Category: Albrecht Dürer

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Six Days of Advent: The Magi

The Adoration of the Magi (tapestry), 1904, by Edward Burne-Jones. Note the angel leading the magi with the Star of Bethlehem cupped in his hands.
My father occasionally talked about the last time he saw his father. He said he was a very small boy, and there had been a blizzard on St. Patrick’s Day, and he and his mother saw his father briefly on the street.
After he was long dead, I realized he was talking about the Great St. Patrick’s Day Blizzard of 1936, when he was, in fact, 12 years old. That time compression, in an odd way, lends verisimilitude to his tale. We can all understand a fatherless boy conflating the two most memorable events of his young childhood. There is nothing rehearsed or too perfect about that: it sings from the heart.
Adoration of the Magi, 1504, Albrecht Dürer. The Bible doesn’t specify that there were Three Wise Men; it doesn’t say one was black; it doesn’t name them Balthasar, Caspar, and Melchior. 
The visit of the Magi to the infant Christ child has a star hanging over it: the Star of Bethlehem. The identity of this star has interested scientists for as long as we have studied the heavens. It may have been the conjunction of planets or stars, it may have been Halley’s Comet, which showed up in 12 BC. It may have been another comet detected in the Far East around 5 BC.

Dream of Three Wise Men. Capital from Autun cathedral, mid-12th century, Ghiselbertus of Autun.
The trouble is that none of these events line up perfectly enough to satisfy an image of the Magi worshipping the newborn Christ in the manger. (Of course, the story doesn’t say he was a newborn, either.) The slight misalignment between the Gospel story and what science currently says gives it the ring of truth.

Detail from Mary and Child, surrounded by angels, 526 AD, Master of Sant’Apollinare, Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy.
We translate “magi” as “wise men” but they were probably actually astrologers: men who studied the influence of the heavenly spheres on the lives of mere mortals. That’s a discipline we completely discount today, but who better to follow a star to the Living God?
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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Six Days of Advent: The Annunciation to Mary

The Annunciation Triptych, 1440, by Rogier van der Weyden, has the compressed version from the Gospel of Luke, almost in comic-book form—Zecheriah praying in his lonely temple, Gabriel surprising Mary while she reads Scripture, Mary meeting with Elizabeth, in whose womb the young John the Baptist leaps in recognition.
The story of the Incarnation opens not with the Angel Gabriel’s appearance to Mary, but with his appearance to an old temple priest. Zechariah reacted with all-too-human skepticism to the idea that his post-menopausal wife would give birth to a son who “will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah.” 
Virgin of the Annunciation, 1512, by Matthias Grünewald, also shows Mary at her studies, but clothed in the most exuberant pleats, which reinforce the ecstatic nature of the moment.
A few months later, Gabriel returned to Israel, this time to Nazareth in Galilee, to talk to a young woman who was engaged to be married.
In contrast, Antonello da Messina’s Virgin Annunciate, 1476, is taking the news with remarkable composure.
 “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

The angel Gabriel in Sondro Botticelli’s 1481 fresco seems to be leaning over an imaginary wall for a friendly chat.
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”
 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” (from Luke 1:26-38)

In Hendrick Terbrugghen’s 1624 Annunciation, Gabriel has dirty feet.
Mary understood that being pregnant by someone other than her betrothed threatened her engagement, her reputation, and even her life (as she could be stoned for adultery). The early Renaissance painters would have understood her predicament better than we, for whom illegitimacy is no big deal.  If the Baby Jesus were conceived today, sadly, nobody would much notice.
Albrecht Durer’s Annunciation from The Life of the Virgin, 1502, sets the scene in an amazing series of arches that suggest the very heavens themselves.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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More on that Christian art thing

