“What Were They Smoking?”: On Liturgical Art from the 1970s

My liturgical library contains two types of books: ones that I look at because they are beautiful, edifying, or full of wisdom and piety; and ones that I keep precisely because they are the opposite. As I once said to a friend, “You need to know what people were thinking when they destroyed the liturgy. We can make all the guesses we want, but if we don’t actually read the authors of the fifties, sixties, and seventies, we won’t be able to get into their mindset and see what makes them tick.” In this latter category of my library would be such recently added gems as the collection of essays Secular Priest in the New Church (Herder and Herder, 1967), George McCauley’s Sacraments for Secular Man (Dimension Books, 1969), and Leonardo Boff’s Sacraments of Life, Life of the Sacraments (a translation of a 1975 book). Boff’s book is notable for the coffee cup, hunk of bread, and burnt-out cigarette on the cover, which allude to the chapter “My Father’s Cigarette Butt as Sacrament.”

Among these peculiar treasures is a smallish fake-leather-covered red book called The Sunday Missal, first published in 1975 by Collins in London. Here it is, in all its faded glory:

The book opens with a hauntingly melancholy Preface by the long-suffering John Cardinal Heenan, Archbishop of Westminster, well known to traditionalists for his correspondence with Evelyn Waugh, in which he repeatedly stated that the liturgical reforms were just about over -- right when they were going to get worse and worse. Heenan’s Preface is pathetic, as he palpably longs for a better past and half-hopes that this missal will half-match up to it:

The Introduction, while not heretical (unlike the original version of the General Instruction that was hastily rewritten after the Ottaviani Intervention), nevertheless displays the same sort of “theology lite” that was and still is characteristic of the post-conciliar period. Characteristically, “eucharist” is not capitalized. Jesus gives himself “under the eucharistic signs of bread and wine to be the life and food of the community.” (This could be straight from Boff, incidentally.) “When the priest greets the people with the words ‘The Lord be with you,’ he is stating a fact -- the Lord is with his people as they gather to celebrate the eucharist.” Curious how a blessing in the subjunctive has turned into a declarative statement. The second paragraph is actually pretty Tridentine. The third paragraph apologises for the length and number of the readings. In the fourth paragraph we see the conciliar tricolor waved from the barricades as the old city smoulders below: “The more the people enter into the mystery of the eucharist by conscious, active, and fruitful participation, the more they grow in holiness.”

The real wonders begin when we start to see the block prints that are, it is to be believed, meant to depict in graphic form the wonderful liberating energy, the controlled chaos as of split rocks, and the implicit but nearly emergent parousia brought to the People of God by the renewed rites.

Since the art speaks for itself, no more words are necessary. Enjoy!

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Two Eucharistic Pieces from My Drafting Board

As it is, in the traditional calendar and some parts of the world, Corpus Christi, I thought I would share two recent commissions on a Eucharistic theme. The first was commissioned on behalf of a religious confraternity in a small Belgian town in the province of Limburg named Hasselt, and illustrates St. Juliana of Liège's vision of the barred or stained moon which ultimately led her to petition Pope Urban IV to establish the feast of Corpus Christi. I studied a variety of different depictions and accounts of her vision, which occurred several times, and which, it was eventually revealed to her, represented the stain or mark on the Church's calendar due to the lack of a feast-day for the Holy Eucharist. I finally settled on a simple depiction showing the saint alone in prayer, asking God what this vision might mean.

She is shown wearing her robes as a canoness and accompanied by a crozier ornamented with a flaming Augustinian heart, representing her devotion to the core principles of her order. The crozier may be something of a historical embroidery in view she served as prioress rather than abbess, but she is occasionally shown in art carrying one and wearing a pectoral cross, so it seemed a justifiable artistic choice, also allowing the opportunity to introduce a vertical element into the composition. She is described in various places as either an Augustinian or a Norbertine, but is shown wearing a black or black and white habit, rather than the usual white one associated with Premonstratensians (or the surplice sometimes ascribed to canonesses); the white habit seemed anachronistic, and the black and white one too easily confused with the Cistercian habit (she sought refuge in several Cistercian houses at the end of her life) and so I opted for black for both compositional and symbolic reasons, primarily as it seems to be the most common way of depicting her. I had originally planned to show her accompanied by an angel, as one sees in several prints of her visions, but as accounts of her vision mention no angels, and several depict her alone, it seemed to me an unnecessary addition. The border depicts grape vines and wheat, and is inspired by some of the art in the old Belgian Bulletin Paroissial Liturgique, appropriately enough, with a small Host at the top, and in the four corners, clockwise, the papal arms, the arms of Urban IV, the arms of Liège, and the arms of Hasselt. You can find more on the image at my Tumblr site.

Earlier this year, I completed another work on a similar theme, an album cover for a single released by the Catholic musical group Theandric on Holy Thursday. Paul Tiseo, the band's lead, writes music on Catholic themes in a variety of popular styles intended for extra-liturgical use. I have done several album covers for him, and he specifically requested a Eucharistic image for the piece. The white and gold color scheme he asked for put me in mind of the wonderful neo-Baroque illustrations of Martin Travers, which I drew on in part for the general aesthetic of this piece, centering on a monstrance and incorporating in the brocade background the nard and star from Pope Francis's arms, which are repeated on the foot of the monstrance. If you may recall, a few years ago I also did a rendering of Benedict XVI's arms for Mr. Tiseo. As you can see, he continues to be a discerning client!

The Beauty of Holiness: An Appreciation of the Campion Missal

Among my favorite verses from Saint Paul is this, in the Epistle to the Philippians:

Brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Phil 4:8). 

Unlike worldly men who think, speak, and act more or less as they please (to the extent that they can get away with it), Christians are supposed to live conscientiously in the sight of their heavenly Master, thinking on Him and how to please Him. Instead of thinking on what is ugly, clumsy, vile, ignoble, or vicious, they should train their minds to true doctrine, honorable principles, just deeds, pure affections, lovely and gracious ideas, images, and words. In short, they are to strive for praiseworthy excellence in all things—and that striving should, of course, extend especially to everything connected with the sacred liturgy, the very “source and summit” of the Christian life. Here, we do not, we cannot, settle for what is mediocre, slipshod, superficial, profane, or unworthy of the temple of God; we aim at the beautiful, the holy, the finely made and nobly done, as much as lies in our tradition and in our power.

