Art & Theology

Roundup: Tea with strangers, church forests of Ethiopia, and more

May 23, 2025January 14, 2026 Victoria Emily Jones3 Comments

CHILDREN’S BOOK: Let There Be Light by Desmond Tutu, illustrated by Nancy Tillman: I saw this enchanting little book at my local library recently—a retelling of the creation narrative from Genesis 1 by the late South African Anglican bishop, theologian, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu. Published by Zonderkidz in 2014, it opens, “In the very beginning, God’s love bubbled over when there was nothing else . . .” Hear it read aloud, and view the illustrations, in this video from the Seuss’s Gooses YouTube channel:

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ARTICLES:

>> “Artist Traveled to Over 30 Cities to Perform Tea Ceremony with Strangers,” an interview with Pierre Sernet by Jessica Stewart: From 2001 to 2008, artist Pierre Sernet (French-born and residing in Japan) traveled to over thirty countries to spontaneously enact abbreviated Japanese tea ceremonies, inviting passersby to come sit and drink the cup of matcha he prepared in front of them. From deserts and beaches to villages and construction sites, he would set up a portable, open-air wooden cube that denoted the “tea room,” and the ensuing encounters were documented with photography. Called One (and nicknamed Guerrilla Tea), the series was meant to promote respect across cultures and “to emphasize to viewers the importance of each moment we live in.”

Denilson, Niteroi, Brazil, 2002
Kheth and Mayndevi, Jaisalmer, India, 2005
Shinya, Rockefeller Center, New York, 2001

View more photos at https://pierresernet.com/one/.

>> “A Teeter-Totter Style Bench Invites Sitters to Find Common Ground” by Grace Ebert: “In the Garden of Generations in Einbeck, Germany, a playful new installation asks park goers to find equilibrium with their neighbors. ‘Balance Bench” is the latest project of Berlin-based artist Martin Binder. Installed in his hometown, the interactive artwork rests on a central cylinder rather than four legs, requiring that at least two people sit on either side to level. ‘It cannot be used alone—it demands awareness, consensus, and cooperation between people to become a functional public space,’ he says.”

Binder, Martin_Balance Bench — Martin Binder (German, 1990–), *Balance Bench*, 2025. Steel, oak. Installation at the Garden of Generations, Einbeck, Germany. Construction by Henning Müller Sondermaschinen. Photo by Spieker Fotografie.

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PHOTO SERIES: Hierotopia by Kieran Dodds: “Kieran Dodds (Scottish, b. 1980) is a non-fiction photographer known for his research-driven photo stories and portraiture. His personal work considers the interplay of environment and culture, and the importance of spiritual belief in global conservation.” In his Hierotopia series (from the Greek for “sacred place”), carried out from 2015 to 2018, he explores the green “church forests” east of Lake Tana in Ethiopia—little islands of biodiversity scattered throughout the region’s desert landscape. “To its guardians,” Dodds writes, “each forest resembles a miniature Garden of Eden and is essential to the dignity of the building. . . . The air inside the forests is cool, fragrant and filled with a cacophony of life. This is in stark contrast to the arid silence of the surrounding land which is feeling the strain of centuries of human activity and agriculture.”

Dodds, Kieran_Hierotopia — Debre Mihret Arbiatu Ensesa church near Anbesame, Ethiopia, surrounded by woodland and fields. Photo: Kieran Dodds, from the *Hierotopia* series, 2015–18.

“The core Christian belief in stewardship for the environment is a powerful concept,” Dodds continues, remarking on the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church’s commitment to conservation, “and, if applied globally by people who are at least nominally Christian, could transform the world for better.”

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SONGS:

>> “Hold You in Our Circle” by Emily Roblyn: This simple song of blessing by UK-based singer-songwriter and retreat leader Emily Roblyn has been sung at the bedsides of the sick or dying, over women about to be released from prison, and through myriad other life transitions and trials, by friends and communities seeking to voice their support. “We hold you in our circle, hold you in our love.” [HT: Nadia Bolz-Weber]

>> “The Lord Bless You and Keep You” by Peter C. Lutkin: Performed by the Capital University Chapel Choir in 2020, this song is a choral setting by the Midwestern composer Peter C. Lutkin (1858–1931) of the Aaronic Blessing from Numbers 6:24–26: (in Lutkin’s rendering) “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD lift his countenance upon you, and give you peace; the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious unto you.” God instructed the Levitical priests of ancient Israel to pronounce these words over the people, and though the Levitical priesthood is no more, this particular benediction is still used regularly in Jewish and Christian liturgies.

“Easter Song” by Sedulius Scottus, trans. Helen Waddell

May 19, 2025January 19, 2026 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Illustration by Virginie Cognet — Virginie Cognet, *Danse*, 2023. Gouache on satin-finish watercolor paper, 70 × 50 cm.

Last night did Christ the Sun rise from the dark,
     The mystic harvest of the fields of God,
And now the little wandering tribes of bees
     Are brawling in the scarlet flowers abroad.
The winds are soft with birdsong; all night long
     Darkling the nightingale her descant told,
And now inside church doors the happy folk
     The Alleluia chant a hundredfold.
O Father of thy folk, be thine by right
The Easter joy, the threshold of the light.

This English translation of Sedulius Scottus’s “Carmen paschale” originally appeared in Mediaeval Latin Lyrics by Helen Waddell (Henry Holt, 1929) and is in the public domain.

