roundup – Page 25 – Art & Theology

Roundup: Poetry releases; Heaven, help us; interfaith art exhibitions; 3 free albums

June 1, 2018July 18, 2024 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

POETRY BOOKS: I just learned about some recently released poetry collections in the Christian Century’s Book Reviews section: Joy: 100 Poems, compiled by Christian Wiman (the review responds to the comment Adrianna Smith made in her otherwise positive review for the Atlantic, that the book’s one fault is its “slant toward a theological comprehension of joy, specifically, an over-representation of a Christian one”); Wade in the Water: Poems by Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy K. Smith; and Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart: Meditations for the Restless Soul, a collection of verse-style renderings of the thirteenth-century German Christian mystic by Jon M. Sweeney and Mark S. Burrows, like this one:

“You Are Not an Answer”

There is no Why in You
and so I must learn to trust

that You are not an answer
to my questions but rather

the source that is true before
every question I ever had

and the love beyond every
answer I will ever know.

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SONG: “Heaven Help Us All”: This a cappella Stevie Wonder cover is by the vocal group Accent, featuring guest singer Vanessa Haynes. Comprising six male vocalists from five different countries, Accent creates music through Internet collaboration. This song is an intercession to God on behalf of the desperate poor, the homeless, the abused, the lonely, and the depressed. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

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ART EXHIBITIONS:

“Pathways to Paradise: Medieval India and Europe,” Getty Museum, Los Angeles, May 1–August 5, 2018: “The pages of medieval manuscripts reveal a dynamically interconnected world filled with real and imagined ideas about foreign peoples and places. Buddhists, Muslims, and Christians living across Europe and Asia conceived paradise as a place of perfect harmony, but the path for locating such a site or achieving this state of mind varied between these religions. By exploring the terrestrial and celestial realms, this exhibition highlights the spiritual motivations for creating and owning portable and devotional artworks.”

“Shared Sacred Sites,” Manhattan, March 27–June 30, 2018: Spread across three Manhattan cultural institutions, the multidisciplinary exhibition “Shared Sacred Sites” aims to raise awareness of the potential for cooperation among the three Abrahamic faiths. The tour begins at the New York Public Library with illuminated manuscripts and documents that highlight holy figures shared in common, like Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and (between Christianity and Islam) Mary and Jesus. The Muslim miniature below shows the Miracle of the Table recounted in the Qur’an (5:111–114), in which ’Isa (Jesus) causes a table set with food to descend from heaven, corroborating his status as a true prophet. This miracle story echoes the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes in the Gospels.

Jesus receives food from heaven (Persian) — “‘Îsâ (Jesus) receives food from heaven and is able to feed his followers,” from *Qisas al-Anbiya* (Tales of the Prophets), Iran, ca. 1580. Spencer Collection (Pers. ms. 46, fol. 152v), New York Public Library.

Then it moves to the Morgan Library and Museum, where the celebrated Morgan Picture Bible, produced in thirteenth-century Paris, is on display. This masterpiece of Gothic art offers exquisite visualizations of some three hundred Old Testament scenes (one of which I featured on the last “Artful Devotion”), and it’s also a testament to intercultural exchange: as the book circulated across civilizations, explanatory captions in Latin, Persian, Arabic, Judeo-Persian, and Hebrew were added in the margins.

Lastly, the James Gallery at the CUNY Graduate Center presents artifacts, videos, contemporary art, and photographs that showcase examples of peaceful coexistence of people from different faiths throughout the Eastern Mediterranean as a counternarrative to the stories of conflict that saturate the news media. Several of the photos are of shared worship spaces, like the mosque-synagogue in the cave of Machpelah in Hebron, West Bank, or Ghriba synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia, where Muslims can often be found praying alongside Jewish friends and neighbors or attending pilgrimage ceremonies. (For more on Djerba’s beautiful culture of religious tolerance, see “Jews and Muslims Celebrate Unusual Coexistence in Tunisia’s Djerba.”)

Jewish and Muslim Women Praying — Jewish and Muslim women pray side by side in the Ghriba synagogue in Tunisia, 2014. They stand before the building’s eastern wall, behind which the scrolls of the Torah are preserved. Photo © Manoël Pénicaud.

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FREE ALBUM DOWNLOADS:

Weep + Rejoice by Trenton Durham: This four-track EP was released in March as a series of soft-rock meditations on Christ’s death and resurrection.

Top of the Stairs by Scott Mulvahill: Mulvahill is a singer-songwriter and upright bass player from Nashville who toured for five years with Ricky Skaggs’s bluegrass band, Kentucky Thunder. “The Lord Is Coming,” which Mulvahill wrote with Alanna Boudreau and Gabi Wilson, is one of eight songs on his latest EP. See below for a live performance from 2017 with two backing vocalists, or click here for a more recent solo performance from the Tokens Show, uploaded yesterday.