These words in Philippians bring to mind a statement in Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans: 

Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Rom 12:2)

“Good and acceptable and perfect.” Is this our program for liturgical life, for sacred music, books, vestments, vessels, furnishings, architecture? Do we seek that which is good because it has the requisite qualities of holiness, artistry, and universality? That which is acceptable to the Lord because it accords with the traditions, teachings, and laws He has given us? That which is as perfect as we can make it, because it shares in that litany of attributes related in Philippians?

A comparison of the Campion Missal (Solemn Mass section)
and a popular daily missal

It is such thoughts as these, together with a compelling sense of good news that must be shouted from the rooftops, that prompt me to share with the readers of NLM my personal reaction to the Saint Edmund Campion Missal & Hymnal. I say “personal reaction” because I do not intend to offer a standard review; the content and layout of the Campion Missal have already been reviewed and discussed in a number of excellent articles, which may be found gathered here. 

My intention is to praise this book as a book that, to an unusual degree, embodies exactly what Saint Paul says to the Philippians and the Romans—to such an extent, indeed, that it should grace the shelf of every Catholic layman, deacon, priest, and bishop, and fill the pews of every church and chapel privileged with at least the Sunday celebration of the traditional Latin Mass. I would add that no Catholic bookstore or gift shop should fail to stock this book.

Why are the reviews gushing with superlatives, exclamations, and imperatives for acquisition? Why all this enthusiasm, this (as it were) sober inebriation? After all, a book is just a book, one might think, and there are several missals already in print for the usus antiquior. What makes the Campion Missal special?

A comparison of the Campion Missal (Low Mass section)
and the familiar red booklet

Let me try to say this as simply as possible: this book is a magnificent book. It is stunningly beautiful. It contains all the texts of the Mass for Sundays and Holy Days, well translated, handsomely typeset, tastefully ornamented, and lavishly illustrated. It is a treasure-trove of all that is most true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and gracious in the Roman Rite; from the first to the last page, it is a manual of liturgical, spiritual, and theological excellence, speaking and singing of mysteries and mercies and majesty, of all that is ultimately and eternally worthy of praise. And as a result, it causes one to think about these things—to ponder them long, with joy and wonder, with fear and trembling, with inward peace and consolation, with a spirit of reverence and adoration. Its greatest glory, one might say, is precisely that it humbly helps along that process of the Christian’s transformation by the renewal of his mind, turning it again and again to heavenly realities. It could have been called the Epiphany or Theophany Missal, so well does it open up vistas of meditation and prompt one to prayer.

In a world of video games and movies, sexual utilitarianism, flashy advertising and journalistic manipulation, people have a hard time understanding beauty pure and simple—beauty as a gift from God, to be welcomed and rejoiced in as part of our prayer of praise and thanksgiving to Him. The traditional Mass and sacramental rites and Divine Office are full of a transcendent spiritual beauty that brings deep joy and peace to a receptive soul, but obviously not without the participation of the body at every stage. It is precisely the aesthetic dimension, the sensuous appeal, that first captivates the mind and stirs the heart, leading the worshiper from shadows and images to mystery and truth, and back again, in an upward spiral. The external beauty of the traditional liturgy serves an evangelistic and catechetical role even as it prepares the way for a more profound internal experience of the Lord. The external and the internal are in harmony, as body and soul are created to be.

The Campion Missal layout for the Propers of the Mass:
here, Palm Sunday

Because man has both a soul and a body, it is important that the entire experience of worship be dignified, well-ordered, and beautiful, as befits its inner nature. By providing in a single book all that is or could be needed for Sunday and Holy Day Masses—the Order of the Mass, the Propers of the day, a complete Kyriale, and a generous selection of hymns—the Campion Missal facilitates a full and fruitful participation in the Mass, both interiorly (which is the most important kind of participation) and exteriorly, in all the ways called for by Holy Mother Church, in keeping with the teaching of Pope Saint Pius X and all of his successors.

The care for beauty in the Campion Missal extends to the smallest detail, and, far from being old-fashioned, has an adventurous side as well: Corpus Christi Watershed commissioned Kevin Allen, one of our most gifted composers of sacred music, to contribute several new hymn tunes for the book. Exquisitely crafted and eminently singable, with noble lyrics truly worthy of the liturgy, these new hymns stand as worthy heirs of the English hymn tradition brought to its peak by the likes of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst almost a century ago.

(A digression on hymns: if any reader is wondering whether the Campion Missal has enough hymns in it, this would be my response. There are 151 hymns in the book—a generous number in the context of the Extraordinary Form, where hymn-singing, though it finds a legitimate place, does not have nearly the prominence it does in many Ordinary Form situations. Nevertheless, to focus on the quantity of hymns is to miss a crucially important point. Like the Campion Missal’s chief editor Jeffrey Ostrowski, I have in my personal library a large collection of traditional hymnals from the 19th century to the present, and I have found, in scanning their pages, that it is rare indeed to find a hymnal from which a discerning music director could make use of even 50% of the pieces included. The rest are just too painfully sentimental or musically inept or textually vapid or all of the above. The genius of Ostrowski is that, drawing upon his good taste as a musician and his sound theology as a traditional Catholic, he has brought together 151 of the choicest hymns—the most singable and beloved, as well as lesser known or new hymns with soaring melodies and profound texts. Whereas most hymnals are like a flea market of good, bad, and indifferent, an Ostrowski hymnal is like a satchel of precious and semiprecious stones: every item is beautiful and apt for its purpose. Hence, I would rather have the 151 choiceworthy hymns of the Campion Missal and sing every single one, than sift through 400 hymns of wildly variable musical and textual quality in hopes that I can find enough to satisfy.)

from the Low Mass section

As I draw to a close, I am afraid that my words will be inadequate for those who have not yet held and viewed and prayed with the Campion Missal and totally unnecessary for those who have already seen it with their eyes and taken it to heart. All that I can do is express my amazement that such a book has been created and published in our day and age, when so much of the print world seems to be vanishing into the internet, and so much that remains in print has declined desperately and pathetically in quality. Whoever owns the Campion Missal will find it a princely book, a golden measure for what can be done when human talent throws itself passionately into the glories of the sacred liturgy, for the glory of God. I predict that it will become a cherished, even necessary companion to every Catholic who uses it to pray the traditional Mass.

To read more about the Campion Missal, for more photographs, and for information on placing orders, go here.

