Ah, look at the nipples on those lemons to suckle the Messiah....

It's sour work to redeem our sins: We are nourished by the wine of your blood. You got a little vinegar on a sponge near the end.

Busting the money-changers out of the temple didn't give a good rate of return.

You, Christ and Lord, had a 100% rate of return. You left your tomb as empty as my 401k.

Jesus co-signed for my sin bail-out 'cuz I didn't have the bread. He wouldn't even let be pay him back if I could.

This profit goes straight into my account and outperforms the DJIA everytime forever.

Amen$

Hmm, Gray speaks in words the world weary understand.

If you haven't already done so, Gerard, listen to Arvo Pärt's 'spiegel im spiegel' and 'Für Alina'. His music in its simplicity is lovely beyond all measure....music written by a soul oppressed.

Exquisite - your examples, your writing. There is a reason why artists devote their lives to J.S. Bach, which requires a life of dedication and humility; every note is an occasion of profound introspection and commitment. There thankfully are modern composers and artists who recognize this imperative in their lives.

I doubt very much that anyone will remember any of the music of the '60s in 300 years.

Gerard, what a gift. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us.In addition to the version of O Magnum Mysterium you posted, I recommend the Robert Shaw Chamber Singers YouTube of this beautiful sacred music, with the comments an added bonus.

Beautiful, Gerard. Thank you.

*sigh*
The music, and the quote from Faulkner concluding your most excellent essay made for a great end to this worrisome weekend. I will take it to rest, and ignore for just this moment, the madness swirling around outside the tent.

JWM

It's a sad thing that it's pretty much the "illustrators" who are carrying on the traditions of old. Who still apply the knowledge, the skills, the techniques once used by the artists of old.

Take this study by the artist Todd Lockwood. A naturalistic study of a fantastic beast. One that in terms of composition, lighting, animation, and technique would fare well with the great art of old.

Most important of all, it has heart. Mother watching as her older children welcome their new siblings, and Father returns from the hunt with a dead horse in his jaws; the reins dangling beneath.

There are stories in this painting, many stories. Stories of trust and love. Stories of sacrifice and hope. Stories of valor and might, for in the world these dragons live in you don't just take a man's horse from him without placing your life on the line.

The fact it is art depicting creatures of fantasy, art produced for an escapist game means nothing. What matters here is, was it well done, and does it have heart? On both scores I have to say yes. And having said yes who am I to say that this is not art?

I wish I knew how to get HTML links to work here. :)

I don't know about great artists; but I have a candidate for a great performer. New, young and untried but we will all be hearing from her again.

Go to YouTube and look for Alexandra Burke. She was the winner of X Factor 2008, and at least two of her performances in that final were pure magic; especially the first, Silent Night. Your entire future career is on the line and you choose to sing one of the greatest classics, and almost without accompaniment? That's at least one variety of courage.

And she got away with it. More than that - she nailed it. Anyone that can impress Simon Cowell...

Two or three times a year I purge my blogroll, not because I dislike anyone, but because there is simply not enough time in my life to track so many.

The health care debate now takes so much of my reading time I've been pinching off links for the last week or so. Thanks to this post you have dodged the bullet once again.

Thanks, Gerard. I knew this painting looked familiar- in fact,my wife has a copy of it hanging just a few feet from where I'm typing. Amazing what you can forget so close to you. Neither of us had any idea of the symbolism behind it. She just liked it. Time to take the kids and get down to the Norton again- just a few blocks away. May the Lord bless you and keep you.

Population of Elizabethan England
3,000,000
in 1800
9,000,000
in 2008
51,000,000

A generation is a drama with four or five thousand outstanding characters--
Blazac
The worst threat of the new democratic equality is that mediocrity will not only be encouraged, but may be enforced.
Tocqueville

Posted by at March 9, 2009 8:42 PM

The worst threat of the new democratic equality is that mediocrity will not only be encouraged, but may be enforced.
Tocqueville

Prescient, and brilliant.

A man must believe in something. Do we believe only that art is begotten through belief, or does such belief prove also that we believe?

Alan Kellogg:
It's a sad thing that it's pretty much the "illustrators" who are carrying on the traditions of old. Who still apply the knowledge, the skills, the techniques once used by the artists of old.

I don't know that I would call it sad or not, but my favorite modern artists are Norman Rockwell (greatest 20th Century American artist) and Ken Marschall. Marschall's favorite subject is the Titanic, and his paintings can be found in numerous books. That works for me, because I'm a longtime Titanic buff.

Addendum: Maybe it's just that our terminology is off. Why not call modern illustrators "artists" and modern artists "talentless hacks"?

However well or poorly I do my work, it is those words of Faulker that inspire me.

And taken as a whole, your words remind me of others spoken by a professor whose loss I mourn more deeply with each passing year: "Both salvation and good writing depend upon the willingness to say 'I'". I suspect he'd be willing to loose the boundaries a bit and include artists and musicians as well. I would.