Volume 2 by Deeper Well Records: Five Deeper Well artists have contributed two songs each to this compilation of acoustic hymns, a mix of classics, like “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” and “This Is My Father’s World,” and originals. I can’t speak highly enough of this label—the quality of music they release is superb. You can stream all the full songs on Bandcamp.

Roundup: Anglo-Saxon Ascension poem; underwater dance; Andy Squyres album; contemporary icons; Catholicism meets high fashion

May 10, 2018June 22, 2022 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

ANGLO-SAXON ASCENSION POEM: Excerpts from “Christ II” by Cynewulf, probably ninth century, translated from Old English by Eleanor Parker: Dr. Eleanor Parker lectures on medieval literature at Oxford University and runs the excellent blog A Clerk at Oxford, where she often shares her translations of Anglo-Saxon poetry, with commentary. The poem she shares here reflects on Christ’s ascension—the disciples’ grief, the angels’ joy. To me the most remarkable section is the one that, indirectly referencing a sermon of Gregory the Great, describes Christ “leaping” up to heaven, taking an active bound toward his homeland, a movement read in light of Song of Solomon 2:8: “Behold, he comes, leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills.” This leap is one of six he took: from heaven (1) into Mary’s womb, (2) into a manger, (3) onto the cross, (4) into the tomb, (5) into hell, and finally, (6) back into heaven. “Prince’s play”! Parker pairs the poem with an exquisite, near-contemporary manuscript illumination, also from England; there’s also a lot of resonance between the poem and the Ascension image I published Tuesday by Bagong Kussudiardja, which shows a more balletic ascent.

Ascension (10th c) — The Ascension, from the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold (BL Additional MS. 49598), f. 64v, England, 963–984 CE. British Library, London.

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UNDERWATER DANCE: “AMA,” a short film by Julie Gautier: This wonderfully expressive silent film shows French free diver and underwater artist Julie Gautier dancing in a single breath for several minutes inside the world’s deepest swimming pool, Y-40 Deep Joy in Montegrotto Terme, Padua, Italy, to a minimalist piano piece. The final shot shows Gautier slowly rising to the water’s surface while releasing a giant air bubble, her pose evocative of the crucified Christ (and her upward movement an Ascension of sorts!). Titled “Ama” (Japanese for “sea woman,” the name given to Japan’s pearl divers), the film is “dedicated to all the women of the world,” Gautier says. The choreography is by Ophélie Longuet.

Gautier and her husband, Guillaume Néry, a free-diving champion, own the underwater filmmaking company Les Films Engloutis. Their most well-known project has been a music video featuring Beyoncé, codirected by Gautier and starring Néry.

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KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN: Help Andy Squyres finance his next album: Andy Squyres is a super-talented singer-songwriter whose lyrics don’t stay in the shallows but, rather, dive into the depths of the faith experience. They are also supremely hope-filled. Below is a video of Squyres performing “Labor in Vain” at a house concert; the song is from his last album, Cherry Blossoms, which I reviewed here. Click on the boldface link above to hear Squyres discuss his new album project and to donate toward it.

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ICON PAINTING COMPETITION: The Interparliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy (IAO) is hosting an international icon painting competition on the subject of Christ’s Resurrection. “Our purpose is to explore and bring to the foreground the numerous stylistic trends in existence today, enabling the visualization of a creative dialogue with tradition and, at the same time, the personal artistic expressions of artists who reframe tradition without, however, digressing from the doctrinal framework of Christian icon painting set by the 7th Ecumenical Council.” The submission window is closed—there are sixty-three great entries!—and now it’s time to cast your vote. Five winners will be selected to receive cash prizes, the topmost being €3,000, and other honors. Popular votes will be taken into account by the twelve jury members, among whom are esteemed iconographers George Kordis from Greece and Todor Mitrovic from Serbia.

Resurrection by Dimosthenis Avramidis — Dimosthenis Avramidis (Greek, 1965–), *Christ’s Descent into Hades*, 2017. Egg tempera on wood, 91.5 × 61.5 cm.

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ESSAY: “On the Border of East and West: Searching for Icons in Lviv” by John A. Kohan: The latest issue of Image journal features a wonderful essay on the Lviv school of iconography (represented in entries #4, #10, and #20 of the above contest), a movement by young Ukrainian Greek Catholic artists to contemporize the Byzantine visual tradition. Written by John A. Kohan, an avid religious art collector and former Time bureau chief in Moscow (1988–1996), it discusses the political history of the city; the role of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky (r. 1901–1944) in preserving and supporting art for future generations; the opening of the Iconart gallery in 2010 to nurture and promote the new style; the broad training these icon makers receive at the Lviv National Academy of Arts; and the uneven reception by others in the denomination (especially official church bodies), who tend to prefer their sacred art in the Radruzh School style or as contemporary Catholic kitsch. Kohan writes from his firsthand experiences meeting the artists and visiting their studios, churches, and exhibition spaces. The essay is available to subscribers only; click here to subscribe.

