RUSHTON TRIANGULAR LODGE









The Heritage Trail:

An extraordinary piece of symbolic architecture sits along a lonely country lane, about a mile from the village of Rushton. From a cursory glance at this small but ostentatious building, it bears all the hallmarks of being nothing more than a folly. Upon a closer inspection of both its structure and its history, however, a deeper explanation for the existence of this building gradually reveals itself.

The Rushton estate was the principal seat of the Tresham family from 1437, and a large, country manor house was built in the late 15th century. With a staunchly Catholic background, Sir Thomas Tresham experienced a difficult and troubled life during the last two decades of the 1500s, and was imprisoned for much of the time because governments of the day felt threatened by his religious persuasion. It was during his prolonged captivity that Sir Thomas formulated the idea of making a covert declaration of his faith, having already smothered his cell walls with symbolic letters, dates, numbers and other religious scribbles.

It was not uncommon for the Elizabethans and Jacobeans to incorporate messages within their elaborate buildings, but to emblazon a house with so many clear references to the Trinity was an outrageous notion. Nonetheless, on his release in 1593, Tresham began designing the triangular lodge, as something of a shrine dedicated to his long suffering. The result was this small, colourful house adorned with dates, emblems, biblical passages, shields and skilfully carved gargoyles. Constructed on the basis of an equilateral triangle, the symbolism is apparent throughout the entire building, and all features relate back to the Holy Trinity and the Mass. On the three walls, there are three windows on each of the three floors, three roof gables, and even a triangular chimney adorned with Tresham trefoils.

Inside the house is remarkably plain, providing compact and simple accommodation for a gamekeeper or someone of similar status. The building is often referred to in the Rushton estate documents as The Warryners Lodge. Not a lavish palace, an impressive stately home, or a romantic country manor house, just a bizarre little dwelling created by the imaginative, perhaps slightly eccentric, mind of a devout Catholic man. Even if the religious connotations seem a bit heavy going and difficult to interpret, the fascination of identifying some of the emblems, and trying to understand how Thomas Tresham's mind worked, invites a compelling investigation of the lodge.

ILLUSTRATION REPORT ~ SEPTEMBER 2009

Recently completed works:

The three small drawings that I completed this past month - a bookplate, a coat of arms and a drawing of Isaiah - are not shown, as they are intended as either gifts or Christmas cards, and I do not wish to spoil any surprises.

The largest work that I completed in August is a drawing of St. Columba (Columkille) of Iona, commissioned by a Canadian priest. It is the largest (8.5"x11") drawing in full color that I have made in several years, and the first drawn with colored inks and gouaches rather than colored pencils.





















My patron requested that the drawing be in the mediaeval Irish style, so I used a decorative vocabulary taken from the great Celtic illuminated manuscripts - especially the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Book of Kells and the Book of Durrow - with intricate knotwork, fantastic animals twisted and tied back upon themselves and distinctive geometric patterns.

St. Columba is pictured as an abbot, and holds the Cathach of St. Columba, an illuminated psalter attributed to the saint's own hand.

At the bottom of the drawing are depicted three events from his life, as retold by Adamnan of Iona:

How an aquatic monster was driven off by virtue of the blessed man's prayer

On another occasion also, when the blessed man was living for some days in the province of the Picts, he was obliged to cross the river Ness; and when he reached the bank of the river, he saw some of the inhabitants burying an unfortunate man, who, according to the account of those who were burying him, was a short time before seized, as he was swimming, and bitten most severely by a monster that lived in the water; his wretched body was, though too late, taken out with a hook, by those who came to his assistance in a boat. The blessed man, on hearing this, was so far from being dismayed, that he directed one of his companions to swim over and row across the coble that was moored at the farther bank. And Lugne Mocumin hearing the command of the excellent man, obeyed without the least delay, taking off all his clothes, except his tunic, and leaping into the water. But the monster, which, so far from being satiated, was only roused for more prey, was lying at the bottom of the stream, and when it felt the water disturbed above by the man swimming, suddenly rushed out, and, giving an awful roar, darted after him, with its mouth wide open, as the man swam in the middle of the stream. Then the blessed man observing this, raised his holy hand, while all the rest, brethren as well as strangers, were stupefied with terror, and, invoking the name of God, formed the saving sign of the cross in the air, and commanded the ferocious monster, saying, Thou shalt go no further, nor touch the man; go back with all speed. Then at the voice of the saint, the monster was terrified, and fled more quickly than if it had been pulled back with ropes, though it had just got so near to Lugne, as he swam, that there was not more than the length of a spear-staff between the man and the beast. Then the brethren seeing that the monster had gone back, and that their comrade Lugne returned to them in the boat safe and sound, were struck with admiration, and gave glory to God in the blessed man. And even the barbarous heathens, who were present, were forced by the greatness of this miracle, which they themselves had seen, to magnify the God of the Christians.

