Sunday, March 27, 2016

Acclamation


In liturgical Christian Churches, the Acclamations are the opening sentences at the beginning of the Eucharist.


Again, my artwork is featured by another church. The Rector of this church in Ridgefield, Connecticut asked to use this painting of mine for the Easter Day missal or order of service. 
The painting is titled "The waves of the sea were hushed…Psalm 107:29".


This painting is acrylic on canvas, 36x24" and is available for sale.

Saturday, March 26, 2016

The Great Litany in Lent



My artwork is featured in another blog.
https://revrun.wordpress.com/2016/02/11/the-great-long-litany/

Today is Easter Saturday. The Great Vigil of Easter will be read and celebrated tonight and at midnight...Lent is over and the joyous Easter season begins.

Monday, March 21, 2016

the stones will cry out

Luke 19:28-40
After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 
As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’ ”
Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”
They replied, “The Lord needs it.”
They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road.
When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:
“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

“I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”


Sunday, March 13, 2016

Vespers

Evening vesper service at San Miniato al Monte concludes with the monks singing Gregorian chants.
A mystical medieval experience.

Saturday, March 12, 2016

Romanesque

San Miniato al Monte.
Evening vespers sung in Latin in an eleventh century Italian Romanesque abbey crypt outside of Florence.

Monday, March 7, 2016

fountain of Neptune


This is my sketch of the mighty statue of Neptune as seen in the Piazza della Signoria.
The entire fountain is covered with a baroque tangle of bronze figures with a marble Neptune in the center. The sculptor was Bartolomeo Ammannati (1565). It is said that the face of the Neptune figure is meant to resemble Cosimo I de Medici. If so then the body is quite a flattering monument to the de Medici physique
A few weeks after I returned from Italy I was at the Art Institute of Chicago (back in my own backyard). I was in the American art wing, looking at late 19th century painting and came upon this work by John Singer Sargent (a great hero of mine).  Of course a celebrated artist like Sargent would have been in Florence and of course he would have set up his easel and painted in the Piazza della Signoria in the shadow of the Fountain of Neptune. A moment of surprise came when realizing that I had sat in the same spot where Sargent sat over a hundred years ago.


I sketched the Sargent painting for myself while marveling at his brushwork and use of light. A wonderful and enchanting part of traveling in Italy is finding something like this that has not changed for centuries.

"Best known for his society portraits, John Singer Sargent was likewise adept at landscapes and architectural studies, practices that he increasingly pursued after 1900 in both oil and watercolor. Fountain of Neptune depicts a portion of the famous 16th-century fountain in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. Painting his composition on site, en plein air, Sargent chose an up-close, truncated view of the sculpture, focusing not on the god of Neptune, but on the twisting, muscular bodies of other bronze figures adorning the fountain. The play of light on intricate surfaces of architecture and decoration is the composition’s principal subject."
Art Institute of Chicago American collection



Friday, March 4, 2016

Italy and the universe


"You may have the universe if I may have Italy." --Giuseppe Verdi





"You may have the universe if I may have Italy." --Giuseppe Verdi

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

be like mike

If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.
- Michelangelo Buonarroti