Crucifixion by Natalya Rusetska — Natalya Rusetska (Ukrainian, 1984–), *Crucifixion*, 2017. Egg tempera on gessoed wood, 11 3/4 × 8 1/4 in.

Pilate Condemns Jesus to Death by Ivanka Demchuk — Ivanka Demchuk (Ukrainian, 1990–), *Christ before Pilate*, 2017. Mixed media on gessoed wood, 19 3/4 × 15 3/4 in.

I’m enthralled by the contemporary icons being produced in Lviv—I saw a bunch from Kohan’s collection last summer, and I featured some in a Baptism of Christ roundup earlier this year. The best way to keep abreast of the output from the Lviv school is to follow Iconart on Facebook, and for an even wider breadth of innovative eastern European icons, follow Międzynarodowe Warsztaty Ikonopisów w Nowicy (International Iconography Workshop in Nowica, Poland).

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MET GALA + EXHIBITION: “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” May 10–October 8, 2018, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City: The largest exhibition ever mounted by the Met’s Costume Institute, “Heavenly Bodies” features both religious vestments from the Vatican and runway fashions by famous designers inspired by Catholicism. A Fashionista reviewer who attended a preview reports on the integrated displays:

A reliquary arm of Saint Valentine is displayed alongside a breastplate and crown of thorns from Alexander McQueen’s Givenchy days; sacred music serves as the auditory backdrop for a Rodarte collection that features a dress inspired by Bernini’s famous sculpture Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. Rows of mannequins wearing Dolce & Gabbana, Moschino and Raf Simons show the ways that the silhouettes of the cassock and nun’s habit have been explored on the runway time and again. There are even vestments by the likes of Yves Saint Laurent and Riccardo Tisci that were expressly designed to dress statues of the Virgin Mary in chapels in Italy and France.

Each year since 1948, the opening of the Costume Institute’s spring exhibition has been celebrated with a huge fundraising gala attended by celebrities who dress to the theme; this year’s took place May 7. There were lots of crosses and haloes, but also some more particularized outfits. Ariana Grande’s gown was inspired by Michelangelo’s Last Judgment; Gigi Hadid’s, by stained glass. Selena Gomez carried a Coach handbag embroidered with Proverbs 31:30b: “A woman who fears the Lord is a woman who shall be praised.” The most brazenly dressed was Rihanna, who wore a gem-encrusted bishop’s miter (not a papal tiara, as has been commonly reported). Another standout headpiece was Sarah Jessica Parker’s, which featured a Neapolitan Nativity scene set inside a mini baldachin. (The making of elaborate presepi, or Christmas crèches, is a longstanding tradition in Naples, reaching its height during the eighteenth century.)

Rihanna as pope — The white Margiela minidress, cape, and headpiece Rihanna wore to Monday’s Met gala were inspired by Catholic pontifical vestments. Photo: John Shearer/Getty.

Sarah Jessica Parker wore a regal gold, long-trained Dolce & Gabbana gown, but the pièce de résistance of her ensemble was the Nativity headpiece.

Lana Del Rey went as Our Lady of Sorrows, wearing an immaculate-heart chest plate pierced through with seven daggers; it was comical to hear religiously illiterate reporters trying to interpret the symbolism, saying things like the daggers are a “reminder to repent your sins or suffer damnation!” (Wrong. The swords symbolize the Virgin’s seven sorrows, beginning with Simeon’s prophecy.)

Roundup: Rock Hall inductions; James Cone; lynching memorial; “Christ in Alabama”

May 5, 2018August 19, 2025 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

NEW ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAMERS:

Last month Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1915–1973), one of the few female guitar evangelists of the ’30s and ’40s and the first gospel superstar, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She was named an “Early Influence” for her electric sound and original guitar picking, which influenced the likes of Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, and Johnny Cash, among many others. (“Tharpe’s unique guitar style blended melody-driven urban blues with traditional folk arrangements and incorporated a pulsating swing sound that is one of the first clear precursors of rock and roll.”) Performing (controversially) both sacred and secular music, in churches and nightclubs, Tharpe collaborated with heavy-hitting artists of the time, including Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, and the Dixie Hummingbirds, and she even hired a white group, the Jordanaires, to sing backup during one of her tours.

Two of Tharpe’s best-known songs are her versions of the Negro spirituals “Up Above My Head” and “Strange Things Happening Everyday,” but probably my two favorites of hers are “Use Me” and “Two Loaves of Fishes and Five Loaves of Bread”:

In 2011 BBC Four premiered Sister Rosetta Tharpe: The Godmother of Rock and Roll, a documentary written and directed by UK filmmaker Mick Csaky. Its US television premiere was in 2013, part of PBS’s American Masters series. Watch the trailer below, or watch the full documentary online.

If you’re not familiar with Tharpe, you need to be! My husband and I cycle through dozens of her songs regularly on our customized Spotify gospel playlist. If you enjoy the documentary and want to learn more, check out the biography Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe by Gayle Wald.