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How a wild boar was destroyed through his prayers

On one occasion when the blessed man was staying some days in the Isle of Sky, he left the brethren and went alone a little farther than usual to pray; and having entered a dense forest he met a huge wild boar that happened to be pursued by hounds. As soon as the saint saw him at some distance, he stood looking intently at him. Then raising his holy hand and invoking the name of God in fervent prayer, he said to it, Thou shalt proceed no further in this direction: perish in the spot which thou hast now reached. At the sound of these words of the saint in the woods, the terrible brute was not only unable to proceed farther, but by the efficacy of his word immediately fell dead before his face.

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Concerning a vessel which a sorcerer named Silnan had filled with milk taken from a bull

The following is told as having occurred in the house of a rich peasant named Foirtgirn, who lived in Mount Cainle. When the saint was staying there, he decided justly a dispute between two rustics, whose coming to him he knew beforehand: and one of them, who was a sorcerer, took milk, by his diabolical art, at the command of the saint, from a bull that was near. This the saint directed to be done, not to confirm these sorceries - God forbid! but to put an end to them in the presence of all the people. The blessed man, therefore, demanded that the vessel, full, as it seemed to be, of this milk, should be immediately given to him; and he blessed it with this sentence, saying: Now it shall in this way be proved that this is not true milk, as it is supposed to be, but blood, which is coloured by the artifice of demons to impose on men. This was no sooner said than the milky colour gave place to the true natural colour of blood. The bull also, which in the space of one hour wasted and pined away with a hideous leanness, and was all but dead, was sprinkled with water that had been blessed by the saint, and recovered with astonishing rapidity.

Interview at the Catholic Illustrators's Guild:

John Herreid, one of the founders of the Catholic Illustrators's Guild, interviewed me for the guild's web log Small Pax. The interview can be read here.

Prints available for sale:

Museum-quality giclee prints of this Crucifixion drawing, which I consider my finest work to date, are still available. A detailed explanation of its symbolism can be read here. They are printed on heavy rag paper cut to fit a 9" x 12" frame, signed and numbered (1-100). The cost per print is $120, plus $15 for shipping*.



I have also had giclee prints made of this drawing of the Tree of Life and Death, based on an illumination in a 15th century Missal owned by Archbishop Bernhard von Rohr of Salzburg. The text is from a Marian sequence by Adam of St. Victor. They are printed on heavy rag paper cut to fit an 8" x 10" frame, signed and numbered (1-50). The cost per print is $96, plus $12 for shipping*.



Last year, I drew this bookplate of St. Nicholas for an international bookplate competition (It was selected as an official entry, but did not win). I had nine giclee prints made on the same heavy rag paper. These are signed and numbered, and cost $20 each (+$2 shipping*).

       

I had three of my designs for universal bookplates (i.e. bookplates with a blank space in which anyone's name can be written) printed. The first has a picture of olives; the second teems with biological and microbiological shapes; the third is a maze (with one and only one correct path from start to finish). These are exceptional quality digital prints on white acid-free paper, 3" x 4". A package of 60 bookplates (all of one design, or any combination of the three) costs $30 (+$2 shipping*).

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*Packing, postage and insurance costs are for customers in the United States. International customers will be charged more for postage, depending on the destination.

Please visit my main web page to see more of my artwork and e-mail me if you are interested in buying or commissioning anything.

SIR JOHN CONYERS and the SOCKBURN WORM



British Museum MS Harleian 2118:

Sr Jo Conyers of Storkburn Knt who slew ye monstrous venoms and poysons wiverms Ask or worme which overthrew and Devourd many people in fight, for the scent of poyson was soo strong, that no person was able to abide it, yet he by the providence of God overthrew it and lyes buried at Storkburn before the Conquest, but before he did enterprise it (having but one sonne) he went to the Church in compleat armour and offered up his sonne to the Holy Ghost, which monument is yet to see, and the place where the serpent lay is called Graystone.