A postscript: the Campion Missal is now in its second edition. The first edition had a very colorful cover and florid graphics in the center section. The second edition, while mostly the same, has a more “classic” look to it: the cover is a subdued slate gray, the Solemn Mass section more restrained and easier to follow. A handy ribbon has been added and a few typos were corrected. However, the pagination and contents of both editions are IDENTICAL in all other respects, so they are entirely compatible.

Upcoming Event: Blessing of the New Missal, Chicago

Our readers will recall a previous post about my work on the illustrations for Liturgy Training Publications' edition of the new translation of the missal. Those in the Chicagoland area will be pleased to hear that LTP will be hosting an open house in honor of the new edition, culminating in a blessing of copies of the new missal by Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago. I, sadly, will not be in attendance, but you will have ample opportunities to view the finished product!

The open house is at LTP's offices at 3949 South Racine Avenue, Chicago, beginning at 4:30 PM, today, September 26, 2011, and concluding at 8 PM. The cardinal's blessing will begin at seven o'clock. There will be complementary light refreshments and gifts, and attendees will have the opportunity to enter a drawing for a new missal.

Illustrating the Revised Roman Missal

Late last year, I was approached by Liturgy Training Publications in Chicago regarding commissioning a series of fourteen images of Scriptural events and other liturgical illustrations for their upcoming edition of the Revised Roman Missal. I had been asked to submit a study for the missal cover along with a number of other artists, and apparently my work had caught the firm's eye. (They eventually selected a very talented in-house artist to do the cover, a handsome interpretation of a number of early Christian motifs, but the die had been cast.) The number was expanded to fifteen early in the process, and I prepared for a very busy and exciting spring at my studio.

I worked very closely with the publishing firm's liturgical and artistic consultants, drawing on a collection of scriptural prompts and suggestions for each image and also contributing my own insights where appropriate. It was a challenging and rewarding project, and the feedback and suggestions from Liturgy Training Publications helped me grow a bit in terms of my artistic style. I am very proud of the work I have produced for this project. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only edition being published with a fully new set of illustrations specially commissioned for the work.

The images were finally completed in late June of this year, and the missal is currently at the printers. There will be both ritual and chapel editions available for purchase. You can get a very good sneak peak at many of them through the missal publication's website. A full-size sample of one of my pieces can be seen here, and the typeface and layout here. The cover can be seen here. You will note the style we selected for the work is elegantly simple and, while possessing a universal appeal, still conscious of the historical realities of first-century Judea. This was a conscious choice on our part that I think will contribute considerably in the images serving as aids to contemplation and prayer.

On a more self-serving note, our readers will be pleased to hear that under the terms of my contract, I am permitted to sell the original hand-drafted images to interested collectors or institutions. As neither the publisher nor I will be making prints of these images presently, such a piece of art would be quite unique, and I would certainly welcome inquiries via email about available subjects and pricing.

Correction: It has been brought to my attention that Liturgical Press is also undertaking an edition of the missal with specially-commissioned art, by Br. Martin Erspamer. My apologies for any confusion this oversight may have caused.

Lawrence Klimecki Interviews Matthew Alderman on Art and Architecture

Matthew Alderman. The Espousal of the Blessed Virgin with SS. Joachim and Anne. Ink, 2010.Cover for a wedding missalette. Private Collection, Minnesota.

I was recently interviewed by Deacon Lawrence Klimecki of Gryphon Rampant Studio about my my work in art and liturgical design. Lawrence is a seasoned and very talented graphic artist in his own right, incidentally, with considerable skills in the digital realm as well. Perhaps it is a bit vainglorious to quote from your own interview, but I think both Deacon Klimecki's questions and my answers will be of interest to our readers, if only to generate further thought and discussion on the subject of sacred art. The article is accompanied by examples of my illustrations and designs. Some extracts:

LK: Tell us some more about your work.

MGA: [...] I have a lot of admiration for the medieval model of sacred art, which saw the highest form of art as indelibly religious, and more importantly, tied to both the liturgy and to a received culture. It's one reason I love taking commissions, as it forces me to submit my own interests and preferences to bigger needs and wants. At the same time I'm not trying to turn the clock back. I see myself as engaging in a search-and-rescue operation for much of the remainder of Western Culture that emerged after the Renaissance, which is why I often incorporate elements of later styles--art nouveau, art deco, and even some fairly modern influences, etc.--into my work, though always subject to larger, older traditions. [...]

Concept for an Altar to Our Lady incorporating an 18th century Spanish-American portable shrine. Designer: Matthew Alderman, 2008.

I also have worked in the field of architecture, sometimes as a member of a firm, sometimes as a designer of church furnishings or as an independent design consultant working in association with an architect. The design consultant creates aesthetic concepts for an interior or exterior that an architect develops in terms of details, structure, and materials. [In addition to my illustration work,] [d]esign consulting and church furnishing design is what I am doing at present, which gives me both the opportunity to focus on the more intellectual and aesthetic aspects of the project while working with an experienced architect with an understanding of structural issues. A local classical firm which I have great relations with has been very helpful thus far along this path, and has offered to be the architect of record when I need one, or when the client hasn't obtained one already.

Altarpiece and tabernacle shrine for Vladivostok Proto-Cathedral. Construction completed 2009. Designer: Matthew Alderman. Architect of Record: Pavel Manomov. (More here.)

LK: In your opinion what is the role of the artist in our culture?

The problem is art has become something of a closed circle. [...] Essentially, [contemporary artists] say, "Here is my vision," while pounding into our heads that art is a necessity, even if we find it incomprehensible. The odd thing is even the wealthy and au-courant types still love the old masters, and will pay through the nose to support some blockbuster Rembrandt exhibit, but the idea of producing something genuinely new within that tradition simply does not seem to be an option for them in many cases. In an odd way, we've become a very "conservative" culture in terms of actually producing anything. [...]

For me, an artist's job is to follow the rules and conventions set down by received tradition [...] But that doesn't mean he can't work within those conventions to produce something wonderful and beautiful and genuinely new. [...] The central problem is our culture now has very little content--whether in terms of the Faith or even in terms of a central secular story. We have nothing to celebrate, nothing to impart, and thus as a consequence rather than, say, decorating our airports with great allegorical and historical images of flight, or of national virtue, or of the patron saints of the air, we get safely non-controversial art generated by a contest among our schoolchildren, or, at most, something abstract designed carefully not to offend. How are we supposed to get inspired by this? How are we supposed to discover what it means to be the inheritor, as a nation of immigrants, of some of the best cultural traditions of the west and the east as well?