Another April Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, who’s more of a household name, is Nina Simone (1933–2003). One of her most famous songs (certainly her most sampled) is “Sinnerman,” a Negro spiritual inspired by Revelation 6:12–17:

When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”

When Simone (then Eunice Waymon) was a young girl, her mother, a Methodist minister, had her play the song on the piano at revival and prayer meetings as a means of compelling sinners to the altar. (Before pursuing her career as a singer and recording artist, she wanted to be a classical concert pianist. She plays the piano on “Sinnerman” and many other tracks.) Because she recorded her version of “Sinnerman” at the height of her civil rights activism, in 1965, some have speculated that the song is a veiled condemnation of the sins of white America. Continue reading “Roundup: Rock Hall inductions; James Cone; lynching memorial; “Christ in Alabama”” →

Roundup: Visual Theology CFP; E. E. Cummings song cycle; Babette’s Feast; art-lending libraries; exhibitions of lament

April 30, 2018May 6, 2021 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

UPCOMING CONFERENCE / CALL FOR PAPERS: “Visual Theology I: Transformative Looking Between the Visual Arts and Christian Doctrine (1850–Now),” October 19–20, 2018, The Palace, Chichester, Sussex, England: The inaugural conference of the Visual Theology Symposium will take place this fall, and paper proposals are now being accepted (deadline June 15). “The divide between confessional and critical positions has long impoverished and polarised the academic analysis of the arts,” and this conference seeks to help bridge that divide. Click on the link to learn more, including eight possible paper approaches. Not only are scholars of art history, visual culture, and theology encouraged to submit but also clergy and artists. Jonathan A. Anderson and Ayla Lepine are among the several confirmed speakers so far.

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ALBUM: the rain is a handsome animal by Tin Hat (2012): I’ve really been enjoying these seventeen “classical gypsy jazz” settings of the poetry of E. E. Cummings. They’re so dreamsome. Tin Hat consists of violinist and vocalist Carla Kihlstedt, guitarist Mark Orton, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, and accordionist and pianist Rob Reich, and all four are involved in composing. Below is Kihlstedt’s “sweet spring.” For a PDF of the album lyrics, click here. To further engage with Cummings, check out my analysis of his poem “i thank You God for most this amazing,” which also features a musical setting and happens to be the most visited post on this blog.

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PLAY: Babette’s Feast, Theatre at St. Clement’s, New York City: I’ve heard Babette’s Feast cited many times in Christian literature and addresses, and now it’s been adapted into a stage play, currently running off-Broadway and starring Michelle Hurst (Orange Is the New Black) in the titular role. “Based on Isak Dinesen’s short story made famous by the 1987 Academy Award-winning [Danish] film, this new stage adaptation of Babette’s Feast premiered in January 2018 in Portland, Maine to rave reviews. The play tells the story of Babette, a French refugee, who finds asylum in a pious Norwegian village. With boundless generosity, she throws a lavish feast that becomes an agent of transformative grace, healing a fractured community.” (Update 5/1: Just after I published this post, Image journal published a great interview with director Karin Coonrod.)

Babette's Feast (play) — Photo: Carol Rosegg/*National Review*

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ARTICLE: “Can Art Lending Libraries Empower a New Generation of Collectors?” by Kealey Boyd: “For centuries, those who lacked the space or resources to collect artworks really only had one option—experiencing whatever fine art they could find in public spaces like museums. But in many cities, it’s now possible to borrow art for free. All you need is a local ‘art lending library’—an innovation in art sharing that could, just maybe, help democratize an activity that was once considered inaccessible.”

MIT art lending library — An MIT student peruses some of the 600 works available for free borrowing through the school’s Student Loan Art Program, established in 1969 and including pieces by Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman, and others. Photo: John Kennard, courtesy MIT List Visual Arts Center.

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INSTALLATION: “Nobodaddy” by Mark Leckey, Tramway, Glasgow, Scotland, April 20–July 1, 2018: The wounds of Job speak in this solo exhibition by Turner Prize-winning artist Mark Leckey, part of the Glasgow International contemporary art festival. “Nobodaddy”—the title a reference to a William Blake poem about God’s seeming absence—features a spotlit, oversize Job figure that’s based on an eighteenth-century wooden statuette from Germany; he is covered in boils and excrescences and sitting in melancholy contemplation. The open wounds of the figure are embedded with speakers, and they broadcast a monologue of grief, voiced by Leckey and accompanied by horrible gurglings and rumblings. A video screen opposite Job projects a CGI apparition of the same figure and images of his hollowed-out insides. [HT: Jonathan Evens]

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PERFORMANCE ART: An Occupation of Loss by Taryn Simon, Corner of Islington Green, Essex Road, London, April 17–28, 2018, co-commissioned by Park Avenue Armory and Artangel: I’m late on this one, unfortunately. For this work, reprised from its 2016 premiere in New York City, artist Taryn Simon brought together professional mourners from around the world (Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, China, Ecuador, Ghana, Greece, India, Kyrgyzstan, Romania, Russia, and Venezuela) to simultaneously enact their rituals of grief over the course of a half hour. The result is a cacophony of culturally diverse lamentations that reach a sustained climax and then fall away to a single voice and, eventually, a deep silence. Performed inside an underground concrete auditorium in Central London, balconied and three levels deep, the work is concerned not with the mourning of any one event or person in particular but with the phenomenon of loss itself.