Keys to the past:

The parish of Sockburn lies to the south of Darlington in a peninsula formed by the River Tees....

All Saints Church lies in ruins within the grounds of Sockburn Hall (rebuilt 1834). The remains of 13th century architecture are still present in various areas such as the western wall and southern arcade. Conyers Chapel (15th century) was enclosed in 1900 as a museum of the remains of the original building. The 10th century Saxon Nave and numerous examples of pre-conquest sculpture are also housed here.

Local traditions record that Sockburn was once the home to a terrible monster called the Sockburn Worm. It terrorised the neighbourhood until was killed by Sir John Conyers, a member of a local noble family. From that day on each new Prince-Bishop of Durham was presented with the sword that killed the worm upon entering their new Bishopric for the first time at Croft on Tees. The recently revived ceremony includes the following presentation speech, traditionally made by the Lord of Sockburn:

My Lord Bishop. I hereby present thee with the falchion wherewith the champion Conyers slew the worm, dragon or fiery flying serpent which destroyed man, woman and child; in memory of which the king then reigning gave him the manor of Sockburn, to hold by this tenure, that upon the first entrance of every bishop into the county the falchion should be presented.

JUBE in the CHAPEL of ST. FIACRE at BRETAGNE

DRAWINGS by VIOLLET-le-DUC


Abbey of St. Denis


Abbey of Vézelay


Church of St. Sernin at Toulouse

ST. JOHN'S HEADS

In 15th century England, a curious devotional image became popular. A large decollated head of St. John the Baptist rests on a platter that resembles an halo. Above, two angels carry the soul of St. John to Heaven. Below, the Man of Sorrows emerges from the tomb. Aside are figures of St. Peter the Apostle and St. Thomas of Canterbury. Two other martyrs are sometimes depicted above them. Most commonly, this icon took the form of a carved, painted, and gilt alabaster tablet. Most were made in the workshops of the Trent Valley.

The Hildburgh collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum includes those pictured below.

DEATH of MEDIAEVAL ART



Emile Mâle:

Art's rich iconography seems never to have been more alive and productive than at the beginning of the sixteenth century. How did it happen, then, that a few years later it could dissolve and disappear, almost without leaving a trace? The first idea that comes to mind is that the traditions of the Middle Ages were killed in France by the art of the Italian Renaissance.

It must be acknowledged, in fact, that the principle of mediæval art was in direct opposition to the principle of Renaissance art. The waning Middle Ages had expressed all the humble aspects of the soul: suffering, grief, resignation, acceptance of the Divine Will... This is an art of profound humility; it is imbued with the true spirit of Christianity.

Renaissance art is quite different. Its hidden principle is pride; henceforth, man would be sufficient unto himself and aspire to godhead. The highest expression of art was the undraped human figure; the idea of the Fall and human disgrace that had long turned artists away from the nude figure was no longer operative. To make of man a hero radiating strength and beauty, escaping the fate of the race to be elevated to the ideal, unaware of suffering, compassion, resignation, all the feelings that diminish him - this was indeed the ideal of sixteenth-century Italian art...

But this new concept of art changed nothing in the old iconographic schemes. The spirit was different, but the form remained the same... If the mediæval tradition died, it was killed not by the Renaissance, but by the Reformation. The Reformation put an end to the long tradition of legend, poetry, and dream, by forcing the Catholic Church to watch over all aspects of its thought and to turn strongly in upon itself.

One of the first consequences of the Reformation was to make Catholics suspicious of their old religious theater. For the first time, they became aware that the authors of the Mystery plays had added a thousand stories, platitudes, and vulgarities to the text of the Gospels... The happy age of innocence, when all was full of charm, was now past... The disappearance of the Mystery plays had serious consequences for Christian art... When the religious theater died out, the only remaining traditions were those perpetuated for a time in the workshops. The old artists remained faithful to what they had seen in their youth. This explains why, until the end of the sixteenth century, the traditional iconography is to be found in some stained glass windows.

