The Fine Art of Christmas: The Tenebrist

Gerard van Honthorst was not an Italian - a slightly weird thing for a painting from the 17th century on a Christmas card.  Coming from the Netherlands, he joined a horde - should that be palette - of painters who painted 'The Adoration of the Shepherds.'  

In truth the Christmas story offers limited scope for painters and preachers alike, so its rather down to what you do with the inevitable scene.  What Gerard liked to do, and the reason that he was described as a tenebrist, was compose (in layman's terms) very dark pictures with contrasting light.  As it happens, this scene is one of his classics.  But this is a chopped version.

The original painting is bigger - and all that which has been chopped off is wodges of dark.  It suits Christmas tastes to have a light picture, but van Honthorst was really making the point that the very bright baby is in a very dark place.  The editing loses this point, while making a nice picture for a card.

On Christmas Day at church we prayed for those who are not as blessed as we are on Christmas Day.  We prayed for those who suffer for their faith on Christmas Day.  And later the Soup Kitchen provided an amazing Christmas dinner. 

We tried to keep some dark in.

Because Christmas is more about the darkness than this cropped picture might have us believe.

The Fine Art of Christmas - Starry Night over the Rhone

Atmospherically this is certainly Christmassy.

It might look good on the card but  Christmas wasn't in Van Gogh's mind when he painted this night scene of the River Rhone in September 1888.  He was fascinated by the colours of night and the challenge of painting them.

To fit the painting on the card, a devastating transaction has happened however.  Here is the original painting:

Leaving aside the colour differences we can see that the original has Ursa Major (the Great Bear) constellation with great prominence.  Van Gogh's intention was to make the stars the star over against the gas lighting.  Instead, the card has left in the lovers at the expense of the stars.

Every Christmas we are prone to cut out a little or a lot of heavenly glory to keep humans in the centre of the picture.

The Fine Art of Christmas - The Putti

Here, emerging from the dark stable (on a Christmas Card), is Carlo Maratta's Madonna and Child.  Well, again, it is one of countless versions produced for the Italian devotional market.  Here the virgin might be, as often was in his paintings, his illegitimate daughter.

And then there's the putti.

Peering into my Christmas card are three little chaps.  Possibly chaps.  They cannot be found in the Bible, but they can be found in great numbers on paintings of various kinds.  So, with much academic effort devoted to art the meaning of putti must be over documented?  No.  They have been written about very little apparently, and they are variously little boys, angel thingies, cupid-type thingies or just children.

It's a decent guess that in a Madonna and child scene they are kind of angels, or boys with a heavenly background (if such a thing is possible).

Possible?  The mystical decorations are a waste of Carlo's time.  In the arms of the virgin is a real baby boy.  Yet he is not only a bit heavenly - he is the very centre of heaven's attention.  He is not a half heavenling; he is all human and all divine.

The truth is more wonderful than the putti.

The Fine Art of Christmas - The Madonna Praying

This blog has a mild obsession with Christmas Cards - as any back reference of it will show.  This year we're moving upmarket - only paying attention to those that might be worth making money from.  (This is what London does for you - can I sell it on? etc.)

Enter The Madonna Praying by Sassoferrato.

Sent to me by a Baptist Church leader, this is very apt because . . . no, wait a minute, what IS it?

Sassoferrato was known for these paintings.  He may or may not have had a deep Catholic Marian affection, but the real reason he kept on painting the Madonna praying was because all sorts of wealthier Italians would pay for them to put in their homes to aid their devotion or just for good (divine) luck.

Today it will set you back about £10,000.

The connection to Christmas is quite thin - Mary must have been far too busy to look this peaceful and baby Jesus was not relevant to Sassoferatto's retail model.  But while unBaptist and not Christmassy, perhaps in true London fashion I can pass it off somewhere in January for a few pounds and make Christmas out of it after all!!

Advent

Advent is about reflective waiting.

Isn't it?

Is it not a haven from the madding crowds of Black Friday, every subsequent Saturday, Sunday and Thursday late and through to Christmas eve?   There is something appealing about retreating into a Carmelite Christmas.  (It will be less expensive for a start . . .)

"Baptists are too activist," Baptists say.  This has become an early 21st Century Received Truth and it is a slightly suspicious Truth for two reasons:

1.  It is not said to us but by us.  Many colleagues in other Church groupings seem a tad envious of our activism.

2.  It is quite convenient.  So perhaps worth questioning.  By being less active we have more opportunity for, well, shopping and, er, restaurants and, um, travelling.  My sense of people who 'rest' from church is that they do not fill that time with spiritually useful things as a rule.

William Booth was an activist.  You don't start an expression of church that becomes called The Salvation Army with the intention of being overly reflective.  Strangely (or perhaps not) when we think of Christmas we immediately think of The Salvation Army.

William was not a man to ignore the spiritual.  To the contrary he regarded formalised religion, Advent and the like as too often lacking the Spirit.  Nor was he a man to down tools to dwell in a waiting that might be otherwise interpreted as a mite too convenient.  How did he hold it all together?

Well in a way he did and in a way he didn't.  he saw the paradox through which every believer in an unbelieving world must travel in Advent or any other time:

He said,

Work as if everything depended upon work and pray as if everything depended upon prayer.