An Occupation of Loss (Azerbaistan) — Haji Rahila Jafarova and Lala Ismayilova are professional Yezidi mourners from Azerbaijan. Photo: Hugo Glendinning, courtesy Artangel and Taryn Simon Projects.

In a New York Times review, William L. Hamilton explains that

traditionally, professional mourners are hired by families of the deceased to mark the occasion and to guide the dead to the place where they will lead their afterlife. Mourners are [also] called upon to mark larger losses within their communities, like displacement or exile, in a cultural role that is part witness, part historian and part poet. . . . Their laments, wails and cries are also testament to their own bereavements. They can be political testimony, too.

Simon describes the purpose of professional mourners this way: “The bereaved solicit the authority of professional mourners to occupy, negotiate, and shape their loss. The mourners control a psychological experience by directing and embodying the emotion of others.” An Occupation of Loss is the culmination of her seven years of research into professional mourning, which relied heavily on interviews with anthropologists, historians, linguists, musicologists, and other experts. Finding these performers, and then securing visas for them, was itself a herculean task. Listen to the artist discuss the project at more length in this Channel 4 news segment. [HT: Jonathan Evens]

An Occupation of Loss (Ecuador) — Hugo Aníbal González Jiménez is an Ecuadorian mourner who sings accordion-accompanied laments known as *yaravíes* and who is blind.

Roundup: Easter flash mob; Good Thief; Resurrection photo; Sistine Chapel frescoes in 3-D; etc.

April 15, 2018February 1, 2024 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

FLASH MOB: On Easter 2011 at City Mall in Beirut, Lebanon, a flash mob broke out singing the Paschal troparion in Arabic: Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and on those in the tombs bestowing life! [HT: Global Christian Worship]

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NEW PAINTING INSTALLED: James B. Janknegt is a Christian artist from Texas who is known for transposing biblical stories into contemporary American settings. He recently completed a large triptych for the new Unity Hall at Community First! Village in Austin, a planned community, developed by Mobile Loaves & Fishes, that provides affordable, permanent housing for the chronically homeless. (See the development and learn more about it in this short video, presented by MLF founder Alan Graham.) The painting shows Jesus in conversation with the “good thief” who, as he dies, acknowledges his crime and asks Jesus to “remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). Behind him paradise flowers forth, indicating not only his new home but his inward regeneration. The other thief, by contrast, turns his head away in stubbornness. This episode demonstrates that repentance is always met by Christ with love, affirmation, and seeds of new life.

Good Thief by James B. Janknegt

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SHORT FILM: “Dance Dance” by French film director Thomas Blanchard evokes each of the four seasons through different elements acting on flowers, captured in either time lapse or slow motion. For fall, a rose is set on fire; for winter, foliage afloat in water becomes frozen in ice; for spring, lilies bloom; and for summer, colored inks hit the flowers and billow up in dusty clouds. Stunning images!

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CHAIYA ART AWARD FINALIST: The inaugural Chaiya Art Award competition ended last month, with the winner taking home £10,000 and being exhibited, along with forty-one other juried selections, at London’s gallery@oxo March 29–April 9. The theme was “Where Is God in Our Twenty-First-Century World?”

One entry I really love is finalist Sheona Beaumont’s Natal, a photographic work that shows a nude pregnant woman standing against a dark wall in profile, her hair blown wildly by a gust of wind, opposite a corpse. These are two different spaces set in juxtaposition—two photos stitched together. The black-and-white photo of the dead body, on the left, is Fred Holland Day’s The Entombment from 1898, in which he himself posed as Christ, laid out on a bier before a doorway, his crown of thorns and titulus crucis on the ground beside him. Beaumont rotated this horizontal image 90 degrees clockwise so that the Christ figure is propped upright. She then posed her female model to form a sort of mirror image, but one full of vitality; the woman’s belly, the site of new life about to be born, is brightly lit. This combination photograph makes a powerful Holy Saturday image, one that hints toward resurrection as the stillness gives way to stirrings. The photo is also an allusion to the new life believers have in Christ, and in fact it forms the first in a new series titled Born Again. Visit Beaumont’s website to view the artwork and to read a bit about her process and the meaning the work holds for her.

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EXHIBITION: “Zurbarán’s Jacob and His Twelve Sons: Paintings from Auckland Castle”: Last fall, Spanish Golden Age artist Francisco de Zurbarán’s Jacob and His Twelve Sons made its North American debut at the Meadows Museum in Dallas, traveling for the first time in centuries, and now the exhibition is at the Frick Collection in New York City—but only through the end of this week! Twelve of the thirteen paintings in the set are from Auckland Castle in County Durham, England, the residence of the eighteenth-century Anglican bishop Richard Trevor, who acquired them in 1756 and had them displayed in his dining room, where they have remained ever since. Trevor was outbid on the painting of Benjamin, however, which is on loan from Grimsthorpe Castle in Lincolnshire, reuniting the set for the first time since the paintings’ 1756 sale.

