Tag Archives: art

Dinner with Jesus, 2

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I found this title jotted in my drafts, and it has inspired a second post.

Occasionally I see humorous comments about the famous paintings of the Last Supper in which Our Lord and the Apostles are seated together at a long table, with everyone facing front. This seems so strange to the modern viewer that it inspires jokes. But it’s actually quite a common way of seating people, besides being simply a useful artistic form.

Here’s Mr. da Vinci’s famous version:

There are plenty of depictions with the group seated around a table on all sides, too. For example:

or:

or:

These may well be designed to fit within the illuminated letter, thus the careful arrangement of the table so that all the people can be seen despite the small space.

THAT said, there are real instances of people eating along one side of a table. This usually involves the food being served from the center of the dining hall with the tables arranged in long rows on each side, or the orientation of the tables to allow the diners to watch some important feature (for instance an important person’s table at the front of a great hall, or the entertainment being provided in the center or front of the room or on a stage).

In Brazil young couples sometimes sit on the same side of the table at restaurants so they can whisper, cuddle, and people watch while eating.

Here are a couple of illustrations of refectories in monasteries where the monks are eating on the same side of the table, and service is from the free (center) side. This is still found in some monasteries today.

And one of a royal banquet:

Pets

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A recent search for squirrels turned up so many fun images of people with pets we don’t see as often anymore. Here are a bunch I liked:

A boy with a flying squirrel on a chain:

Here’s a Lady with a pet Ermine, painted by da Vinci:

A boy and his dog:

A man with a Capuchin monkey:

A lady with a cat:

And a bunny for good measure:

A joyful visit

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I love this painting of the Annunciation and Visitation for the joyfulness it carries. Not only in the bold colors but also in the comportment of Our Lady and Saint Isabel (Elizabeth).

What’s really cool about this painting is that it’s the outside of the doors of a retablo that opened above an altar.

Inside you would see the following:

This latter gives a good idea of the scale of the piece. It is in a museum, but I have not found the history of it, for which Church it was originally built and so on. It would have been quite dramatic above an altar, and candlelit.

Someone once pointed out, and it stuck with me, that traditional European sacred art was intended to be viewed in light filtered through stained glass and candlelight. And so when it is displayed in electric light, especially very bright light, you do not have the same experience. Especially in regards to candlelight, which tends to flicker and move, which makes for a certain ‘living, breathing’ quality to the images.

Where’s my atelier?

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Some frustrations in recent years have revolved around an intense desire to make beautiful things running into a lack of skill or time to make them combined with a lack of available skilled people to pay to do them for us. Several friends and I have formed an unofficial ‘atelier’ (the common Brazilian-via-French term for an artist’s studio) where we do all sorts of little projects. The atelier isn’t even in a fixed location, though we sometimes work at each others’ houses and we share materials.

Some recent projects have included: experimenting with making arrangements of artificial flowers, painted gold, in imitation of the metal flowers found on baroque Brazilian altars; making rosaries; designing embroidery for altar linens or chasubles; sewing altar frontals; redoing the decoration on old chasubles; and making robes and dresses for religious statues.

Some of the work has been partially outsourced to shops, but there we frequently run into our own problem. The professionals are so overburdened and behind schedule that it can take many months just to hear that they haven’t yet started on your project…

Most of the professionals are family businesses, with a mom or dad being the main artisan, and the kids and spouse helping out with simpler tasks, accounting or deliveries. In other words, there’s really just one person doing all the work, and they don’t want to turn away anyone who wants work done. There’s also a tendency here to give priority to higher status people or people with urgent deadlines (ordinations, for instance) so the line is constantly being jumped by priority clients, leaving others in a never-ending tail end. Thus the desire to do it my darn self…

I then realize my own line is just as slow that of the pros. In a fantasy life I’d have a workshop full of diligent elves making all my ideas to order. It feels a bit of a shame to have a head so full of ideas and not enough hands or skill to make them.

Dress success!

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I’m pleased enough with this gold underdress with red overdress! The gold underdress was a challenge, but today I set about adding lace and that improved it quite a bit:

I’m starting to agree with a friend of mine who joked that we’d all be better off if we just decorated the entire world with ribbons and lace. I’m thinking lace collars need to make a comeback. We used to dress is such elaborate clothing. How dull our modern tendency to sportswear, tee-shirts, jeans and so on.
All the lace on…
I tacked down the white lace so that the hands are visible.
I trimmed the red overdress and added a hook and eye to hold it shut and snaps to hold back the corners so the underdress shows.
There ya go! Tomorrow I’ll start on the blue mantle!