Sedulius Scottus (fl. 840–860) was an early medieval Irish monk, poet, teacher, and biblical commentator. (He is not to be confused with the fifth-century poet Caelius Sedulius, who also wrote a [much longer] Carmen paschale, consisting of five books.) Driven out of his monastery by Viking invaders, Sedulius settled in the city of Liège under the protection of Bishop Hartgar. While living in exile on the Continent, he established himself as a leading literary figure of the Carolingian Renaissance. One of his most important works is De Rectoribus Christianis (On Christian Rulers), an instructional treatise on governing and a noteworthy contribution to Christian ethics. Sedulius was at least trilingual, proficient in Irish, Greek, and Latin. Eighty-three of his poems survive, composed in a variety of classical meters and ranging from mock heroic epics and philosophical puzzles to hymns of praise and drinking songs.

Helen Waddell (1889–1965) was a medieval literature scholar, historical novelist, playwright, and translator (from medieval French and Latin to English) who was awarded the Benson Medal of the Royal Society of Literature. She was born in Tokyo to an Irish Presbyterian missionary family, spending the first eleven years of her life in Japan. She was later educated in Belfast, Oxford, and Paris and became part of a circle of friends in London that included W. B. Yeats, Virginia Woolf, and Siegfried Sassoon. In addition to writing, she worked as a literary adviser and reader for the esteemed publisher Constable. She is the subject of an award-winning biography by Dame Felicitas Corrigan, published in 1986.

Addendum, 1/19/26: The hymn-writer Dan Damon has composed a beautiful, singable setting of this text, available from Hope Publishing Company. He told me he was inspired by reading this post.

Roundup: Ellsworth Kelly’s “Austin,” new book by Jonathan Anderson, religion in pop art, and more

May 15, 2025May 19, 2025 Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

PRINT INTERVIEWS:

>> “What Remains: The Making of Ellsworth Kelly’s Last Work,” Image interview with Rick Archer: I got to experience Ellsworth Kelly’s Austin—a modernist “chapel” containing three stained glass windows, fourteen black-and-white marble panels (Stations of the Cross), and a redwood totem—while in Texas for a CIVA conference in 2021; see some of my photos below. Kelly was an atheist inspired by Romanesque church architecture, and the architect he chose to collaborate with on Austin, Rick Archer, is a Christian. In this wonderful new interview by Bruce Buescher, Archer discusses his working relationship with Kelly, Kelly’s desire for randomization and form over meaning, the technical and architectural challenges of bringing Kelly’s vision to life, religious references, and the artist’s objective for the space. “I hope when people go in here, they will experience joy,” Archer remembers Kelly saying.

Ellsworth Kelly (American, 1923–2015), Austin, 1986/2015. Artist-designed building with colored glass windows, black-and-white marble panels, and redwood totem, 63 × 76 × 28 ft. Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones.

>> “The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art: An interview with Jonathan A. Anderson” by Matthew J. Milliner: Jonathan Anderson [previously] is one of the most important people working across the disciplines of art and theology, and I’m thrilled that his book The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art is now available from the University of Notre Dame Press!

In this recent interview for Comment magazine, Anderson explains his purpose in writing the book:

I have become increasingly convinced that so many pivotal artists and artworks over the past century are deeply shaped by religious traditions and seriously engaged in theological questioning, but this remains severely under-interpreted or misinterpreted in the scholarship about these artists. One might see these threads running through an artist’s artworks and personal writings and even discuss these topics with the artist in their studio, but when one moves to the scholarly writing and teaching about that same artist, that language consistently disappears or is transposed into another register—usually politics, occasionally a highly esoteric spirituality. I wanted to understand, at a non-superficial level, why this was the case, and I wanted to see how other ways of speaking and writing about this topic might be possible.

Don’t miss, at the end of the article, his three hopes for the field of “art and theology,” which I very much share!

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LECTURE: “The Problems and Possibilities of Visual Theology: The Ascension as a Case Study” by Jonathan A. Anderson: With Ascension Day coming up on May 29, it’s timely to share this talk given by Jonathan Anderson (see previous roundup item) a few years ago at Duke Divinity School, where he worked as a postdoctoral associate of theology and the visual arts from 2020 to 2023. Anderson explores a handful of images depicting the Ascension of Christ, a particularly challenging subject because of the spatial ambiguity. The scriptural accounts of the event (Luke 24:50–53 and Acts 1:6–11) beg the question, “What does ‘lifted up’ mean? Where is Jesus?” Attempting to work out these spatial difficulties visually can be theologically and exegetically productive, Anderson claims—even if it sometimes leads to unsatisfying results, as, Anderson says, it often does in Western art from the Renaissance onward. By contrast, when artists foster intertextual readings across the biblical canon and focus not so much on what the Ascension looks like as a historical event but rather on what it means, they are generally more successful.

Here are some time stamps, with links to the artworks discussed:

15:22: Giotto, Mantegna, Adriaen van Overbeke, John Singleton Copley, etc.
22:17: Reidersche Tafel [previously], compared to a Byzantine manuscript illumination of Moses Receiving the Law (brilliant!)
30:53: Rabbula Gospels [previously] and a Coptic apse mural
38:33: The Ascension by Andrei Rublev: “Fundamental to all [the Ascension icons of the East],” Anderson says, “is the notion that the Ascension doesn’t have much to do with a higher part of the atmosphere (which Western images are continually struggling with) but with an entirely different kind of space. The relevant coordinates here are not down and up, or even higher and lower, but earth and heaven, old creation and new creation.” Anderson’s quotation of Douglas B. Farrow’s Ascension Theology is illuminating!
43:51: The Risen Christ (The Ascension) by Rebecca Dulcibella Orpen
44:30: Interior of the katholikon (principal church) of Hosios Loukas
53:40: Q&A

Katholikon of Hosios Loukas monastery, Boeotia, Greece, 1011–12

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INSTRUMENTAL JAZZ: “Prayer” by Cory Wong: This video shows a live performance of Cory Wong’s “Prayer” on July 4, 2023, at Gesù music hall in Montreal. Wong, on guitar at far left, is joined by Ariel Posen on guitar, Victor Wooten on bass, and Nate Smith on drums. I learned about Wong through his collaborative album with Jon Batiste, Meditations (2020), which includes a version of this piece featuring Batiste’s piano playing.