Matthew Alderman. Christ the Youth. Ink, 2010. Private Collection, Kansas.

I think a lot of people find this sort of traditional culture "elitist" or "imperialist," which drives me crazy, as I think often when you get down to it you can find more in common among the traditional cultures of the whole world than the secular universe you have nowadays. [...] Ideally, inclusion within culture would be represented by a series of statues of the great philosophers where you have both Socrates and Confucius, who the Jesuits actually first translated and introduced to the west. Nowadays you just don't have any statues at all. [...]

In architecture, it's a bit different... [...] Most of us who work for classical or traditional firms (quite a few of which exist, and in usual economic conditions, even flourish) have to fight a two-front war between people who assume we're dangerous reactionaries ([Deconstructivist par excellance] Peter Eisenmann once called an audience of classical students, to their face, a bunch of "terrorists"), and those who want something traditional but don't know where to look and thus end up asking Bob's Discount Architects for a Georgian home that appears to have been molded out of plastic. And then, nobody wins, save perhaps Bob. [...]

Matthew Alderman. Madonna and Child. Ink, 2010. Private Collection, Michigan.

LK: How is your faith reflected in your work?

MGA: Considering most of my work consists of images of various saints and other religious figures, it's everywhere! There's always a slight tension between when I treat an illustration I'm doing as an exercise in composition, and as an aid to devotion, or to illustrate a particular theological point. I think ideally there should be no such clash, as they ought to be perfectly beautiful and perfectly suitable for their purpose, but working out that relationship can be tricky. I think, though, there is a tendency among purists to want to reduce religious art to a series of flat theological diagrams, which is simply not part of the Western Catholic tradition, which has had room for some limited artistic freedom (admittedly sometimes abused) for six or seven centuries or more. While I could stand to be more systematic, I do pray while I work, and try to ask God and the saint I am drawing to find that balance between composition and intelligibility--I usually ask God to let me do a worthy drawing, but also to have a bit of fun with the subject while I'm at it. And that "fun" also has a component of Faith to it, as it usually manifests itself in the details where I work in another subtler level of symbolism. An ornamental edging of a dress worn by the Virgin might have seashells worked into it, for her title of Stella Maris, for instance. I am reminded of the work of the architect Edwin Lutyens, who once designed light fixtures resembling cardinal's hats for a Jesuit chapel, with the humbling and subtle joke behind then that the red hat was always just a bit above reach for most Jesuits.

Matthew Alderman. Conceptual Sketch for a Basilican Interior in the style of Otto Wagner.

In architecture, it's much the same. It's easy to assume a "Catholic" church building will have some saints here, some pointy windows there, maybe a dome--and it often should have these things--but if you don't get the essence right, if you don't adhere to those fundamental underlying codes, it'll look superficial. The way we lay out the sanctuary, the way we plan the location of the altar, or install a baldachin or pulpit, the spatial arrangement of all these is critical in elucidating what we believe. Is the altar and the tabernacle the center or focus of the church, or is it the people? What do these choices tell us about what we believe? It's not enough to simply smear a coating of badly-done "traditional" ornament over a modern shell-though ornament, well-done, is extremely important as well. You just have to get the soul and structure right first. In some places, of course, this may not be possible--in which case you have to use space cleverly and find subtle ways to redirect people's attention to the points that matter.

The full interview can be found here. Images are derived from here and here.

New Illustration from Matthew Alderman

Matthew Alderman. St. Joan of Arc with SS. Louise de Marillac and Francis de Sales. 10" x 13.5". Private Collection, Wisconsin. January 2010.

Towards the end of last year, I was approached by two clients, independently, who both commissioned ink illustrations of St. Joan of Arc--one for his girlfriend for a Christmas present, the other for his wife, as a gift on her birthday, that is, today, the Extraordinary Form feast of St. Francis de Sales. I have already posted about the first Joan over at The Shrine (and may crosspost it over here at some point in the future), and this item is about the second. These two projects were particularly challenging, given I have always worked hard not to repeat myself. Liturgical illustration and iconography is formulaic by its nature, at least as to content, but certainly there is some degree of latitude when it comes to rendering that content visible, at least up to a certain point. The great Irish stained-glass designer and illustrator Harry Clarke often referred to the various tics of color and contrast he experimented with as his latest "gadgett" (sic), a self-depreciating term which belies the strong iconographic (if occasionally somewhat stylisticially idiosyncratic) quality of his work.

As I have written elsewhere, St. Joan's iconography is deceptively simple--girl in armor, banner, fleurs-de-lys, enough. Yet, many of the "official" images of her--holy cards, plaster statues, and the like--tend to be more tempered with 19th century sentimentality than a real ecclesiastical sensibility. Some are historically illogical--it is hard to believe St. Joan would have worn the long encumbering skirts she is shown wearing, and often show her hair considerably longer than it would have been in truth. On the other hand, liturgical art is not an exercise in historical reconstruction or photorealism, and such reminders of her feminine genius show us that while men and women alike are called to fight under Christ's banner--in Joan's case, taking that banner into the ferocious heart of battle--the sexes have their own unique ways of manifesting courage and fortitude.



St. Joan's masterful strategies, earthy commonsense and even mysticism, have a feminine spin to them. Still, one should not mistake femininity for mere girlishness, and any image of her ought to reflect that genial no-nonsense quality that radiates from any firsthand account of her deeds. So this is why I elected to give her a skirt--plus the fact I didn't like the way the early sketches turned out) but also kept the shorter haircut that is roughly what she would have worn in life. (In truth, it would have been a bowl haircut of the sort associated with Henry V as portrayed by Laurence Olivier, but that would have simply looked odd.)

St. Joan is shown in full armor, of an elegant simplicity and decorated with fleurs de lys, her pose reminiscent of medieval tomb slabs. She holds--in a somewhat exaggerated incarnation--the sword decorated with five crosses--she discovered buried under the floor of a church dedicated to St. Katherine as the result of a vision. The arms granted by the king to her relations is shown over her shoulder. Her swordbelt is decorated with the smoke and flame of her execution and the cross pommée associated with St. Michael, one of her famous Voices. Under her feet are the flames of her death at the stake, which dissolves into whorls of smoke that merge into the clouds of heaven. Overhead are her final words, "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" which also recall the inscription "Jhesus Maria" on her banner. At top, Christ is shown with the attributes of the Lord of Hosts. While this is a title we often associate with God the Father, the depiction is derived from an image in a medieval manuscript.



