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Romare Bearden (American, 1911-1988), “Profile/Part II, The Thirties: Artist with Painting and Model,” 1981. Collage of various papers with fabric, foil, tape, paint, and graphite on fiberboard, 44 x 56 in. (111.8 x 142.2 cm). Collection of Glen and Lynn Tobias, currently on view at the @highmuseumofart, Atlanta, as part of the exhibition “Something Over Something Else”: Romare Bearden’s Profile Series. Bearden’s only known self-portrait, “Artist with Painting and Model” shows Bearden leaning against a reworking of his ca. 1941 gouache “The Visitation,” showing the biblical Mary and Elizabeth rejoicing in each other’s pregnancies. A color reproduction of Duccio’s “Road to Emmaus” from the Maestà altarpiece is taped against the wall behind his right elbow, and pencil studies of a nude woman (who’s modeling at the right) and an African mask lie at his feet. This collage is a form of pictorial autobiography, writes Sarah Kennel in the essay “Bearden’s Musée Imaginaire,” published in THE ART OF ROMARE BEARDEN. Bearden’s artistic identity was “formed by both early Renaissance and modern art, both the female nude and abstract visual form, both the specificity of African-American life and the universal aspects of ritual and myth”; this artwork represents “a richly layered, highly complex interaction not only between self and world but also between (art) history and the present” (p. 154). #africanamericanart #collage #selfportrait #visitation

Double-Sided Diptych with Mary and Her Son, and Saint George (front); Christ with the Crown of Thorns, and Saint Täklä Haymanot (back). Ethiopian (Gondar?), late 18th century. Tempera on wood, 3 7/16 x 4 x 5/8 in. (8.7 x 10.1 x 1.55 cm) (with one panel open). Walters Art Museum (@thewaltersartmuseum), Baltimore. Double-sided diptychs became popular among nobility in seventeenth-century Ethiopia as pendant icons worn suspended by a cord around the neck—and remained so until the nineteenth century. The outer doors of this one are painted with cross designs, while the inner surfaces reveal four portraits. The inside front shows St. George slaying the dragon (who is shown with only one eye, a hallmark in Ethiopian Orthodox painting of evil figures) opposite the Virgin and Child flanked by two archangels, a common image pairing in Ethiopian diptychs. Mary, dressed in a sweeping blue robe edged with yellow that covers her hair, supports her son on her lap and in her left hand holds a mappula (a type of handkerchief indicating church or imperial authority). Jesus holds a Gospel-book with one hand and with his other makes a blessing gesture. They both have a yellow halo around their heads. This form of the Virgin and Child was modeled after the Salus Populi Romani icon from Santa Maria Maggiore, first introduced into Ethiopia in print form by the Jesuits around 1600. But Ethiopian artists adapted the European model to their own aesthetic preferences, as evident by the short, cropped black hair of Christ and the angels and the vibrant coloration. The back of this pendant, when opened (but not pictured here), shows “Kwerata Reesu” (Christ Crowned with Thorns) and St. Täklä Haymanot, a thirteenth-century Ethiopian hermit-monk and bishop who founded a major monastery in his native province of Shewa; he is represented in icons as winged and with one leg (each of these two features has a story attached to it, of course!). #ethiopianart #diptych #icons #pendant #madonnaandchild #stgeorge #religiousart

Scott Avett (@avettar) (American, 1976-), “Black Mouse, White Mouse” (detail), 2010. Oil on canvas, 106 x 65 in. Collection of the artist. * Scott Avett’s “Black Mouse, White Mouse,” currently on view at the @ncartmuseum, is a self-portrait that references Leo Tolstoy’s autobiographical essay “A Confession,” about an existential crisis that has him battling depressive thoughts. In it Tolstoy recounts a fable of a man who falls into a well with a dragon at the bottom. On his way down he grabs hold of a branch growing out of the wall, but it’s being nibbled by two mice, and his fall to death is imminent. This scenario is representative of where we all find ourselves: finite beings in an infinite world, dangling over the abyss. There are four possible ways to respond, says Tolstoy: ignorance, epicureanism, suicide, or hanging on to life. He thinks suicide the most logical but says he lacks the nerve to carry it out. Tolstoy then launches into metaphysical musings, grappling with the question of God’s existence, when suddenly, he has an epiphany that “God is Life,” and that “I live, really live, only when I feel Him and seek Him.” He continues, “I returned to the belief in that Will which produced me and desires something of me. I returned to the belief that the chief and only aim of my life is to be better, i.e. to live in accord with that Will. And I returned ... to a belief in God...” * Avett’s painting represents the internal struggle between faith and doubt, joy and despair. The heavy lifting of life’s most important questions. #scottavett #selfportrait #fable #tolstoy #weighty #spiritualquestioning #darknessandlight

"Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Donors," early 8th century. Fresco in the narthex of Santa Sabina, Rome. This painting was discovered in spring 2010 beneath a later covering. Immediately flanking the Madonna and Child are two saints, probably Peter and Paul, and beside them stand two female saints, probably Sabina (left) and her co-martyr Seraphia (right). The remaining three figures, all holding codices, are contemporary with the mural, as indicated by their square haloes, and are named in the border; most likely, the ones being presented by the women are Pope Constantine (left, wearing an ochre scarf) and the priest George, one of the painting's donors (right). The man prostrating himself at the lower left is probably the primary donor, the archpriest Theodore. I took this photo in 2018, intrigued to find a surviving Christian fresco that's so old, but I had no idea who the secondary figures were. Thanks to John Osborne's essay "Rome and Constantinople about the year 700: The significance of the recently uncovered mural in the narthex of Santa Sabina" for providing likely identifications for them all!

This triptych by Justin O’Brien won the first Blake Prize in 1951, an Australian art prize (still in operation) established to bring about a revival of interest among artists in religious art. The left panel shows “The Fall,” the moment of Adam and Eve’s disobedience; a blue-clad angel flees in sadness from the scene. The right panel, on the other hand, shows “The Baptism of Christ,” the New Adam come to restore humanity to God. Here angels look on attentively, reverently, as some passersby shuffle down the riverbank. The central scene shows the infant Christ enthroned on his mother Mary’s lap. (In Roman Catholic tradition, one of Mary’s titles is sedes sapientiae, “seat, or throne, of wisdom,” since Wisdom incarnate once sat there.) Various ecclesiasts and townsfolk gather in worship, including John the Baptist (the bare-chested man with the reed cross), who points to Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. O’Brien is celebrated for his commanding use of color, which is mostly decorative rather than descriptive or symbolic—but the artist did say in a 1962 letter that his use of red in the figure of Christ refers to Christ’s passion. ART CREDIT: Justin O’Brien (Australian, 1917-1996), “The Virgin Enthroned,” 1951. Oil on canvas, three panels: 113 x 49.2 cm, 113 x 81.2 cm, 113 x 49.2 cm. National Gallery of Victoria (@ngvmelbourne). Photo sourced from the excellent book “Images of Religion in Australian Art,” page 46. #epiphany #baptismofchrist #adamandeve #temptation #thefall #madonnaandchild #seatofwisdom #adoration #secondadam #australianart #blakeprize #religiousart #triptych

The dome of the great sixth-century Arian Baptistery in Ravenna, Italy, shows, in glimmering mosaic, a young, beardless, fully nude Christ standing waist-deep in the waters of the Jordan as John the Baptist, dressed in leopard skin, anoints him—the archetypal event for the liturgy that used to be performed below. And actually, the anointing water in this representation comes from the beak of a dove, God the Holy Spirit. The old man on the left is a personification of the Jordan River, whose attributes are derived from that of the Hellenistic river gods. He holds a reed in his hand and leans against a spilled jar, from whose mouth flows the river water, while from his head there sprouts a pair of red crab claws. He is clothed in the same moss that covers the rock John stands on. Around this central scene, which is framed by a laurel wreath, is a procession of the twelve apostles, led by Peter (the gray-haired man with the key) and Paul (the dark-haired man with a scroll). The apostles carry jeweled crowns in their veiled hands—a sign of humility—as they make their way to the empty throne of Christ’s promised return, the hetoimasia, prepared with a plush purple cushion and jeweled cross. #baptismofChrist #ravenna #baptistery #mosaic #Byzantineart (Photos by Peter Milošević and Fr. Lawrence Lew, OP)

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Header image: Clementine Hunter, Good and Bad Angels Flying (detail), ca. 1965.
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC.

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