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EXHIBITION: OMG! Reli Popart, Museum Krona, Uden, Netherlands, April 5–September 7, 2025: This exhibition at Museum Krona (housed in the complex of the still-active Birgittine Abbey of Maria Refugie in Uden, Netherlands) explores the connection between the pop art movement and Christianity through works by artists such as Andy Warhol, Corita Kent, Niki de Saint Phalle, and especially Dutch artists, including Woody van Amen and Wim Delvoye. Pop art is characterized by the use of imagery from popular culture, sourced from television, magazines, comic books, ads—and sometimes from the trash bin.

Jacques Frenken [previously], for example, built a body of work by salvaging discarded plaster sculptures of Christ and the saints—mass-produced for Catholic devotional use—and reconstructing them into assemblages. For his Spijkerpiëta, he “brought the Pietà back into our midst and accentuated the pain it radiates with nails,” the artist said.

Frenken, Jacques_Spijkerpieta — Jacques Frenken (Dutch, 1929–2022), *Spijkerpiëta* (Nail Pietà), 1967. Plaster, paint, iron, wood. Museum Krona, Uden, Netherlands.

Another artist represented in the exhibition is Hans Truijen, who was commissioned in the 1960s by St. Martin’s Church in Maastricht to design eight stained glass windows for their worship space. The four along the left aisle of the nave depict human and divine suffering, whereas those on the right express hope, love, freedom, and happiness. He chose photographic images from various periodicals, including ones of the Vietnam War, and transferred them to glass using a special screen-printing process.

Truijen, Hans_Stained glass — Hans Truijen (Dutch, 1928–2005), Studies for the eight stained glass windows commissioned by St. Martinuskerk, Wyck-Maastricht, Netherlands, 1966–68. Courtesy of the artist’s son, Marc Truijen.

Mother-child artworks by Elizabeth Catlett

May 10, 2025 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Last month I saw the exhibition Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, an impactful display of over two hundred prints and sculptures from throughout Catlett’s illustrious seven-decade career. Organized in partnership with the Brooklyn Museum of Art, where it first opened last year, the show focuses on Catlett’s advocacy, through her art and her on-the-ground activism, against poverty, racism, war, and gender oppression—her promotion of human dignity and freedom for all. Her work especially celebrates the beauty and strength of African American working-class women.

The exhibition title comes from a speech Catlett delivered in May 1970 by phone from Mexico to attendees at the Conference on the Functional Aspects of Black Art at Northwestern University outside Chicago, which she could not attend in person because the United States refused her entry to the country on the grounds of her allegedly dangerous politics: “I have been, and am currently, and always hope to be a Black revolutionary artist, and all that it implies,” Catlett stated.

Born in 1915 in Washington, DC, and raised there, Catlett witnessed class inequality, racial discrimination, and US imperialism firsthand, which formed her consciousness and influenced the direction her art would go. After graduating from Howard University, she spent time teaching in Durham (North Carolina), New Orleans, and Harlem and studying art in Iowa and Chicago before permanently settling in Mexico in 1946, becoming a Mexican citizen in 1962. She married the Mexican printmaker and muralist Francisco Mora in 1947, and they had three children together, all sons.

Black motherhood is a recurring subject in Catlett’s work, starting with her MFA thesis project in 1941 at the University of Iowa, a limestone sculpture of a mother and child that won first prize at the America Negro Exposition in Chicago that year but that is now lost. “Black women have been cast in the role of carrying on the survival of Black people through their position as mothers and wives, protecting and educating and stimulating children and Black men,” Catlett said. “We can learn from Black women. They have had to struggle for centuries.”

The social justice framework of the current retrospective exhibition leaves plenty of room for Catlett’s depictions of mothers with their children. What follows are photos I took of some such works.

Catlett, Elizabeth_Mother and Child — Elizabeth Catlett (American, active in Mexico, 1915–2012), *Mother and Child*, 1956. Terracotta, 28.6 × 17.8 × 17.8 cm (11 1/4 × 7 × 7 in.). Museum of Modern Art, New York.

My favorite is a terracotta sculpture made just a year after the lynching of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till, whose mother Mamie Till’s response was an important catalyst of the civil rights movement. It brings two bodies—that of mother and infant son—into one volume. Art historian Leah Dickerman remarks on

the uncanny way that it seems both intimate and monumental at once. Intimacy lies in the way the weight of the child’s face presses against the mother’s breast, the mother’s right leg pushed back to stabilize her balance and her head nestled against the child’s scalp, breathing in that smell. Tenderness, both affectionate and shielding, is conveyed so keenly it almost aches. . . . Catlett seems to capture, somehow, the idea of remembering something fleeting, the sculpture a tiny memorial to loving protection that cannot be maintained.

Catlett, Elizabeth_Mother and Child (detail)

Platformed across from this sculpture is another, in mahogany, this one modernist, abstracted:

It shows a mother holding her baby in a swaddle, his or her head gleefully poking out from the folds. While the baby seems happy, the mother seems stressed, as she turns her head away and grabs her head with her hand, which I interpret as her taking a deep breath to compose herself for several more hours of caregiving before bedtime.

Another mahogany sculpture is borrowed from the New Orleans Museum of Art:

The adjacent wall text quotes art historian Melanie Anne Herzog, author of Elizabeth Catlett: An American Artist in Mexico:

Becoming a mother, Catlett told me, was her most creative endeavor. She returned to the theme of maternity throughout her career in sculptures that illuminate the intimate physical bond between mother and child, a child’s comfort in its mother’s embrace, and the anguish of mothers who know they cannot protect their children from future harm. Catlett’s boldly corporeal rendering of maternity centers Black and Brown women in her depiction of this universal theme. I feel the fierce tenderness of this stately standing figure cradling her child, its body melded with hers. Her pensive expression and resolute stance call us to reflect on what she has endured and what her child, too, will encounter in the world that awaits.