The client requested that St. Joan be shown accompanied by SS. Louise de Marillac and Francis de Sales, two other saints important to his wife. St. Louise is shown in the standard iconographic manner (the direct precedent in this case is an image of her in St. Peter's), accompanied by a Daughter of Charity in the traditional headdress, holding up a foundling child. An angel above holds an escucheon of the order's emblem; the text on the scroll, translated, reads "The Charity of Christ impells us," a phrase associated with St. Vincent de Paul, St. Louise's priestly co-worker.



St. Francis de Sales is depicted in the right-hand panel holding a book and pen, the book emblazoned with his emblem of a flaming heart, the symbol of charity. He is shown in cappa magna with a pectoral cross on a ribbon. I have seen and heard a number of things as to when use of the pectoral cross was permitted with the cappa magna, and whether it was used on a chain, ribbon or cord. My precedent here was an image of the theologian Bishop Bossuet in cappa magna--a figure of the following century, but with a pectoral cross and ribbon similar to one shown in an image of St. Francis wearing a mozzetta and rochet. An angel above carries the saint's personal arms, while the insignia of the Institute of Christ the King, which is under his patronage, is in the lower left-hand corner. The client and his wife are active in the local Institute apostolate. The motto Veritatem facientes in caritate, derived from St. Paul, is also associated with St. Francis de Sales.

While this assemblage of saints has as its origin something distinctly personal, we see in this juxtaposition three great holy figures springing from the Church's eldest (if now rather wayward) daughter, France, and also bringing together the virtues of charity in action, truth in charity, and St. Joan's own very active witness to God's truth and justice.

(Crossposted to The Shrine of the Holy Whapping.)

New Illustration: The St. Bernard Triptych, Part III

Here is the final panel in the sequence of images in my recent commission depicting events from the life of St. Bernard. (See the other two here and here). The three are displayed together in one frame and my client hopes to use it as the focus of a small house altar.

Matthew Alderman. Christ Reveals the Wound of the Holy Shoulder to St. Bernard. Ink. June 2009. Private Collection, New York City.

The event depicted concerns this vision of St. Bernard:

It is related in the annals of Clairvaux that St. Bernard asked our Lord which was His greatest unrecorded suffering, and Our Lord answered: "I had on My Shoulder, while I bore My Cross on the Way of Sorrows, a grievous Wound, which was more painful than the others, and which is not recorded by men. Honor this wound with thy devotion, and I will grant thee whatsoever thou dost ask through its virtue and merit. And in regard to all those who shall venerate this Wound, I will remit to them all their venial sins, and will no longer remember their mortal sins." (Source).

There are also a number of prayers and devotions to the Holy Shoulder, such as the following:

O Loving Jesus, meek Lamb of God, I miserable sinner, salute and worship the most Sacred Wound of Thy Shoulder on which Thou didst bear Thy heavy Cross, which so tore Thy flesh and laid bare Thy Bones as to inflict on Thee an anguish greater than any other wound of Thy Most Blessed Body. I adore Thee, O Jesus most sorrowful; I praise and glorify Thee, and give Thee thanks for this most sacred and painful Wound, beseeching Thee by that exceeding pain, and by the crushing burden of Thy heavy Cross to be merciful to me, a sinner, to forgive me all my mortal and venial sins, and to lead me on towards Heaven along the Way of Thy Cross. Amen.

The image depicts Our Lord bearing His wound to the saint, surrounded by the implements of the Passion, the arma Christi of the cross, and a small shield depicting the Five (Other) Wounds. I was unable to ascertain which shoulder the wound was on, as Christ is shown carrying the cross on either shoulder depending on the circumstances, so I chose the one that suited the composition best.

I will post an image showing the three panels together in context tomorrow.

New Illustration: The St. Bernard Triptych, Part II

Continuing our excursion into one of my latest illustration commissions, a sequence of images depicting events from the life of St. Bernard done for a client in New York City, here is a view of the central panel, depicting the saint in glory.

Matthew Alderman. S. Bernard of Clairvaux. Ink. June 2009. Private Collection, New York City.

Above his head, two angels bear the coat of arms of the Cistercian Order, while below, St. Bernard bears his crozier in his right hand, the abbatial veil curling around its shaft. His posture is derived in part from Zurbarán's marvelous painting of St. Francis upright in the tomb (ca. 1630/34). Numerous smaller details depict the saint's various attributes in discrete ways--the bees worked into the foliage of his crozier-head, representing his title of Doctor Melifluus; the arms of the Templar Order, whose rule he wrote, on the knob of its staff; another shield depicting the mitres of the three dioceses he rejected; an angel presenting him with a model of the abbey of Clairvaux, and a scroll inscribed with the opening passage of the Canticle of Canticles, on which he frequently preached.

For those of you who missed it, the first installment of this series can be found here. Tomorrow I will share the final panel in the sequence, depicting Christ's revelation of the Holy Shoulder to the saint.

New Illustration: The St. Bernard Triptych, Part I

I recently completed a large commission for an original piece of art for a client in New York City, a series of three interrelated illustrations of scenes from the life of St. Bernard. I hope to share each of the three panels with our readers over the next few days, concluding with the three placed together in context.

Matthew Alderman. S. Bernard Healed by the Virgin.
Ink. June 2009. Private Collection, New York City.

This image is derived from an event described in St. Bernard of Clairvaux: Oracle of the Twelfth Century by the Abbé Maria Theodor Ratisbonne, a convert and the brother of the more famous fellow-convert Alphonse Ratisbonne:

One day, however, his [St. Bernard's] sufferings became so excessive that, no longer able to bear up against them, he called two of his brethren and begged them to go to the church and ask some relief of God. The brethren, touched with compassion, prostrated themselves before the altar, and prayed with great abundance of tears. During this time, Bernard had a vision which ravished him with delight. The Virgin Mary, accompanied by St. Lawrence and St. Benedict, under whose invocation he had consecrated the two side altars of his church, appeared to the sick man. "The serenity of their faces," says William of St. Thierry, "seemed the expression of the perfect peace which surrounds them in Heaven." They manifested themselves so distinctly to the servant of God that he recognized them as soon as they entered his cell. The Virgin Mary, as well as the two saints, touched with their sacred hands the parts of Bernard's body where the pain was most acute; and, by this holy touch, he was immediately delivered from his malady; and the saliva which till then had been flowing from his mouth in a continuous stream ceased at the same time.