The ancient formulas died with the old masters, because these practices, no longer consecrated by the theater, had no meaning for the new generations. As a result, at the end of the sixteenth century, our artists found themselves with no traditions in dealing with Christian subjects. No doubt their pride was flattered, for Italy had taught them that great artists owe nothing to anyone but themselves; but Christian art was the loser. The old dying traditions embraced more of poetry, tenderness, and suffering than one man, even a genius, could infuse into his work...

At the very time the Christian theater was dying out, the Church announced that it would keep close surveillance over works of art... This was another consequence of the Reformation. The Protestants had declared war on images, so they must be given no legitimate reason for scoffing at the credulity of the Catholics or their lack of moral scruple...

In the second half of the sixteenth century, several works appeared which deduced all the consequences of the principles set forth by the Council... The work came out of the famous University of Louvain which, in the sixteenth century, was the bulwark of Catholicism in the northern countries. As early as 1586, five years after the Council of Trent, Jean Molanus lectured at Louvain on the usefulness of images... After establishing that Christian art is not idolatry, Molanus went on to ask what this art should be henceforth. This is the real subject of his book; it is a kind of treatise on iconography which submits traditional scenes and consecrated types to close examination... His long indictment of mediæval art is of extreme interest - we witness here the ruin of all the ancient iconography.

Symbolism, the very soul of thirteenth-century art, that beautiful idea that reality is only appearance, that rhythm, number, and hierarchy are the fundamental laws of the universe - all the world of ideas in which the old theologians and artists had dwelled was closed to Molanus. The little he says about hierarchy indicates that the spirit of the works of the past was completely foreign to him. He thought it of no importance whether St. Paul was placed before St. Peter, whether the Virgin was shown at the left or the right side of Christ, or whether one order of saints was placed before another in heaven. As for symbolism itself, he scarcely deigns to allude to it. However, he does say a word about the four evangelical animals, but the meaning he attributes to them clearly proves that he was not familiar with mediæval symbolism. He imagined that the eagle, the man, the lion, and the ox have no other function than to recall the first verses of each gospel: and that, certainly, is a meager lesson.

To read Molanus is to sense that the old symbols were withering and dying. There is not one line in all his book that has to do with the famous concordance between the Old and New Testaments - the great ensembles that were so dear to the Middle Ages, and which the sixteenth century did not completely reject.

The new religious art was not only to be deprived of the poetry of symbol, but of the poetry of legend, besides. The art of the Middle Ages had lived on dreams. At least half the masterpieces we admire in our churches were inspired by fables. These legends had been more fertile and salutary than any history at the time when they were taken to be true; but that time is past. Molanus had read his adversaries, and he knew that it was no longer possible to give credence to Pseudo-Abdias, that is, to the history of the apostles as told in the Golden Legend. The stern theologian pitilessly condemned the stories that for four centuries had been the inspiration of artists. Henceforth, artists would not be permitted to represent the miraculous voyage of St. Thomas to India, not the struggle between St. James and the magician Hermogenes...

Molanus went further: he was bold enough to state that the life of the Virgin, as told by the artists, was not beyond critical attack. First of all, the history of her parents, and then the story of her childhood and her sojourn in the temple, might be believed by the pious but could not be presented as incontestable truth... But what was even more serious, Molanus said outright that the circumstances of the Death of the Virgin rested on apocryphal testimony only. Thus, the beautiful story that had been painted or carved a thousand times and into which the artists had put their faith and their love, the story of the apostles who had surrounded the deathbed of the Virgin, the miraculous funeral ceremony, the tomb over which angels watched - all this was mere poetry and had nothing to do with history. What would the old masters of Notre-Dame de Paris have said? Would their work have radiated so pure a beauty had they thought they were carving a legend they were permitted to disbelieve? This cold little chapter in Molanus' book indeed marks the end of an age of humanity. So, the life of the Virgin was not proven at every point, and there were perhaps some false jewels in the marvelous crown that the Middle Ages had fashioned with so much love!

Once this confession was made, it was easier to take away some of the legendary aspects of the lives of the saints. Molanus reduced the old epic saints, so dear to the people, to human proportions.