One of Catlett’s earliest prints of the mother-child subject is a lithograph from 1944:

The label notes how it “recasts Christian Madonna and Child iconography in the context of a racially segregated United States. A leafless tree in the background and the mother’s protective clutch hint at the brutal history of lynching and violence against Black people.”

Even after her move to Mexico, Catlett remained connected to the Black liberation struggle in the US. Her Torture of Mothers from 1970 is based on the photograph by Bud Lee published on the cover of Life magazine’s July 28, 1967, issue, showing a twelve-year-old Black boy lying in a pool of his own blood in the middle of a street in Newark, New Jersey, having been shot by two stray police bullets. The police were trying to suppress the riots that had erupted in protest of the beating of a Black cab driver in Newark by two white police officers, and while Joe Bass Jr. was outside playing with his friends, he got caught in the crossfire.

Catlett, Elizabeth_Torture of Mothers — Elizabeth Catlett (American, active in Mexico, 1915–2012), *Torture of Mothers*, 1970. Hand-colored lithograph, sheet: 38.1 × 56.5 cm (15 × 22 1/4 in.); framed: 48.3 × 66 cm (19 × 26 in.). Collection of Juanita and Melvin Hardy.

“Catlett’s composition visualizes the emotional toll such events have on Black mothers and women of color more broadly,” the gallery label reads—mothers whose minds are continually haunted by the racial violence, sometimes even state-authorized, that threatens the safety of their boys. “While Catlett was tracking police brutality in the US, she was also aware of similar state violence against Mexican youth, including the mass shooting of student protestors in 1968 by police at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México where Catlett taught.”

Several of the mothers in Catlett’s art are posed in a protective embrace that seeks to shield their children from harm. The arms of her 1982 Madonna, for example, wrap around a son and a daughter, though her averted eyes look worried:

Catlett, Elizabeth_Madonna — Elizabeth Catlett (American, active in Mexico, 1915–2012), *Madonna*, 1982. Lithograph, sheet: 76.2 × 56.5 cm (30 × 22 1/4 in.). Stanley Museum of Art, University of Iowa, Iowa City.

In African American families, children are often raised by their grandmothers. Reflecting adaptability and support, such kinship care is memorialized in These Two Generations, which shows in profile a young boy and the primary maternal figure and caregiver in his life: his grandma.

Catlett, Elizabeth_These Two Generations — Elizabeth Catlett (American, active in Mexico, 1915–2012), *These Two Generations*, 1979, printed 1987. Lithograph, image: 48.3 x 55.7 cm (19 x 21 15/16 in.); sheet: 56.7 x 76.2 cm (22 5/16 x 30 in.); framed: 69.9 x 80 cm (27 1/2 x 31 1/2 in.). Collection of Otis and Harryette Robertson.

Skipping ahead to this millennium, the exhibition includes Danys y Liethis, a portrait of the artist’s niece and great-niece:

Catlett, Elizabeth_Danys y Liethis — Elizabeth Catlett (American, active in Mexico, 1915–2012), *Danys y Liethis*, 2005. Offset lithograph, sheet: 71 × 50.8 cm (27 15/16 × 20 in.); framed: 91.4 × 71.1 cm (36 × 28 in.). Collection of Barbara J. Luke.

Lastly, suspended from the ceiling at the exhibition’s entrance/exit, is Catlett’s most unique mother-child sculpture, Floating Family:

Catlett, Elizabeth_Floating Family — Elizabeth Catlett (American, active in Mexico, 1915–2012), *Floating Family*, 1995. Mexican primavera wood, overall length: 304.8 cm (120 in.). Collection of the Chicago Public Library.

It’s striking! Art historian Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt writes beautifully about it on her Substack, whose words I’ll close with:

In many of her depictions of motherhood, Catlett unifies the mother and child into a single form, emphasizing their intimacy. But I’ve been thinking about her large-scale sculpture Floating Family, which usually hangs above the circulation desk at the Legler Branch of the Chicago Public Library. Here, mother and daughter are still tethered together, but instead of standing upright they are now perfectly horizontal. Are they maple seed pods, spinning and falling to the earth to plant something new? Or a rotor, lifting upwards, leaving gravity behind? Despite the seeming precarity of the moment, the mother’s face is calm and set, and the daughter looks up at her, trusting.

I imagine that it does something different in the context of a library than as the closing object in a museum retrospective. For me in October, after seeing so many sculptures of mothers cuddling their children close, this work evoked the particular terror and thrill of parenting adolescents. Now, it suggests more than that: the labor and love we give not only our children but our communities and the way that hope can sometimes feel like a free fall.

Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist will continue through July 6, 2025, at the National Gallery of Art before traveling to the Art Institute of Chicago for its final leg from August 30, 2025, to January 4, 2026. You can purchase the exhibition catalog here and view some of my other photos on Instagram.

Roundup: “Harrowing of Hades” audio drama, Easter chant in Arabic, and more

May 7, 2025May 7, 2025 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

HYMN TEXT: “Lights” by Kate Bluett: Kate Bluett [previously] is a Catholic poet and lyricist from North Texas who frequently participates in cross-denominational music collaborations. Her work has been published by Oregon Catholic Press and GIA Publications and recorded by the Porter’s Gate and Paul Zach, among others. I enjoy following her at https://katebluett.home.blog/, where she regularly shares new metrical verses she has written, tied to the liturgical calendar. Last Eastertide she published a text called “Lights,” which muses on candle flames, stars, and other light sources as reflections of the light of the risen Christ.