I used this commission, in part, to experiment with some stylistic elements derived from the work of the Irish stained glass designer Harry Clarke, whose work has appeared here in the past. The edging of sea-shells along the Virgin's cloak is partially inspired by Clarke's work, and also refers specifically to St. Bernard's devotion to the Virgin as Star of the Sea; the saint is thought to be the first to have invoked the Virgin under this title. The star motif on the Virgin's morse also recalls this. St. Bernard and St. Lawrence are visible in the background, with the ill saint curled up at the bottom of the panel.

Tomorrow, I will post an image of the central panel, showing the saint surrounded by his attributes.

Matthew Alderman on: Liturgical Art Exhibition at St. Vincent's College, Latrobe, Pennsylvania

I was overjoyed about a month back to find out that two of my works had been accepted as part of the Catholic Art Competition and Exhibition at the St. Vincent Gallery, at the college of the same name in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. The exposition looks to be a good one. The selection process and requirements alone seem quite promising. The competition's juror is none other than classical architect Duncan Stroik, and the criteria included a specification that the work be "iconographically recognizable and appropriate for liturgical use." While I do not know the identities of the other artists yet, I am sure it is going to be an interesting and significant show. I imagine, in addition to newcomers like myself, there will be some paintings by some far bigger names in traditional Catholic art on the walls. The show begins on October 28 and will close on December 7, 2008.

I have submitted the original ink drawing of Cassian of Imola: Patron Saint of Parish Clerks and Mexico City (below), which was commissioned for a holy card by an official in the Detroit Ardiocesan Tribunal, and the prints of my series The Three Holy Maidens, depicting SS. Margaret, Katherine and Barbara, the originals of which were for a private collector in Conneticut. It's a small part of the bigger whole, but I'm honored to be a part of it. Go, have a look!

New Line Art from Matthew Alderman

Santa Bárbara, Patrona de la Artillería. Ink on Vellum. February 2008. Artist's Collection.

The original precedent for this image was an illustration of S. Barbara as protectress of the second battalion of the first royal Bavarian artillery regiment during the Great War, where she is shown wearing a modern steel military helmet and leaning on a cannon. Such imagery is rare, but not unknown, due to the saint's role as patroness invoked against sudden death, artillerymen of all nationalities, and for all who work with munitions. (Indeed, in Spanish, a powder magazine is called a santabárbara.) I can think of at least one side-chapel in Rome which is bedizened all over with cannon-barrels and similarly explosive insignia.

I have freely adapted the design but preserved the basic attributes of this somewhat unconventional model; a careful inspection of the drawing will show, nonetheless, the more traditional emblems of the saint--tower, lightning-bolt, sword--embossed and blazoned across of much of the great martyr's equipment.

New Line Art from Matthew Alderman

Our Lady of Guadalupe. Ink on vellum. January 2008. Commissioned for the ordination mass card of a new priest. The inscription, common in images of Our Lady of Guadalupe, means "He has not done so for any other nation," and is derived from the Psalms.


S. Victoria of Córdoba, Virgin and Martyr. Ink on Vellum, January 2008. A gift to a young married couple on the occasion of their firstborn daughter's baptism.


Our Lady of Lourdes, the Immaculate Conception. Ink on Vellum, January 2008. The redundant thirteenth star in Our Blessed Lady's halo is an accidental iconographic oversight on my part.

Logo designed and executed by the artist for the Pious Sodality of Church Ladies Weblog and Facebook Group. Ink on Vellum, November 2007.

Recent work from Matthew Alderman

Insignia designed and executed for the Marriage Preparation and Natural Family Planning Ministry of the Catholic Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin. Ink on Vellum. January 2008. Artist's collection.

New Liturgical Line Art from Matthew Alderman

Matthew Alderman. St. Lucy of Syracuse. Ink on Vellum, September 2007. Click for larger image.

A small experiment in color I did to amuse myself late last month, this drawing shows St. Lucy with, rather than the usual eyeballs in a dish, her older traditional attribute of light (lux), sometimes shown as flame but here represented by a lantern with a small image of Christ incorporated into its metalwork. Her eventual martyrdom by a cut throat is indicated by the dagger, a less common attribute but not completely unknown, while the boiling oil she was subjected to at one point in her various trials is represented by the elaborate serpentine patterns of her martyr-red gown.

I have done a sizable number of new drawings (including my first international commission) since I last shared my work on web; I hope to present more of my recent projects in the next few days and weeks.

Matt's Latest Drawing

St. Augustine of Hippo in his Study, Accompanied by his Guardian Angel. Matthew Alderman, June 2007. Ink on Vellum, 5" x 7". Private Collection, Ireland.

The Catholic Illustrators' Guild

I recently received a very kind invitation from Theodore over at Small Pax to post my work periodically on the group blog he shares with a raft of other illustrators and writers, including author Regina Doman. It's a real honor! While it's tough keeping up with several blogs at once, I certainly sketch enough--I actually find coming up with a finished sketch much easier than writing a full-fledged blog entry--and Theodore has told me I'm free to pop in whenever I have a second--even if those seconds are rather widely spaced apart. Have a look at my first post when you have a chance--not much, but there is a very fine illustration of St. Irene of Chalcedon, in the line-art style of an old missal, there I don't think I've ever presented here or elsewhere in the blogosphere.

S. Gregory the Great and His Parents SS. Gordian the Senator and Silvia of Rome. Matthew Alderman. Ink on vellum, begun January 2006 and set aside; completed October 2006.

In my family, we were always aware of S. Silvia, my mother's apparent patroness, but it took us a very long time to figure out who she was. Random hagiographic trolling on my part during grade school turned up a S. Sylvia who turned out to be the famous pilgrim Egeria under another name, and whose principal claim to fame besides her journals was her habit of taking cold baths. However, the feast-days didn't match, and eventually, completely by accident, I stumbled on St. Silvia of Rome (November 3, or 5, depending on who's doing the talking), and my saintless mother discovered she'd hit the sanctoral jackpot. You see, Silvia of Rome was Gregory the Great's mom.

The Catholic Encyclopedia has this to say about the lady in question:

Mother of Pope St. Gregory the Great, born about 515 (525?); died about 592.

There is unfortunately no life of Silvia and a few scanty notices are all that is extant concerning her. Her native place is sometimes given as Sicily, sometimes as Rome. Apparently she was of as distinguished family as her husband, the Roman regionarius, Gordianus. She had, besides Gregory, a second son.