St. Christopher had really existed, he said; he was not a pure symbol, as the Protestants claimed, but he in no way resembled the monstrous Polyphemous, represented by the artists. He had never borne the infant Jesus on his shoulders, but as a valiant missionary, he had carried the name of Christ to the pagans. He did not have the privilege of fending off sudden death; that was a gross superstition. An end would be put to it by removing his images.

St. George had not been a knight-errant who killed monsters and delivered princesses; he was a confessor of the faith who had saved many a victim from the demon, or if you will, from the teeth of the dragon. One of his miracles had converted the Empress Alexandra, and it was this empress, transformed by ignorant painters into a young virgin, whom St. George had saved from the monster...

Thus, poetry retired before common sense. Unhappily, pure reason has never inspired artists and there was henceforth no hope that the legend of St. George might provoke the creation of a masterpiece.

The popular Christianity of the Middle Ages was not all that was condemned by the new spirit. The Christianity of pathos, which we might call Franciscan Christianity, was condemned also.

How many great works had the old masters created of the Virgin fainting at the foot of the cross! Then, it would not have occurred to anyone that such an image could one day become an object of scandal, but that is what happened. Through the testimony of the fathers and doctors of the Church, Molanus established that the Virgin had remained standing at the foot of the cross, and to represent her in a faint was to insult her. The entire Church followed Molanus' opinion; the Jesuits themselves condemned the audacity of painters who dishonored the Virgin by investing her with human weakness. Several pictures showing a swooning Virgin on Calvary were removed from Roman churches.

The grief of God the Father seemed as shocking as that of the Virgin. In the years following the Council of Trent, a priest in Antwerp received for his church an image of the dead Christ on the knees of the Father; this was the group, so filled with pathos, that St. Bonaventura had inspired fourteenth-century artists to represent. Such a subject might very well have troubled a priest who was mindful of the decisions of the Council; he wrote to Molanus, already a famous man, to seek counsel. Molanus replied that he must consult his bishop, but as for himself, he would never give his approval to such an image.

Molanus also thought it inappropriate to represent Christ, after his Passion, coming to kneel before his father to show him his wounds and the instrument of his torture. Thus, the images that Franciscan devotion had occasioned for three centuries were indignantly rejected... The impassioned Christianity of the mystics that came from the heart no more touched Molanus than the naïve Christianity that came from the popular imagination.

It could be foreseen that he would show little indulgence toward the wealth of iconographic details borrowed by artists from the theater. Without knowing their origin, he condemned them. What shocked him especially was the taste for the pictorial, for the décor and the beautiful costumes borrowed above all from the theater...

Nothing displeased Molanus more than the rich costumes that contrasted so strongly with the simplicity of the scriptures. He complained of the painters' lack of modesty in giving to Mary Magdalene - the sublime figure of repentance - the costume of a great lady.

His appeal to austerity was only too well heard. Strangely enough, in this the Renaissance conspired with the Church. Several years before the Council of Trent, our sculptors learned from the Italians that nothing was nobler than unadorned drapery. Slashed sleeves, sumptuous bodices, robes embellished with embroidery, mantles fastened with buckles of precious stones, all this luxury of the past aroused only scorn in our young artists. Anything that might suggest a period or a place was vulgar; nobility was attained only through abstraction. In consequence, it was under the double influence of the Italian æsthetic and the Council of Trent that the reign of flowing drapery began.

Molanus, who liked neither picturesque décor nor rich costume, was no fonder of flights of fancy. He cited the famous passage in which St. Bernard so sternly reprimanded the monks for permitting representations of monkeys, lions, hunters, centaurs, and nameless monsters to be placed on the capitals of their cloisters. This was a warning to canons not to allow the artists to carve any more childish scenes on choir stalls. What had seemed innocent in a naïve age was no longer so: all representations of nudity were severely proscribed, and it was not fitting to show David watching Bathsheba in her bath...

Thus dawned an age of propriety and reason. After 1560, everything conspired to destroy mediæval art. The iconographic traditions disappeared along with the Mystery plays; at the same time, the Church discovered, in reviewing these traditions, that most of them bore the mark of the excessive credulity of times past, and urged artists to abandon them.

The art of the Middle Ages was doomed. Its charm had lain in the preservation of the innocence of childhood, in the clear eyes of its young saints. It resembled the mediæval Church itself - a faith that did not argue, but sang.

