 signs of the end of the world. Please visit this page to see larger images, and to read a detailed description of its content and symbolism.

The drawing measures 12" x 9", centered on a 14" x 11" piece of Bristol board. The original is for sale for $3300. I have not yet decided whether to issue a limited-edition print of it; please e-mail me if you would be interested in one, as this will help me gauge interest and make the decision. The prints, if I decide to issue them, will likely cost about $144 each.

New Drawing: Lily Cross

This drawing of Christ crucified on a lily was based on a late mediaeval wall painting at Godshill, on the Isle of Wight. Please visit this page to see larger images, and to read a detailed description of its content and symbolism.

The drawing measures 9" square; it was made with colored inks on bristol board. The haloes and certain other elements are gold leaf. It was created on commission for a patron in England.

New Drawing: Annunciation

This small drawing of the Annunciation has an historiated initial with Gabriel and Mary inside it. The large letters M and G are gold leaf. 3 1/2" x 4 1/2". Original for sale: $175

New Drawing: Trinity

Recently, I discovered in my files a folder filled with half-finished drawings from about four years ago. Most of my work from that time no longer meets my standards. However, I found one incomplete Scutum Fidei with the words Pater, Filius and Spiritus Sanctus written in the distinctive, almost runic style of display capitals from the Lindisfarne Gospels and other early Irish and Northumbrian illuminated manuscripts; I liked the lettering that I had done so much that I considered finising the drawing, but instead I cut out the words and mounted them on another piece of Bristol board colored with a green wash. 4" x 6". Original for sale: $100

New Drawing: St. Patrick

While working on the Trinity collage, I regretted not having used this style of lettering in such a long time. So I made a small drawing of St. Patrick in the style of the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells, with two zoomorphic knots and a gold leaf background. 3 1/2" x 4 1/2". Original for sale: $175

Interview

I was recently interviewed by Rev. Mr. Lawrence Klimecki for his Gryphon Rampant website. The complete interview can be read here. An excerpt:
LK: Tell us some more about your work.

DM: The majority of my work is done in black ink on Bristol board. Mostly I draw with artists' pens, the ones with the finest tips available (size 005). My other basic tools are a pencil and a pencil sharpener, a ruler, and a kneaded rubber eraser. I sometimes use brushes and india ink for coloring in black spaces, and metal-tipped calligraphers' pens for lettering.

I start by outlining frames and borders with a ruler and compass. In this I attempt to imitate the method mediaeval craftsmen used to create harmonic proportions, deriving the lengths and widths from a sequence of squares whose areas diminish in geometrical progression.

I draw the difficult parts (such as human figures) with pencil, then correct and ink them. Most of the ornamental patterns I can draw freehand in ink, without pencilling them beforehand. One of my peculiarities is that I seldom, almost never, make draft sketches on separate pieces of paper. I prefer to work on the final piece of paper from the start. When I make mistakes in ink, I use hard erasers to rub them out or knives to scrape them away.

When I work in color, I use various combinations and dilutions of calligraphers' inks, applied with fine watercolor brushes. I use gold leaf for certain details. Sometimes I work on animal-skin parchment instead of paper; this yields a more precise drawing because there is so little bleed. I have been using goatskin, although I will probably switch to calfskin soon because the surface is smoother and doesn't ruin my pens as easily.

LK: We have a rich tradition of Catholic art to draw upon, how much of this plays a role in your work?

DM: Foremost, I want to uphold the principle of iconography, which was stated by the fathers of the Second Nicene Council: The composition of religious imagery is not left to the initative of artists, but is formed upon principles laid down by the Catholic Church and by religious tradition... The execution alone belongs to the painter, the selection and arrangement of subject belongs to the Fathers.

I am most strongly influenced by the art of the high to late middle ages, usually called Gothic; it is there that I see the principle of iconography expressed most perfectly in the western Church, ordered to her liturgy and theology. I refer most often to illuminated books from this era, as well as incunabula, stained glass windows, tapestries, panel paintings and works in metal for guidance in composing my drawings. I usually eschew linear perspective and Renaissance-style figurativism.

Gothic art contains within it all the best ideas of the traditions that preceded and influenced it, without suffering the influences that diminish the art of later eras. I believe that Gothic art ought to hold the same place in Roman Catholic art that Gregorian Chant holds in Roman Catholic music and the Thomism holds in Roman Catholic thought: a standard of excellence against which all other sacred art should be measured.

That does not mean that I see no value in religious art from other eras; in practice, I receive plenty of commissions for drawings of subjects or ideas that were never depicted in Gothic art. When that happens, I am happy to refer to Byzantine or Baroque or Japanese or any of a thousand other styles of art. But my guiding aesthetic is still high to late mediaeval.

In matter of ornament, which I think the fathers of Nicaea II would have considered part of the execution belonging to the painter, I am much more willing to depart from mediaeval precedents; any kind of intricate pattern interests me, and I am especially fond of Celtic knotwork and microbiological forms. I have joked at times that, were my real name lost to history, I would want to be known as the Master of the Mitochondria. These have become such a signature decorative motif for me that I sometimes draw a mitochondrion in place of a written signature.

Limited-Edition Art Prints for Sale

Limited-edition giclée art prints on heavy rag paper are available of the following works. Click on the thumbnails below for more information about each drawing, or here for more information about limited-edition prints in general.

Annunciation
Image size: 6" x 8"
Paper size: 8" x 10"
Limited edition (1-100) signed giclee art print
$96 + shipping

Crucifixion
Image size: 8" x 11"
Paper size: 9" x 12"
Limited edition (1-100) signed giclee art print
$120 + shipping

St. Michael
Image size: 5.5" x 8.5"
Paper size: 8" x 10"
Limited edition (1-30) signed giclee art print
$96 + shipping

St. Columba of Iona
Image size: 8 1/2" x 11 1/9"
Paper size: 9" x 12"
Limited edition (1-6) signed giclee art print
$120 + shipping

Tree of Life and Death
Image size: 5 1/4" x 7"
Paper size: 8" x 10"
Limited edition (1-50) signed giclee art print
$96 + shipping

Christmas Cards for Sale

Tree of Jesse
Card size: 5" x 7"
Blank inside
$1 per card + shipping
Envelopes included
Minimum order of 10

Annunciation to the Shepherds
Card size: 4" x 5"
Blank inside
$1 per card + shipping
Envelopes included

See this page for more information.

Printed Universal Bookplates for Sale

Olives

Critters

Maze

Size of printed bookplates: 3" x 4"
Digital prints on white acid-free paper
50 cents each + shipping

See this page for more information.