Judah and Dan by Francisco de Zurbarán — Francisco de Zurbarán (Spanish, 1598–1664), *Judah*; *Dan*, 1640–44. Oil on canvas, 79 1/4 × 40 3/4 in. each. Photos: Robert LaPrelle.

The iconography of the paintings is derived from the prophecies Jacob utters over each of his sons on his deathbed, as described in Genesis 49. For example, Judah, from whom “the scepter shall not depart,” holds said scepter and is regally draped in a gold brocade robe and fur that hint at his descendants kings David and Solomon (Zurbarán was the son of a haberdasher, and gave great care to the depiction of textiles); Dan, on the other hand, holds up a serpent on a stick, alluding to his craftiness. To view all the paintings, click here.

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3-D SHOW: As of last month and through the end of July, Artainment Worldwide Shows, in cooperation with the Vatican Museums, presents “Giudizio universale: Michelangelo and the Secrets of the Sistine Chapel” by Marco Balich, an immersive 3-D show that brings to life Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes inside the Rome Conciliation Auditorium. Half the room is covered, from the walls to the ceiling, with a 270-degree screen that projects extremely high-res photos of the paintings, dramatized through movement, music, lighting, sound effects, narration, live actors, and dance. Lasting sixty minutes, the show concludes with the thirteenth-century Latin hymn Dies irae (“Day of Wrath”), set to new music by Sting and arranged for chamber orchestra and choir by Rob Mathieson. Watch the trailer below, or click here to see some of the 3-D animation of the Last Judgment.

Roundup: Merton on art; psalms of ascent; Oscar-nominated “Loving Vincent”; and more

March 2, 2018July 21, 2021 Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

BOOK EXCERPT: “Reality, Art, and Prayer” by Thomas Merton: In this excerpt from No Man Is an Island (1955), Merton talks about “aesthetic formation,” about how “music and art and poetry attune the soul to God”—art that doesn’t perform that function, he says, isn’t worthy of the name! Some might think that the spiritual solution to overstimulated senses (so many images, so much noise) is to close our eyes and ears. But that’s not necessarily so, as Merton explains: “The first step in the interior life, nowadays, is not, as some might imagine, learning not to see and taste and hear and feel things. On the contrary, what we must do is begin by unlearning our wrong ways of seeing, tasting, feeling, and so forth, and acquire a few of the right ones.” Yes! This is what I was trying to get at in my essay “Disciplining our eyes with holy images.”

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KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN: Songs for the Sojourn by Bellwether Arts: The same liturgical arts initiative that brought you this Advent/Christmas package is now poised to release a set of songs, visual art, and prose devotions inspired by the Bible’s “psalms of ascent,” which were likely sung by Jewish pilgrims as they ascended the road to Jerusalem for their three major annual festivals. At the head of the project is Bruce Benedict, founder of Cardiphonia, who in 2010 received a grant from the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship to commission songwriters and visual artists to help his congregation explore, through their respective disciplines, these fifteen psalms (read his application here). The project was so enriching to those involved that he recently decided to expand it to include even more songwriters, painters, and writers—the fruits of which are being made available to the public as a double-disc album, songbook, and art-filled devotional book.

While the songs have been recorded, Bellwether needs your help to finance the mixing, mastering, and disc pressing and the printing of the other two products, as well as to pay the new artists involved. Pledging money in exchange for a reward (essentially, placing a preorder) is a tangible way to support the project. Visit their Kickstarter page for more information or to make a pledge. Campaign ends March 23.

Help Higher Than the Hills by Aaron Collier — *Help Higher Than the Hills* (Psalm 123) by Aaron Collier. Photo courtesy Bellwether Arts/Cardiphonia.

Psalm 133 by Kyle Ragsdale — *Psalm 133* by Kyle Ragsdale. Photo courtesy Bellwether Arts/Cardiphonia.

(For other artistic responses to Psalm 133, see this artful devotion featuring the Psalter Project and a William Walker mural, and the poem “Aaron’s Beard” by Eugene Peterson.)

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SONG: “Refuse the Bait” by Liturgical Folk: Fr. Nelson Koscheski, Ryan Flanigan, and David Moffitt wrote this song last year about Christ overcoming Satan’s temptations in the wilderness. I’m always blessed by these men’s collaborations. To stay apprised of their latest, follow Liturgical Folk on Facebook, and see also https://liturgicalfolk.bandcamp.com/.