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AUDIO DRAMA: Anastasis: The Harrowing of Hades by Creative Orthodox: Creative Orthodox is the moniker of Michael Elgamal, a Coptic Orthodox artist and storyteller born in Egypt and living in Canada. Last May he released an audio drama, adapted from a graphic novel, about Christ’s epic descent into the underworld to reclaim the Old Testament righteous. This theatrical medium, which relies on voice acting, sound effects, and music to tell a story, was a very popular form of entertainment in the 1920s–40s before the advent of television but is much rarer today—which is a shame, because I find it really engaging! See the YouTube description for a full list of credits (script, score, actors, etc.).

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BLOG POST: “Iconography of the Descent of Jesus Christ into Hell” by Daria Chechko: A brief history and compilation of Anastasis icons.

Dionysius (Russian, ca. 1440–ca. 1508), Christ’s Descent into Hades, from Ferapontov Monastery, ca. 1495–1504. Tempera on wood, 31.2 × 10.5 cm. State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg.

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SONGS:

>> “Christ Is Risen” (لمسيح قام) by Ribale Wehbé: Ribale Wehbé is a Lebanese singer specializing in Byzantine chant. Here she sings a traditional Easter chant in Arabic, arranged by Joseph Yazbeck.

>> “Hallelujah, Hosanna” (हाल्लेलुयाह होशन्ना) by One Tribe: Originally written in Tamil by pastors Dudley Thangaiah and Paul Thangaiah, “Hallelujah, Hosanna” is sung here in Hindi by the Indian Christian worship collective One Tribe. Turn on “CC” for closed captioning, and view the full credits in the YouTube video description. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

>> “He Did Rise” by Monroe Crossing: A bluegrass song about the women’s discovery of the empty tomb on Easter morning, written by Mark Anderson and performed here by his band, Monroe Crossing, at a music festival in Lexington, Kentucky, in 2009. Anderson is on the double bass. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

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SPOTIFY PLAYLIST: May 2025 (Art & Theology): An assortment of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, old and new. For my Easter-specific playlist from 2022 (with a smattering of new additions since, including a large batch from Cardiphonia at the bottom), see here.

Types of Christ’s resurrection in the Eton Roundels

May 5, 2025May 6, 2025 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

The medieval manuscript known as the Eton Roundels is a brief typological picture sequence produced in the English Midlands (possibly Worcester) in the mid-thirteenth century. Typology is a mode of Christian biblical interpretation in which certain Old Testament figures, events, or objects are seen as foreshadowing New Testament figures or events, especially Christ. Art historian Avril Henry says the Eton Roundels came into being at about the same time as the Biblia pauperum, a tradition of picture Bibles forming the largest and best-known compendium of typological imagery and verses.

The Eton manuscript consists of twelve pages of pictures, each with a large roundel at the center picturing a New Testament event (the “antitype”) and four surrounding smaller roundels depicting the Old Testament (and occasionally classical) “types” and prophets. Each page also includes a half-roundel on the left and right inhabited by anonymous figures who probably simply represent onlookers. A crowned female Virtue is seated at the bottom of each page, under whom is written a biblical commandment whose relevance to the pictures is sometimes difficult to discern. These pages are bound together with an Apocalypse, but it’s unknown whether the two works were conceived together from the start; it’s only certain that they were combined by the late seventeenth century.

The maker, scriptorium or city of origin, original recipient (and whether religious or lay), and purpose of the Eton Roundels are also unknown. Presumably the manuscript’s function was meditational.

The artist didn’t invent any of the typological correspondences illustrated in the roundels; they were all already common currency.

Below are the two Resurrection-themed pages, with a breakdown of the illustrations, including translations of the Latin inscriptions. The translations are by Avril Henry and are from his book The Eton Roundels: Eton College, MS 177 (‘Figurae bibliorum’)—A colour facsimile with transcription, translation and commentary (Scolar Press, 1990). This book is an excellent resource for learning more about the manuscript and is the only place I’m aware of where you can view all twelve pages.

Thank you to Sally Jennings, Collections Administrator at Eton College Library, and Dr. Carlotta Barranu, Library Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the time of my research, who provided me with photographs and translations prior to my gaining access to Henry’s book.

Folio VIII (5v)

“Three Women at the Tomb,” etc., from the Eton Roundels manuscript, English Midlands, 1260–70. Eton College Library, MS 177, fol. VIII. Reproduced by permission of the Provost and Fellows of Eton College.

↑ Center: Three Women at the Tomb (Mark 16:1–8)

“Because God came forth and God lives after burial, the event filled with mystery is the key to the tomb.”

↑ Top left: Jonah Leaves the Fish (Jonah 2:11; cf. Matt. 12:38–41)

“Jonas. Just as he whom the belly of the sea-creature had enclosed is brought forth unharmed, at a glorious command life rose up from the tomb.”

↑ Top right: A Lion Revivifies Its Young

“By [its] breath the lion brings its cub back to life.”

This statement refers to a piece of lore found in the third-century Physiologus and its descendants, the medieval bestiaries, according to which lion cubs are born dead but are brought back to life three days later by their father’s breath. This (fictitious) leonine behavior was seen to reflect the Father raising the Son from the tomb on Easter morning.

↑ Bottom left: Job and Jonah (Job 19:26; Jonah 2:7)

“Job: And in my flesh I shall see God my [savior].
Jonah: Thou shalt lift up my life from corruption, O Lord my God.”

↑ Bottom right: Samson’s Escape from Gaza (Judg. 16:1–3)

“The imprisoned Samson escaped from Gaza and his enemies. Christ the stone, whom the stone covered, rose from the tomb.”

