On the night between March 26 and 27, 250 years ago, the great painter, interpreter of the splendors of the Venetian aristocracy, died suddenly: Giambattista Tiepolo (1696–1770). While the Vatican Post Office celebrates him with a stamp, we approach the greatest artist of the eighteenth-century Venetian painting in our usual way: through passion for music.…
This year marks the five hundredth anniversary of the death of Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483–1520), the painter who left us a vast legacy of inestimable beauty and grace. This outstanding artist died, “having sunk under continuous acute fever which carried him off in eight days” — as Alfonso Paolucci sadly writes in Rome to Alfonso…
In this Christmas season we are invited to worship the Divine Word, the invisible Second Person of the Holy Trinity, who is made visible. “He has come to lift up all things to himself, to restore unity to creation” (Preface of Christmas II). The idea of “Christ as Jesus of Nazareth, man, not God incarnate”…
Catholic theologians throughout the life of the Church have elucidated, analyzed, and protected the doctrine of Christ’s incarnation. But few have captured this mystery in so arresting, direct, and radiant a manner as the sacred arts. In her literature, hymnography, paintings, and gardens, the art of the Catholic Church guards and illuminates the complex doctrine…
Today on Twitter, I saw a diamond in the rough. A fellow Catholic by the name of Jacob Bauer posted the following image, with the caption: “I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of Thy house, and the place where Thy glory dwelleth.” As I looked at the image, I found it nearly perfect. By…
On October 4, 350 years will have passed since the death of the Dutch Baroque painter and printmaker who loved light, darkness, and mystery: Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669). The musical side of Rembrandt — his baptismal name and his signature — can be glamorous. In some of his paintings, he portrays himself as a singer,…
Is it possible we have come to the point of saturation with the internet, with social media and the distraction culture in general? Are some of us finally getting to the point of looking for an escape back to the Real? I haven’t looked it up, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find statistics showing…
We’ve all heard the Dostoevsky quote: “Beauty will save the world.” Many of us have seen the Roger Scruton documentary Why Beauty Matters. We may even know intellectually that modern art — be it visual art, architecture, or music — is not only ugly, but dangerous to our souls and destructive in the social order.…
The darkness of our time often feels like a liturgical anti-incense, a dense smog that can be only temporarily fanned away before quickly returning to choke us again. This metaphor is a ripe one for Catholic lay action, because while a single person cannot fan away the smoke of Satan for long, a small but…
All photos courtesy of Ruth Durkin. On the Feast of the Christ the King, the center of the faithful Catholic world was briefly focused on the Drake Hotel in Chicago, IL, as over 200 members of the Catholic Art Guild, their supporters, and patrons met for their first annual “Conference on Beauty and the restoration…
Walking out of church this week, I noticed a pile of free children’s pamphlets/Mass supplements at the door. I was so annoyed by this smushy and blobby cover that I picked it up to see if the inside was just as annoying. It was. And it got worse. (This item will be listed as Nameless…