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POEM CYCLE: “A Small Psalter” by Pádraig J. Daly: I really love this contribution in the current issue of Image journal—twenty-two modern-day psalms by Irish poet-priest Pádraig J. Daly. Like the biblical psalms, these poems express a range of emotions and postures before God, from sorrow and frustration to joy and awe. Here’s #12:

We are numbed, Lord, by number;
But you, being Other, know
Each single form that kneels at night,
Each heart enchanted by a meadow;
And hear our joys and heed our sighs.
And all we have and are, as we come naked here—
The very self of us!—
Comes from no thing in us
But from you, who make in us an emptiness
That you alone suffice.

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FILM: Loving Vincent, dir. Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman: The Oscars are the only occasion of the year that I watch live TV, and I’m really looking forward to the show this Sunday. One of the nominations for Best Animated Feature is the world’s first fully oil-painted feature film, Loving Vincent, a biographical drama about the mysterious Vincent van Gogh. While most reviewers say the narrative content is forgettable, they hail the film’s innovative production methods and visual achievement as nothing short of amazing. Funded by Kickstarter, a team of 125 classically trained artists from various countries painted 65,000 frames in the style of the Dutch master (many of the final canvas paintings were exhibited at the Noordbrabants Museum last year), and actors were cast who had a physical resemblance to van Gogh’s portrait subjects (e.g., Chris O’Dowd as Postman Roulin!). To view the paintings and learn more about the filmmaking process, visit LovingVincent.com, and see the trailer below.

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VISUAL MEDITATION: “Behold the Broken, the Bruised” by Victoria Emily Jones: Speaking of van Gogh . . . Last week I wrote a reflection for ArtWay on the mixed-media sculpture After Van Gogh by Mad River Wiyot artist Rick Bartow (1946–2016). The primal wail of the figure expresses the artist’s psychological wounds, as a person with PTSD, and the communal wounds of his people, as well as invokes the famously troubled postimpressionist of its title. To me it also evokes Jesus’s cry of dereliction on the cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

After Van Gogh by Rick Bartow — Rick Bartow (Wiyot, 1946–2016), *After Van Gogh*, 1992. Lead, wood, nails, crab claw, copper, and acrylic, 23 × 12 × 7 in. Private collection. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones.

Also, I’ve been writing Lenten art reflections for GiftofLent.org, one for each Monday of the season (through March 25). This week’s is on Kris Martin’s Altar, a steel replica of the Ghent Altarpiece framework, installed on a Belgian beach. Click on the link to read more.

Altar by Kris Martin — Kris Martin (Belgian, 1972–), *Altar*, 2014. Steel, 17′4″ × 17′3″ × 6′7″. Temporary installation in Ostend, Belgium.

Roundup: RIP Edwin Hawkins; why Christians should read poetry (and who to read); new Reconciliation Window; global song in white churches

January 25, 2018September 6, 2018 Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

Grammy-winning gospel pioneer Edwin Hawkins dies at 74: African American gospel musician, pianist, choir master, composer, and arranger Edwin Hawkins passed away on January 15. He’s best known for his 1967 R&B arrangement of the eighteenth-century hymn “Oh Happy Day,” which became an unexpected international hit and Grammy winner and is now a gospel standard. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

“Oh Happy Day” was one of eight arrangements Hawkins put together for his Northern California State Youth Choir, made up of forty-six singers ages 17 to 25, to record, planning to sell the album to finance a trip to a church youth conference in Washington, DC. They recorded the songs live at Hawkins’s church, the Ephesian Church of God in Christ in Berkeley, California, on a primitive two-track recorder. After hearing the self-published record, Buddah Records signed the group, helping to launch “Oh Happy Day” to the top of the pop charts in the US, UK, France, Germany, and the Netherlands and bringing attention to lead vocalist Dorothy Combs Morrison, 22. At the time, denomination officials did not approve of Christian singers crossing over into secular markets, and they refused to let Hawkins use the name of the choir on the Buddah reissue—hence the “Edwin Hawkins Singers” were born.

Check out the Christianity Today article “How ‘Oh Happy Day’ Gave Gospel a New Beat,” and this clip of the show-stopping performance of the song in the movie Sister Act 2, featuring a young Ryan Toby.

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“Ten poets every pastor should know” by Kolby Kerr (+ Part 2): “Preachers need poetry if for no other reason than to be reminded of the palpable weight of language,” writes Kolby Kerr for LeaderWorks, whose vision is “to provide the tools, training, and support to strengthen the church and its leaders to fulfill their God-given mission.” I love this ten-poet “mixtape” Kerr has put together as an entry point for those who have told him they want to “get into poetry.” An ordained minister with a BA in English and an MFA in creative writing, he offers a wise disclaimer: “I point you toward these poets so that you would read them, not strip mine their work for a quick sermon illustration. Before any of this shows up in your preaching, heed Thomas Cranmer: read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.” [HT: David Taylor]

I recently wrote about one of Kerr’s recommendations, Richard Wilbur, here.