Knight, Death and the Devil, woodcut, by Albrecht Dürer, 1513
Part of the heated discussion that ensued after my post Friday about the so-called problem of Christian music expressed a general irritation with performers who identify themselves as Christian artists. We’re all aware of the capacity of modern artists to drape themselves over the cross for marketing purposes. However, there has always been a distinction between artists who work in religious themes because that is their marketplace, and those who are genuinely faith-driven.
Albrecht Dürer achieved extraordinary success very quickly. He produced a variety of works including many of a secular nature, and actively sought and exploited the patronage of Maximillian I. None of that indicates a profoundly religious man.
However, Dürer left a large body of writing that indicates that at some time he had a true religious conversion. He became an early and enthusiastic follower of Martin Luther.  His new Protestant sympathies can be felt in his later work, a transition pushed along by the death of his patron in 1519.
In 1524, Dürer wrote that “because of our Christian faith we have to stand in scorn and danger, for we are reviled and called heretics.” And in expressing thanks for the gift of one of Luther’s books, he wrote, “I pray Your Honor to convey my humble gratitude to His Electoral grace, and beg him humbly that he will protect the praiseworthy Dr. Martin Luther for the sake of Christian truth. It matters more than all the riches and power of this world, for with time everything passes away; only the truth is eternal.”
Circle of the Lustful: Francesca da Rimini (‘The Whirlwind of Lovers’) 1826-7, from William Blake’s illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy.
William Blake is another artist whose copious writings make his religious fervor easy to document. However, understanding them is another matter entirely. (I confess I take him in small doses.) His illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy include extensive margin notes in which he argues with Dante’s theology.
Blake was literally a visionary: he saw visions from childhood on. He was a believer, but he hated the church. His contemporaries thought him quite mad. But his poem “And did those feet in ancient time” comes down to us as the great patriotic hymn Jerusalem, set by Sir Hubert Parry in 1916.
I kind of like his assessment of the character of Jesus:

If he had been Antichrist Creeping Jesus,
He’d have done anything to please us:
Gone sneaking into Synagogues
And not us’d the Elders & Priests like Dogs,
But humble as a Lamb or Ass,
Obey’d himself to Caiaphas.
God wants not Man to Humble himself.

Conversion on the Way to Damascus by Michelangelo Merisi Caravaggio, 1601
Compare these two painters to Michelangelo Merisi Caravaggio, another brilliant painter of religious scenes. His patrons were Cardinal Francesco del Monte and Cardinal Girolamo Mattei, and his subject matter was overwhelmingly religious, but Caravaggio could by no stretch of the imagination be described as a “Christian artist.” A brawler with an extensive police record, he managed to nick a rival in the groin with his sword, severing an artery and killing the poor man. This led to Caravaggio’s exile and ultimately to his death.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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MacGyvered

One of Alexey Kljatov’s exquisite snowflake photos.
Albrecht Durer was renowned for his skill in painting detail. There’s a legend that he was once asked by the artist Giovanni Bellini for the brushes with which he painted hair. Durer handed Bellini an unremarkable brush. ‘I do not mean this, I mean the brushes you use to paint several hairs with one touch,’ Bellini answered. Durer proceeded to demonstrate that it was all in the technique, not the tool.
A still life by Alexey Kljatov. He moves a flashlight around and then meshes images in Photoshop to make this effect.
Macro photos of snowflakes popped up all over my newsfeed last month. These were shot by one Alexey Kljatov. Evidently, in Moscow when you decide to take up macro photography you don’t run down to 42ndStreet Photo and drop a grand or more on a new camera with interchangeable lenses. You buy a used Russian-made lens from an old film camera (currently available on ebay for about $25) and tape it to your decidedly down-range Canon Powershot, using a chunk of wood as a stabilizer and a black garbage bag to keep out light.
That’s an old Russian-made SLR lens taped to an ‘extension bellows’ taped to a Canon Powershot, all stabilized with a piece of wood.
Kljatov’s snowflakes are detailed, luminous, and, most of all, fascinating. A similar hack he did to take telescopic shots of the moon rendered weirdly wavery but inviting images of our planet’s closet friend. When he’s not outside freezing, Kljatov does a series of layered still lifes using a handheld flashlight and lots of hours on his computer.
The moon, shot by Alexey Kljatov. In this instance, he used rubber bands to affix a telephoto lens to his Canon Powershot.
Kljatov’s camera is a 2007-vintage, mid-range Canon Powershot. In fat, sassy America, those cameras (if they’re still around) are used for nothing more than shooting snapshots of the passing scene.
Every once in a while I stop at my local art store to ponder the locked case of $250 watercolor brushes by the counter. Is it really necessary to spend so much money in pursuit of creativity? Or is creativity to be found in the exact opposite of such luxury?

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!