Silvia was noted for her great piety, and she gave her sons an excellent education. After the death of her husband she devoted herself entirely to religion in the "new cell by the gate of blessed Paul" (cella nova juxta portam beati Pauli). Gregory the Great had a mosaic portrait of his parents executed at the monastery of St. Andrew; it is minutely described by Johannes Diaconus (P.L., LXXV, 229-30). Silvia was portrayed sitting with the face, in which the wrinkles of age could not extinguish the beauty, in full view; the eyes were large and blue, and the expression was gracious and animated.

The veneration of St. Silvia is of early date. In the ninth century an oratory was erected over her former dwelling, near the Basilica of San Saba. Pope Clement VIII (1592-1605) inserted her name under 3 November in the Roman Martyrology. She is invoked by pregnant women for a safe delivery.

Gordianus and S. Gregory's two aunts Tarsilla and Emiliana are also venerated as saints, incidentally.

S. Silvia's cultus is sadly largely forgotten at present, but it does crop up in the oddest places--in a small chapel on the grounds of the the present-day San Gregorio Magno, now staffed by Missionaries of Charity, through two worn portraits of her and her husband in the little church of San Gregorio ai Muratori, and there is some evidence that a shingle-style church was built under her patronage at some point in the nineteenth century up in New England, though I don't know either the location or the details behind it.

Despite the comparative lack of data concerning the saint's life, there is nonetheless a very charming legend related of her, that proves that even the mother of a future pontiff is still a mother. At her hermitage, she used to tend a small plot of land; every day, perhaps to make sure her monastic son was getting his fill of healthy food, she'd send him a silver plate loaded with vegetables. One day, St. Gregory chanced upon a beggar, and having nothing to give, presented him with the platter. S. Silvia's reaction to this is not on record, but doubtlessly she kept on telling him to eat his broccoli.

This image was intended from the beginning as a gift for my mother, and is in a sense a set of variations on the same themes I explored in another portrait of S. Gregory.

S. Gregory the Great, Pope of Rome dealt with the Western Church's relationship with the East, while S. Gregory the Great and His Parents is about the emergence of an adult Christianity from the late antique world, and about the continuing Romanitas of that faith. S. Gordianus and S. Silvia had been Christians from birth, not converts, and like virtually everyone else in their day they came from families long familiar with Catholicism.

No more potent a symbol is that of Gordianus himself--the Roman senator who taught his son how to be a good Catholic. We see him here, dressed with conscious anachronism in the official toga of the high classical age when perhaps his robes might have been something more stiff and orientally Byzantine, and in him we behold the still-vibrant memory of that civilization carried cautiously, carefully, gratefully, like a flame shielded in a cupped hand against the wind by the Church who had essentially been a sign of contradiction to its pagan antecedents.

Gordianus and Silvia made sure their sons were provided with the best fragments of classical erudition that they had to give, and also taught them the Faith that took those scraps of knowledge and revivified them with the sense of meaning that had so eluded the drifting cultic seekers of the late pagan Empire as they floated from Eleusinian mystery to Mithraic rite, and finally to the strange liturgies of an Eastern religion that followed the teachings of someone they called Christ.

Gordianus and Silvia, as was sometimes the practice in those days, separated to become priest and nun after their children grew up, and while perhaps not advisable to present-day couples, this act has a certain symbolic potency in this image of transition and transmutation that reminds us of the Romanness of Catholicism that carries within it the baptized distillation of everything good that existed within the pagan, pre-Christian universe, and which, like the Sibyls, paved the way for Christ's coming into the world in the age of Augustus when the whole world was at peace. He is the corporeal father who gives life to a spiritual father, whose spiritual son he is, and who becomes one himself through his own priesthood as the hierarchy of civil pomp is supplanted by one of spiritual self-abasement and humility.

Silvia is shown here, as the accounts tell us, a beautiful matron, and imagined here in her bustling, industrious, maternal pre-anchorite phase, very much the woman of the house with her purse and keys at her belt, though perhaps they prefigure as well the keys that her son would bind and loose heaven and earth with, and the gold and silver of his charity that she instilled within him. She is both powerful and domestic, the mistress of six villas, a woman of means and intelligence in an age when the job description of aristocratic housewife meant being a businesswoman, schoolmistress, agriculturalist and, in the worst times, the local civil defense warden against the Huns.

Her costume is simple and beautiful, perhaps less self-consciously archaic than her husband's, and in a sense brings her more into the world of St. Gregory and the Middle Ages, the age of meditation and practical mysticism personified by her vegetable platter and her prayer-beads--also perhaps slightly anachronistic, and once again deliberately so. She becomes the image of Mother Church that her son protects and, to draw out a Trinitarian and Marian analogy, the Church from which is born from as his Mother, and who he himself is father to through his reforms, writings and pastoral leadership.

This is an image about family, and the passage of leadership from one generation to the next, and the indelible impact of parenthood reaching backwards and forwards from history to the future. S. Gregory produced reams of scholarship, the ageless and undying repertoire of the Church's chant, and an example of heroic virtue that will never be forgotten. S. Silvia and S. Gordian, on the other hand, produced Gregory himself. Whose, one may rightly ask, was the greater achievement?

A Mystical Crucifixion with Our Mother the Church and St. Monica of Tagaste Bearing the Flaming Heart of her Son. Matthew Alderman, ink on paper, 11 x 17 inches, January 2006.

I do not know if the term Mystical Crucifixion has been used in art before now. I derived it from a parallelism with the Mystical Nativity of Flemish art, the iconography of which derives principally from the private revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden. Here, I use it to mean an image which, while not representing the historical reality of the Crucifixion nonetheless serves to shed light on its deeper ontological reality. I have tried to emphasize this difference by diverging from the historical titulus over the Cross, INRI, and replaced it with an abbreviated macaronic Latin-Greek inscription reading, "Jesus Christ the Nazarene, King of Glory," a variant on the inscription typically used on Byzantine crucifixes.

The cross is now transformed into a still-barren Edenic Tree of Life, the ultimate progenitor, legend has it, of the tree that the cross was cut from. Christ's crucifixion on the tree references numerous hymns and poetry that link these two icons of resurrection and life, as well as the concept that through Christ, all God's creation has been purified, that matter too can be a vehicle for God's plan. This concept is also expressed by another medieval borrowing, that of the weeping sun and moon shown overhead. All Nature cries out at Christ's death, and is remade by His resurrection. Even now, some plants have begun to spring up at the foot of the cross, overshadowing the skull of Golgotha, a punning reference often taken to refer to the skull of Adam, and by extension, the "old man" of sin put to death by Christ's sacrifice.