This roundel portrays Philistine soldiers of Gaza encircling the city gate to kill Samson the Israelite. But Samson escapes their watch unharmed, in a dramatic episode depicted on the following page (see below). The scene here is rarely depicted, whereas what follows in the narrative—Samson carrying the gates of Gaza—was a popular type of the Resurrection. Notice how the soldiers parallel the sleeping ones in the central scene, both groups bested by God’s power.

Folio IX (6r)

↑ Center: Christ Opens Limbo (1 Pet. 3:19; 4:6; Eph. 4:8–10)

“The gates having been broken and the prince of death bound, the body of the elect is carried to the stars in the heavens.”

Christ’s Descent into Limbo, or the Harrowing of Hell, is an episode inferred from a few enigmatic biblical verses and elaborated in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, it is the primary icon of the Resurrection: Christ breaking down the gates of hell to rescue his predeceased beloveds from death and Satan. Medieval artists in the West were also fond of picturing the Harrowing, often portraying the entrance to hell as a monstrous maw (called a “hellmouth”).

↑ Top left: David Saves the Lamb from the Bear (1 Sam. 17:34–37)

“David. The bear is carrying off a sheep. David assists [the sheep], and takes it back. In the same way, man is saved by Christ and death is slain.”

David, who was a shepherd before he was anointed king of Israel, figures Christ in how he fiercely protected the lambs in his care, intervening to save them whenever they were snatched away by a lion or bear; he’d pry open the beast’s jaws, free the lamb, and then strike the beast dead, he relays to Saul. In a similar manner, Christ pried open the jaws of hell to save his precious sheep.

↑ Top right: Samson Kills the Lion (Judg. 14:5–8)

“Samson. The strength of Samson conquered the lion and tore [it] to pieces, and Christ conquers defeated hell together with the dragon.”

When Samson went down to the vineyards of Timnah to seek a wife, he encountered a fearsome lion, and “the spirit of the LORD rushed on him, and he tore the lion apart barehanded” (Judg. 14:6). This was Samson’s first display of divine empowerment.

↑ Bottom left: Hosea and the Erythraean Sibyl (Hosea 13:14; Augustine, PL XLI 579)

“Hosea: O death, I will be your death; O hell, I will be your torment.
Sibyl: The seeker will break the gates of the hideous underworld.”

The Sybilline Oracles is a collection of ancient Greek prophecies ascribed to the pagan sibyls (but many of which were actually written by Jews and Christians). Several of the church fathers cited them in defense of Christianity. The Erythraean Sibyl, for example, is said to have foretold the coming of Christ through an acrostic whose initial letters spell out “Ιησόύς Χριστός Θεου Ύίος Σωτηρ Σταύρος” (Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior, Cross). (See Eusebius’s Oration of Constantine, chap. 18.) She appears in the floor mosaic at Siena Cathedral, the stained glass at Beauvais Cathedral, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, the Van Eycks’ Ghent Altarpiece, and a number of other medieval and Renaissance Christian artworks.

↑ Bottom right: Samson and the Gates of Gaza (Judg. 16:1–3)

“By carrying off the gates, Samson robbed Gaza. Robbing hell, Christ entered heaven.”

To break free of the Gazites, Samson tore the doors of the city gates off their hinges and carried them away, a demonstration of triumph. This feat prefigured Christ’s breaking out of his tomb. It can also be read, as on this Eton folio, as a prefigurement of Christ’s storming the gates of hell to release those held captive by the devil.

Roundup: Multilingual Paschal greeting, Easter sermon by N. T. Wright, the Myrrhbearers and the Magi, and more

April 30, 2025April 30, 2025 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

VIDEO: “The Lord is Risen! Proclaimed by people from 29 countries”: This video was put out in 2020 by ICF Rotterdam, an intercultural church in the Netherlands whose congregation consists of members from over forty nations! They asked a handful of them to recite the Paschal greeting in their native tongue, so represented here are Indonesian, Chinese, Zulu, Igbo, Urdu, Nepali, Kurdish, Romanian, and more. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

Wycliffe Bibliafordítók (Wycliffe Bible Translators) in Hungary produced a similar video last year:

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SERMON: “Let Beauty Awake” by N. T. Wright: One of the things I love about the Anglican cleric N. T. Wright’s preaching and teaching is the importance he places on beauty. (I actually met Wright once—and it was at an arts conference.) In this sermon, which he preached at Durham Cathedral on Easter Sunday 2009, he takes as his text what I’ve heard him say is his favorite chapter in the Bible, John 20, and discusses how in Jesus’s rising, the glory of God was let loose in all the world.

“Easter carries with it a strange and powerful beauty,” he says. “I hope that, by exploring the biblical roots of why this is so, I may have surprised some of you at least into asking, afresh, What can we do to celebrate, more consciously and deliberately, the reawakening of beauty which comes with the light of Easter Day? How can we take this forward, as an explicit project, so that a world so full of ugliness and functionality, and in consequence so full of unbelief or false belief, can once again be wooed into belief and love?”

He opens the sermon by quoting a stanza from a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, and near the close, he reprises it in his own words, which were developed into a song by Steve Bell:

Let Beauty awake in the morn from the cool of the grave,
Beauty awake from death;
Let Beauty awake,
For Jesus’ sake,
In the hour when the angels their silence break
And the garden is bright with His Breath.

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RECIPE: “Tsoureki: The Symbolic Greek Easter Bread”: On her blog The Liturgical Home (and on Instagram), Ashley Tumlin Wallace shares a recipe for tsoureki, a brioche-like sweet bread made by many Greek Christians on Easter. It is soft and fluffy, flavored with citrus, and decorated with red-dyed eggs!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ASHLEY WALLACE | CHRISTIAN LIVING (@ashleytumlinwallace)

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SPOKEN WORD + SONG: “Because He Lives” by Sharon Irving: Singer-songwriter, worship leader, and spoken word artist Sharon Irving [previously] recorded this video for City First Church Spring Creek’s virtual worship service for Easter 2020. It begins with an original spoken word piece, and then is followed by her singing the Gaither classic “Because He Lives.”

