Judith Tutin – Art & Theology

LOOK: Nativity by Judith Tutin

Tutin, Judith_Nativity — Judith Tutin (Irish, 1979–), *Nativity*, 2011. Oil on canvas, 60 × 40 cm. Private collection of Fr. Jim Doyle, Wexford, Ireland. Photo courtesy of the artist.

In this semiabstract Nativity painting by Judith Tutin, Mary and Joseph adore the newborn Christ child as God the Father looks down from above, holding in his arms a portent: the traces of a cross. One might also see, overlapping the intimation of a crossbar, the outstretched wings of the Holy Spirit as dove, hovering over the earthly scene below.

This central triad of Father, (crucified) Son, and Spirit evokes the Gnadenstuhl , or “Throne of Mercy,” an iconography of the Trinity that emerged in twelfth-century Europe. Tutin innovates on this type by showing, at the base of the cross, the Son in his infancy, thus drawing together the doctrines of the incarnation and the atonement.

Applied in broad, loose brushstrokes, the deep crimsons and golds further underscore the themes of blood and glory.

LISTEN: “A Stable Lamp Is Lighted” | Words by Richard Wilbur, 1958 | Music by Jennifer Wyatt, 2002 | Performed by Ardyth & Jennifer on WinterFire, 2002

A stable-lamp is lighted
Whose glow shall wake the sky;
The stars shall bend their voices,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
And straw like gold shall shine;
A barn shall harbor heaven,
A stall become a shrine.

This child through David’s city
Shall ride in triumph by;
The palm shall strew its branches,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
Though heavy, dull, and dumb,
And lie within the roadway
To pave his kingdom come.

Yet he shall be forsaken,
And yielded up to die;
The sky shall groan and darken,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
For stony hearts of men:
God’s blood upon the spear-head,
God’s love refused again.

But now, as at the ending,
The low is lifted high;
The stars shall bend their voices,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
In praises of the Child
By whose descent among us
The worlds are reconciled.

Richard Wilbur (1921–2017) [previously] was a major American poet, serving as the nation’s second poet laureate and winning two Pulitzer Prizes and a National Medal of Arts. He was a champion of formalist poetry, working within the constraints of meter and rhyme.

He wrote this text to be sung at a December 7, 1958, candlelight service in the Memorial Chapel of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where he was a professor in the English Department. It premiered with a choral setting by Richard Winslow, director of the university’s choral society. Wilbur also sent out the text in his family Christmas cards that year.

A few years later, it was published in his collection Advice to a Prophet (1961) as “A Christmas Hymn,” with Luke 19:39–40 as an epigraph: “And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.” This passage takes place upon Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem the week of his death. People were lauding him as a king who came in the name of the Lord, which the Pharisees considered blasphemous. When they demand that Jesus repudiate such ridiculous claims, he instead validates them, replying that even the inanimate stones know his kingship and would shout, “Hosanna!” if human voices failed to.

The hymn stretches from Christmas to Palm Sunday to Good Friday, then circles back to Christmas, covering the span of Christ’s life.

“Not many other major poets in the past seventy years have written Christmas hymns, classic, straightforward Nativity celebrations with no irony to them, and which work beautifully in a traditional church service,” notes Bruce Michelson in Wilbur’s Poetry: Music in a Scattering Time. Wilbur is an example of a modern poet who was very accomplished at his craft and respected by the establishment as well as being a person of Christian faith.

“A Stable Lamp Is Lighted” appears in a few dozen hymnals. The standard tune for it is ANDÚJAR by David Hurd from 1983, but I prefer the one by Ardyth & Jennifer, Celtic harp and vocal duo Ardyth Robinson and Jennifer Wyatt, based in Shad Bay, Nova Scotia.

This post is part of a daily Christmas series that goes through January 6. View all the posts here, and the accompanying Spotify playlist here.

Tutin, Judith_Breaking — Judith Tutin (Irish, 1979–), *Breaking*, 2011. Diptych, St. Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland.

But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shone.
You have multiplied the nation;
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
For the yoke of his burden,
and the staff for his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult
and every garment rolled in blood
will be burned as fuel for the fire.

—Isaiah 9:1–5

Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:

“The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,
the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—
the people dwelling in darkness
have seen a great light,
and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death,
on them a light has dawned.”

From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

—Matthew 4:12–17

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SONG: “The Dawning Light” by James Ward, 1998 (CCLI 4200451)

This song was recorded live in 1998 at the Resurrection Youth Convention in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The MP3 can be downloaded for free, along with sheet music, at http://ncfmusic.com/resource/dawning-light/.

For a previously featured James Ward song, see the Artful Devotion “Death Is Ended.”

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The Jewish prophet Isaiah was active during the Assyrian captivity in the second half of the eighth century B.C. The Israelite lands of Zebulun and Naphtali were, along with Gilead in Transjordan, the first to fall to Assyria; the people were deported, and their lands became Assyrian provinces. But these three areas, according to Isaiah 9:1, would also be the first to see the dawning of a glorious new era, where the people step out of darkness and desolation into the fruits of God’s victory, and all military equipment is cast once and for all into an enormous bonfire, for war is over, and oppression is no more.

In The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary, biblical scholar J. Alec Motyer emphasizes how Isaiah 9:2–5 is couched in past tenses, even though what it describes has not yet occurred:

The future is written as something which has already happened, for it belonged to the prophetic consciousness of men like Isaiah to cast themselves forward in time and then look back on the mighty acts of God, saying to us: ‘Look forward to it, it is certain, he has already done it!’ Because of this confidence, Isaiah can place the light of 9:1ff. in immediate proximity to the darkness of 8:22, not because it will immediately happen but because it is immediately evident to the eye of faith; those walking in the darkness can see the light ahead and are sustained by hope. . . .

Isaiah insists here that hope is a present reality, part of the constitution of the ‘now’. The darkness is true but it is not the whole truth and certainly not the fundamental truth. (98–99)

This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.

To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for the Third Sunday after Epiphany, cycle A, click here.

Tag: Judith Tutin

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Dawning Light (Artful Devotion)