The barren tree is also intended to refer to "hintings" of Christ's crucifixion one finds throughout pre-Christian pagan cultures, perhaps through the quiet actions of Divine Providence. In particular, there is the World Ash Tree, Yggdrasil, of Norse mythology. Oðin was said to have hung on it nine days, pierced with his own spear, in exchange for gaining wisdom and knowledge. Yggdrasil was said to rain honey on the world like the Heavens rained holy dew (Rorate coeli desuper et nubes pluant justum), as the Psalmist says. Incidentally, a late addition to Nordic myth--thought to be a deliberate borrowing from Christianity's belief in a new heaven and a new earth--has mankind being restored after the apocalyptic Ragnarök by a man and woman sheltered within the world ash and nourished on dew.

On a more personal note, the outlines of barren trees against the bright winter sky have always fascinated me, and remain embedded in my mind as a private symbol of the quiet and sometimes unsettling beauty of the Midwest. There are few things stranger than the contorted shapes of their branches, and yet hardly anyone bothers to notice them. They are symbols of the sublime and oft-forgotten weirdness of the everyday--and as a consequence, of God's providence.

The pose of the crucified Christ is derived from several medieval models. In particular, the Isenheim Altarpiece of Mathis Gothart, called Grünewald, was a prime influence. However, I wished to find a balance between the--justifiably shocking--reality of Grünewald's nightmare world, and the serenity and stoicism of other crucifixes, such as Nicholas Gerhaerts van Leyden's monumental funerary stone Crucifixus of 1467, another major influence. The heavy, thick contortions of the crown of thorns are largely derved from this model.

Two women stand below the cross. On Christ's right is a young woman, crowned, dress in rich robes. She holds a chalice that catches Christ's blood flowing from his side. She represents the Church, born from Christ's side on Calvary as Eve was drawm from the side of Adam, and it is on Calvary that their marriage is consummated. The chalice is the Grail, which legendarily was said to have been used by Christ at the Last Supper, and also is appropriately associated here with the Church, Her feminine nature symbolized by that which contains holiness, that She, too, is a vessel of devotion as the Virgin is.

On Christ's left is St. Monica. There has been some debate as to the race of St. Augustine and St. Monica, and while we may never know the ethnic background of St. Augustine's father for certain, the name Monica, I have been told, is associated with the Berber tribesmen of North Africa. (This may or may not be true.) She is, as a consequence, depicted in the traditional costume of this proud people. She bears in one hand the flaming heart associated with her son, Augustine, and perhaps also appropriate for her, as well, manifesting the big-heartedness and ardurous trust in God's power that led her to continue to pray for her son long after he had drifted away from the Faith.

This work was created for a friend with a strong devotion to St. Monica, and thus the iconography expressed is more specific and personal than other works. However, given that much, if not all, of the religious art of medieval days still extant has a similarly personal edge in its allusions to the donors who sonsored such images and prayed before them, I hope that this piece's broader significance is nonetheless evident.

St. Gregory the Great, Pope and Patriarch of the West. Matthew Alderman, ink on paper, 11 x 17 inches, January 2006. Click here for larger image.

As with most of my other ink works, this project was partially inspired by the woodcuts of the fifteenth-century master Albrecht Dürer. However, I departed from my usual models in my depiction of St. Gregory, who is here shown not as a medieval bishop or a baroque pontiff, but in an atmosphere redolent of the austere grandeur of that nebulous, uncertain time between late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. This is not to say there is not some measure of deliberate anachronism here as well which links the image back to Rome's ancient past and forward to the present day.

I set about to depict St. Gregory the Great in a manner that alludes to the papacy of Benedict XVI and his search for unity with the East through references to our shared heritage with the Orthodox, and the role that the Papacy has played in guarding those truths. Gregory's vesture is that of a bishop of his day, with the distinctive pallium formerly restricted to the Pope depicted in the form most commonly associated with Benedict's pontificate. Some deliberate anachronism is evident in the depiction of the fanon covering the Pope's shoulders, a reference to the historical continuity of the pontificates of Gregory I and Benedict XVI with that great intervening stretch of popes that separates them in time, many of whom wore this quintessentially medieval and baroque garment.

Another deliberate anachronism is seen in the figure of the acolyte bearing the Pope's mitre. Mitres are known to have been worn as early as about a hundred years after Gregory's time, and originated, like the pallium, as a distinctive non-liturgical piece of papal regalia known as the camelaucum. Its appearance here makes reference to both Gregory's authority as Bishop of Rome, and also, due to its distinctive Western shape, to his authority as Patriarch of the Latin rite. The simple band around its base is a subtle reference to the coronet worn at the base of the camelaucum which in time grew into the magisterial beauty of the tiara. Rather than supplanting or replacing the tiara, this is its magnificence in seed form.

The triple-barred cross is at once a reference to the traditions of the high Middle Ages that depicted canonized pontiffs with such an insignia, and also to the pastoral staff adopted by John Paul II and Benedict XVI. While the triple-barred cross is predominantly an invention of the world of art rather than serving as an accurate representation of liturgical praxis, here it serves to subtly link past, present and future.

Gregory's posture is a fairly literal quotation of Ingres's 1806 Portrait of Napoléon on the Imperial Throne. There is some deliberate and triumphal irony here, considering that the Church has outlasted Napoleonic glory. It is also intended to return the pseudo-theological airs of Ingres's work to their proper domain, considering how strongly Napoleon has aped both the poses of a Byzantine Christ in Majesty and a pagan Jupiter in Ingres's depiction. Christ's pose on the gospel book he holds in his right hand further compounds the quotation.

This, in turn, introduces another antique reference into the work, hinting at the ancient city--and the already venerable--institution that Gregory occupied. His face suggests the survival of strength and virility in the face of age, and is inspired by the Dürer depiction of the Old Testament strongman Sampson and also those same images of Jove that Ingres would have known from casts and engravings, and which might have peeped out of the mud and moss, forgotten in the Forum, in the days of St. Gregory, and the days of his father, the Roman senator St. Gordian. This in turn suggests the amazing antiquity of the Papacy, its apostolic origin, and the pre-Christian roots of the title Pontifex Maximus, showing that in Christ all things can be made new, be baptized and turned to the good of the new Faith. We see here a true Pontifex--bridge-builder--uniting east and west, new and old, antique and modern, a mirror of prudence and justice for our age and all ages to come.