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SONG: “Sbab Dia Hidup” (Because He Lives) by Prison Akustik: The song “Because He Lives,” written in 1971 by Bill and Gloria Gaither, has made its way all around the world and has been translated into many languages. Here is the group Prison Akustik [previously] singing it in Indonesian.

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SUBSTACK POST: “Myrrhbearers & Magi” by Beth Felker Jones: In her Church Blogmatics post from last week, theologian Beth Felker Jones [previously] shares three new digital collages she made: one of the three myrrh-bearing women who discovered Jesus’s empty tomb, one of the three magi who brought gifts to the newborn Christ, and one that combines both groups of devoted witnesses. She provides descriptions of each and two original prayers, including the one below.

Holy Father, who accompanied your daughters on their way to the tomb, and in the power of your Spirit, turned their sorrow into joy, bring us too into the joy of those who found the tomb empty, and incorporate us, with them, into your resurrection life. With our sisters at the tomb that day, help us to say, “I have seen the Lord!” Amen.

Easter, Day 8: Sent

April 27, 2025April 26, 2025 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

—Matthew 28:16–20

Jesus said to [his disciples] again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

—John 20:21–22

LOOK: The Great Commission by He Qi

He Qi_Great Commission — He Qi (Chinese, 1950–), *The Great Commission*, 2017. Oil on canvas. [purchase giclée print]

In this painting by the Chinese artist He Qi (pronounced huh chee), Jesus holds a staff in his right hand (he is the Good Shepherd) and with the other points to the world outside Jerusalem’s gates, to which he calls his disciples to carry his all-renewing gospel. A modern cityscape rises up behind the figures, indicating that this call extends to the present era.

In the foreground, a minister baptizes a kneeling woman in red, their forms intercut with a fishing boat. The boat is a reference to Peter and Andrew’s original vocation as fishers and to Jesus’s promise, should they choose to follow him, to make them “fishers of people” (Matt. 4:19)—that is, gatherers of folks into the wide net of (proto-)Christian community, proclaiming and living out the kingdom of God in the power of God’s Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is represented as a dove sweeping down from the heavens, caressing the edge of Jesus’s halo. He’s the wind in the sails of the woman at the right, who goes forth into the darkness bearing the light of God’s word—her cheeks aglow with it, her feet eager to publish it abroad.

Her predecessors in the task of preaching the good news of Christ’s resurrection are portrayed in the background—the three women who first discovered the empty tomb and who then proceeded to “go quickly and tell” (Matt. 28:7).

LISTEN: “As the Father Sent Me” by Alana Levandoski, on Behold, I Make All Things New (2018)

As the Father sent me
So I send you

This is the final “artful devotion” post of this Easter season—but Eastertide continues until June 8! Spiritual director Tamara Hill Murphy explains on her Substack:

Easter Sunday marks the beginning of a week in the liturgical calendar known as the Easter Octave, followed by a seven-week festival called Eastertide, also referred to as the Great Fifty Days.

Beginning with the Feast of the Resurrection and including the Feast of the Ascension, Eastertide lasts fifty days, paralleling the forty days Christ spent on earth after His resurrection, plus the ten days the disciples spent waiting for the promised Spirit of Jesus. Exclamatory worship and celebratory feasting characterize the prayers and practices of Eastertide, which include invitations for baptism, thanksgiving, savoring beauty, feasting, play, and caring for creation. It is a time of celebration for the new creation that Jesus inaugurates for all of us.

So keep celebrating! I will continue posting Easter content throughout the season, just at a lesser frequency.

On this eighth day of Easter and ever forward, may you be filled with the transforming knowledge, excitement, and power of Christ’s resurrection, and go out and share it with the world.

Easter, Day 7: The Lamb Has Overcome

April 26, 2025April 25, 2025 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

LOOK: Adoration of the Lamb from Filotheou Monastery

Adoration of the Lamb (Athon fresco) — *Adoration of the Lamb*, 1765. Fresco in the exonarthex of the katholikon of Filotheou Monastery, Mount Athos, Greece.

LISTEN: “The Lamb Has Overcome” by Luke Morton, 2011 | Performed by Red River Hymnal, feat. Matt McCloskey, 2014

The Lamb has overcome
The Lamb has overcome
The battle’s done
And the victory is won
For the Lamb has overcome

No grave could hold him down
No grave could hold him down
Up from the ground
“He is risen!” was the sound
No grave could hold him down

At God’s right hand is he
At God’s right hand is he
Our Perfect Plea
As he lives to intercede
At God’s right hand is he

Refrain:
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
Glory be unto his name
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
Glory be unto his name

The table now is spread
The table now is spread
This wine and bread
Broken body and blood shed
The table now is spread

The day is drawing near
The day is drawing near
He shall appear
And will wipe away each tear
The day is drawing near [Refrain]

The Lamb has overcome
The Lamb has overcome
The battle’s done
And the victory is won
For the Lamb has overcome

Easter, Day 6: “Let us keep the festival”

April 25, 2025 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

LOOK: The Antioch “Chalice,” 6th century

Antioch Chalice (detail) — The Antioch “Chalice,” Byzantine (Syria), 500–550. Silver, silver-gilt, overall 7 11/16 × 7 1/16 × 6 in. (19.6 × 18 × 15.2 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo: Fr. Lawrence Lew, OP.

This Byzantine liturgical object was discovered in 1908 in Antioch on the Orontes (in modern-day Turkey, near the Syrian border) and is thought to be from the first half of the sixth century. Originally it was identified as a chalice, used in the celebration of the Eucharist, but more recent scholarship suggests that it was probably a standing oil lamp that was used in church.