Ricki,

I would say the thing that distinguishes the artist from the dabbler is that the artist cares. Cares enough to work long hours honing his skills. Cares enough to know his subject and his tools as well as he knows his mother. Cares enough to go without, do without for the sake of his art. An artist knows the value of passion, and lets no-one dampen his ardor.

Your mother was right when she warned you about artists, for artists are dangerous creatures to know.

An earlier version of the last word on this:

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=1333

Mr. Vanderleun:

St. Paul's second letter to the Corinthians implies, in chapter 5 at verses 18 through 20, that all true art has a reconciling function: that is, by showing a man something of "the good" it creates in him a hunger to know more of "the good," and, so, tends toward reconciling him to God. Modern art has the opposite effect -- what one might call an "irreconciling function" that tends to drive or seduce man away from God -- and, so, can not be true art.

Nagaijan

Beautiful words, Gerard. In the past painters had to apprentice for years, learning the fine art of perspective, inflection, shadowing. Even Leonardo. That's just too much work for the insipid artist class of today, nor is there anyone to even teach them if they wanted to learn. So they dip their dog's feet in shite and let them walk across the canvas. Then they decide who is being represented by this degradation: Mary or Jesus. Either works pretty well for the shock value and notoriety.

I am fortunate to live within driving distance of the Brandywine Museum.

So any time I start feeling oppressed by the overwhelming soullessness of modern art, or modern life, for that matter-- I can hop over there to spend a couple of hours marvelling at what Andrew Wyeth could do with a drybrush.

A strong and poignant essay, Gerard. The unblemished porcelain cup caught my eye. As the great Marian prayer begins: "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus."

And the matter of light and dark inspired me to revisit the first chapter of John.

Thanks also for the link to the Lauridsen piece.

Opera is another realm, where music and visual imagery in the hands of great masters can shock and inspire millions. An example of this is Francis Poulenc's masterpiece "Dialouges of the Carmelites". His arrangement of the ancient Marian hymn "Salve Regina" in the final scene compels self-examination. John Dexter's 1987 Met production is stunning in its use of light and shadow. A bit of that in the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcUXp-fpiD0

What a great clip. Thanks.

Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art. Tom Stoppard

Dear Gerard. I am so very glad to see you are recovering. I visit your site almost every day for inspiration and pleasure.

I would like to suggest that modern art in all forms is not merely mediocre and ignorant it is deeply morally depraved. Modern art is produced by the same psyche that gave us Auschwitz and the Gulag and the Cultural Revolution. We are in a new Dark Age, and the savages are in charge.

Amazing piece of writing! I am embarrassed to be sharing the same internet with you. They need a sub-level for hackers like me... Leave brilliant minds up there in the clouds of cognitive horsepower.

Gerard: Here's a better version, I think.

Merry Christmas!

I think that people who create great art love the objects they create and in the process of creating these objects, lose their egotism, thus transcending their mere egos. This process of transcendence is perhaps most obvious in the West in the art created to honour God.

Many modern artists subsist on hate and/or on a quite materialist, anti-spiritual plane. They don't love anything and cling to their egoistic selves. So when they create, their creations remain small and mean.

I appreciate your posts; they push me to think.

Gerard, you are wonderful. Thank you.

There is so much beauty and so little time.

Philippe Jaroussky : FAURÉ, Pie Jesu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTf14maKtT8&feature=related

"He does so by reminding us that great art, like God, exists outside of time."

Ahhh... a defintion of more clarity than the overused words 'Classic' or 'Eternal'.

Absolutely.

I get MY Art fix from Jewel (Madam Scherzo): Its the best Art-Gallery I've come across in all my years and I walk away eveytime full... filled.

We're a gaggle of volunteers and starting a new scheme in our community. Your website offered us with useful info to work on. You've done an impressive job and our entire community will likely be grateful to
you.

On Beauty-
Arche’ (Greek) as davar (Hebrew), word or thing, action of God in space/time. From root word “dibur” meaning “to speak”. “Every davar expresses a dibur—a spoken message. Every physical object or phenomenon, in addition to its physical reality, conveys a spiritual comment on existence.”

Laziness, again, is at the root of the decline.

Real art requires real work.

Take a good long look at any given thing, then try to replicate that look with any medium you choose.

It requires a precisely trained eye-brain-hand coordination that most simply cannot summon the intellectual horsepower to master.

Art today is not about effort, it is about the same thing as most everything else is these days, fun, Fun, FUN! If a thing isn't fun it isn't worth doing. The world is filled with grown-up children.

The country should be renamed to the USF, the United States of Fun.

No mention of The Emperor's New Clothes, desperately floundering in a sea of Conspicuous Consumption one-upmanship?
Nobody likes to admit dey been had.Hype is ESSENTIAL to the "return" (either by admission tickets, or resale "at auction") on the investment.

I don't know what the problem is. All we have to do is take really good pictures and make some quality videos. That should last for a couple centuries at least.

My uncle Louie Lozko, we all called him "Letsgo Lozko", he raised bantam chickens. He told me that no matter how good a chicken is, it will not live forever.