Such art could not be brushed by doubt. Here we see how the mysterious power of poetry and art are independent of the progress of reason. Art and poetry come from the heart and from some obscure region inaccessible to reason. The artist who examines, judges, criticizes, doubts, and conciliates, has already lost half his creative force. That is why the art of the Middle Ages, which expressed naïve faith and spontaneity, could not survive the critical spirit born of the Reformation.

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

HIDDEN CHRISTIANS of JAPAN



Christal Whelan:

At the beginning of sakoku, or self-imposed national isolation, as estimated 150000 Christians had gone underground. The practice of e-fumi (trampling of Christian images) began around 1629 as a means of detecting Christians by observing who would shrink from the act. It was later systematized with the establishment of the Sh?mon Aratame Yaku (Religious Inquisition Office) in 1640, whereby the ceremony was integrated into the new year's celebrations in temples throughout Kyushu....

The Christians lived under constant threat of persecution, according to which harassment and torture were deemed successful if they induced apostasy. Some punishments for this purpose were the retraction of employment (which inevitably led to begging or starvation), dismemberment, branding, water torture, lowering the victim's body into the boiling sulfur springs of Unzen, and the ana-tsurushi, or headfirst suspension in a pit of excrement until the victim either recanted or died....

In this climate, the Kakure Kirishitan (Hidden Christians), the descendents of Japan's first Christians, continued to practice what they remembered of the Catholic faith. Although the Bible had never been translated into Japanese, devotional books containing all the major Catholic prayers in Japanese with sprinklings of Latin and Portuguese had once circulated. The faithful had already committed some of these prayers to memory. Nevertheless, their knowledge of their new religion is highly questionable given the missionary strategies of the time. Because the missionaries believed that salvation was impossible without baptism, they adopted the extension method of conversion. This meant that they opted for breadth at the expense of depth. They baptized as many people as possible with the minimal amount of indoctrination: this instruction, they believed, could be deepened at a later date.

But this second stage never had a chance to develop sufficiently. Besides the constant threat of persecutions, the missions suffered from a chronic shortage of priests: in fact, the number never exceeded 137 - to administer to a congregation of 300000 at its height. Most believers had probably received only about ten days of instruction in the faith....

The discovery of the Kakure Kirishitan on 17 March 1865 by the French priest Bernard Petitjean has been told so many times that its meaning has gravitated from history to legend. While it is typical to speak of Petitjean's discovery of the Kakure Kirishitan, the reverse is perhaps a more accurate description of the event, since it was the underground Christians who first approached Petitjean. Father Petitjean's diary entry for that day relates how fifteen Japanese were waiting at the door of his newly built church on ?ura slope in Nagasaki. Three women then knelt beside him and said, The heart of all of us here is the same as yours. Then they asked, Where is the statue of the Maria-sama? These words opened a new era, for now Petitjean knew that he was in the presence of the Kakure Kirishitan....

Unlike Catholic priests who were later to work in the Nagasaki area, Petitjean was impressed by the Kakure Kirishitan's knowledge of Catholic theology: they knew of the Trinity, the Fall, the Incarnation, and the Ten Commandments. Without books or priests to instruct them or renew their faith, they had transmitted several prayers orally and many knew the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary, the Apostles' Creed, the Confiteor, the Salve Regina, and the Act of Contrition.

Petitjean recounted a visit to Shittsu in Sotome, a region northwest of Nagasaki, in 1865. During his overnight stay, he went to a home in which the family had preserved a picture depicting the fifteen mysteries of the rosary, with pictures of Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Anthony of Padua, and a third unidentified saint at the base. People in this village gathered to worship in the home that kept this holy picture. Moreover, the usual religious organization he found at that time consisted of two principal officials: the first - the ch?kata (calendar man) - was a man who could read and write and whose duty it was to lead the Sunday prayers and administer to the dying; the second official was the mizukata (baptizer).

[The Beginning of Heaven and Earth: The Sacred Book of Japan's Hidden Christians by Christal Whelan. University of Hawai'i Press, 1996]

OUR LADY of CZESTOCHOWA















[PAULINIANUM - Wydawnictwo Zakonu Paulinów]

TREE of LIFE and DEATH from the SALZBURG MISSAL



My own drawing inspired by this miniature.