The elaborate silver shell that encloses the plain silver bowl is covered in emblems of the renewal of life—vines, fruit, doves, a butterfly, a rabbit. There are also snails and a grasshopper! If indeed the object is a lamp, its flame would have reinforced Jesus’s self-identification as the light of the world.

Twelve seated human figures circle the bowl, two of which likely represent Christ, as each is surrounded by five figures in attitudes of directed reverence. One Christ figure (see the first photo below) is shown with a scroll draped over his left arm, representing his teaching. The other Christ, on the opposite side, is depicted as the resurrected Lord and giver of life; a lamb stands under his right arm, and beneath him, an eagle with outspread wings perches on a fruit basket.

Antioch Chalice — View 1, what I’ll call the front

The subordinate figures, all holding scrolls, may be apostles, or they may be philosophers of the classical age who, like the Hebrew prophets, had foretold the coming of Christ.

LISTEN: Christ lag in Todesbanden (Christ Lay in the Bonds of Death) (BWV 4) by J. S. Bach, 1707 | Words by Martin Luther, 1524 | Performed by Ensemble Orlando Fribourg at the Church of St. Michael’s College, Fribourg, Switzerland, 2016

Bach wrote this Easter cantata—one of his earliest works—at age twenty-two as part of his application for the post of organist at Divi Blasii church in Mühlhausen, Germany. (He got the job!) Its text and melody are taken from the hymn of the same name by Martin Luther, which was itself derived from the eleventh-century plainsong “Victimae paschali laudes.”

The twenty-two-minute cantata is divided into an opening instrumental movement, called a sinfonia, and seven vocal movements corresponding to the stanzas of Luther’s hymn. These are arranged symmetrically—chorus–duet–solo–chorus–solo–duet–chorus—with the focus on the high drama of the central fourth movement, which describes the battle between Life and Death.

Sinfonia

1. Choral
Christ lag in Todesbanden,
für unsre Sünd gegeben,
der ist wieder erstanden
und hat uns bracht das Leben.
Des wir sollen fröhlich sein,
Gott loben und dankbar sein
und singen Halleluja. Halleluja.

2. Duett (SA)
Den Tod niemand zwingen kunnt
bei allen Menschenkindern;
das macht alles unsre Sünd,
kein Unschuld war zu finden.
Davon kam der Tod so bald
und nahm über uns Gewalt,
hielt uns in seim Reich gefangen.
Halleluja.

3. Aria (T)
Jesus Christus, Gottes Sohn,
an unser Statt ist kommen
und hat die Sünde abgetan,
damit dem Tod genommen
all sein Recht und sein Gewalt;
da bleibt nichts denn Tods Gestalt,
den Stachel hat er verloren. Halleluja.

4. Choral
Es war ein wunderlich Krieg,
da Tod und Leben ’rungen;
das Leben, behielt den Sieg,
es hat den Tod verschlungen.
Die Schrift hat verkündet das,
wie ein Tod den andern fraß,
ein Spott aus dem Tod ist worden. Halleluja.

5. Duett (ST)
Hier ist das rechte Osterlamm,
davon wir sollen leben,
das ist an des Kreuzes Stamm
in heißer Lieb gegeben.
Des Blut zeichnet unsere Tür,
das hält der Glaub dem Tode für,
der Würger kann uns nicht rühren. Halleluja.

6. Aria (B)
So feiern wir das hoh Fest
mit Herzensfreud und Wonne,
das uns der Herre scheinen lässt.
Er ist selber die Sonne,
der durch seiner Gnaden Glanz
erleucht unsre Herzen ganz;
der Sünden Nacht ist vergangen. Halleluja.

7. Choral
Wir essen und leben wohl,
zum süßen Brot geladen;
der alte Sau’rteig nicht soll
sein bei dem Wort der Gnaden.
Christus will die Kost uns sein
und speisen die Seel allein;
der Glaub will keins andern leben. Halleluja.

Sinfonia

1. Chorale
Christ Jesus lay in death’s strong bands
for our offenses given;
but now at God’s right hand he stands
and brings us life from heaven.
Therefore let us joyful be
and sing to God right thankfully
loud songs of alleluia! Alleluia!

2. Duet (SA)
No son of man could conquer death,
such ruin sin had wrought us.
No innocence was found on earth,
and therefore death had brought us
into bondage from of old
and ever grew more strong and bold
and held us as its captive. Alleluia!


3. Aria (T)
Christ Jesus, God’s own Son, came down,
his people to deliver;
destroying sin, he took the crown
from death’s pale brow forever.
Stripped of pow’r, no more it reigns;
an empty form alone remains;
its sting is lost forever. Alleluia!

4. Chorale
It was a strange and dreadful strife
when life and death contended.
The victory remained with life,
the reign of death was ended.
Holy Scripture plainly saith
that death is swallowed up by death;
disgraced, it lies defeated. Alleluia!

5. Duet (ST)
Here the true Paschal Lamb we see,
whom God so freely gave us;
he died on the accursed tree—
so strong his love—to save us.
See, his blood now marks our door;
faith points to it; death passes o’er,
and Satan cannot harm us. Alleluia!

6. Aria (B)
So let us keep the festival
to which the Lord invites us;
Christ is himself the joy of all,
the sun that warms and lights us.
Now his grace to us imparts
eternal sunshine to our hearts;
the night of sin is ended. Alleluia!

7. Chorale
Then let us feast this Easter day
on Christ, the bread of heaven;
the Word of grace has purged away
the old and evil leaven.
Christ alone our souls will feed;
he is our meat and drink indeed;
faith lives upon no other! Alleluia!

Trans. Richard Massie, 1854