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“The Splash of Words: Believing in Poetry” by Mark Oakley: “Poetry is what we reach for when we are falling in love, when we are grieving and when we search the great mysteries. It’s easy to think the language of faith is in creeds, sermons and certainties, but Mark Oakley says that it is poetry that is the person of faith’s native language. In this talk he will invite us on an adventure into poetry’s power to startle, challenge and reframe our vision: like throwing a pebble into water, the words of a poem cause a splash whose ripples can, if we let them, transform the way we see the world, ourselves, and God.”

I mentioned Mark Oakley in a previous roundup. This lecture, given at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London in November 2016, is based on Oakley’s latest book The Splash of Words, which he says he wrote as a way of celebrating the truth that God is in this world. The first half of the video comprises his talk; the second half, Q&A. I was so enthralled by what he had to say that I immediately bought a copy of the book. It contains a twenty-two-page introduction on the value of poetry, but its bulk consists of twenty-nine poems, carefully selected, with commentary. Love it!

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New stained-glass window by Thomas Denny: My friend Paul Neeley tipped me off to this new Reconciliation Window by contemporary stained-glass artist Tom Denny, whose distinctive style, characterized by blazing color, is achieved by acid etching and silver staining. Installed at St. John’s Church in Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland, in October 2017, the window depicts, in its central light, the Return of the Prodigal Son. The right panel shows Jesus reading from the book of Isaiah, and the left panel shows John the Baptist, the church’s patron saint. Throughout are names and vignettes from Traelee’s history and landscape. Bloggers Finola Finlay and Robert Harris have just visited St. John’s and have taken many beautiful detail shots of the window; have a look! For more on Denny, see the recently published book Glory, Azure and Gold: The Stained-Glass Windows of Thomas Denny or the article “Walking Man: The Art of Thomas Denny” from issue 86 of Image journal.

Reconciliation Window by Thomas Denny — Thomas Denny (British, 1956–), Reconciliation Window, 2017. Stained glass, 5 × 3 m. St. John’s Church, Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland.

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“Appropriation or Activism? Reflections on ‘Global Song’” by Marissa Glynias Moore: This article was posted this week in the Multicultural Worship Leaders Network Facebook group I’m a part of, addressing a question I’ve pondered a lot. A doctoral candidate in ethnomusicology at Yale University, Moore is wrapping up her dissertation on the use of “global songs” in the worship services of white, North American mainline Protestant congregations. She recounts her initial skepticism:

Within my first weeks at Battell [the University Church in Yale], I began to notice a shift in congregational repertoire compared to that of my college church. We rarely sang the hymns that had become dear to me; instead, we were more likely to be singing an Alleluia from Peru or a South African anti-apartheid “freedom song.” While I was curious about this unfamiliar genre of congregational music, the practice itself made me decidedly uncomfortable as I looked around the space: why were we, a bunch of predominantly white American college and graduate students, singing world music? Did we have the right to sing this music? Hadn’t my training as an ethnomusicologist prepared me to vehemently critique such a practice as a manifestation of appropriation?

But as her research developed she has been led to see that singing global song can actually be a gesture of hospitality and solidarity. (Update, 9/4/18: Listen to Moore on episode 24 of Sarah Bereza’s Music and the Church podcast, “Global Song and the Universal Church.”)

Roundup: Modern Bible illumination; hula; First Nations baptism design; father-daughter waltz; Tamayo and Parker

January 12, 2018July 12, 2024 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

ESV Illuminated Bible spread

NEW BOOK: ESV Illuminated Bible (2017): In October Crossway released a new Bible illuminated by Seattle-based designer and lettering artist Dana Tanamachi. Printed in two-color (the illuminations are in gold ink), this volume contains one full-page illustration, custom icon, and illuminated drop cap for each book of the Bible, plus hundreds of hand-lettered Bible verses throughout the margins. There are no human figures in any of the illuminations; most consist of flora and fauna—olives, figs, pomegranates, peacocks, lions, lilies, deer, cedar, and so on—derived from the given book. Be sure to check out the book-opener illustration index, and the short video below, in which Tanamachi introduces herself, talks through her process, and explains some of her artistic choices:

“God loves beauty, so we wanted to honor him through this project with something that was beautiful,” says Josh Dennis, Crossway’s senior vice president of creative. “For this edition we really want people to engage with it, so there’s a lot of negative space and wide margins for people to write in it and to do their own Bible journaling.”

This publication comes six years after the release of Makoto Fujimura’s Four Holy Gospels, another illumination project. Fujimura’s is an oversize book with a $150 price point, containing original abstract paintings reproduced in full color alongside the first four books of the New Testament. By contrast, the ESV Illuminated Bible is more wieldy—it has a 6½ × 9 trim size—and less costly ($45), and it contains all sixty-six books. The aesthetic is also much different, as Tanamachi’s influences include art nouveau, the arts and crafts movement, and designers like William Morris and Koloman Moser. [HT: David Taylor]

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CHRISTIAN HULA: “‘O ‘Oe ‘Io” (You Are God): Though reduced to tourist entertainment in some places, Hawaiian hula dancing, in its traditional context, is a form of teaching and worship. Because of its associations with polytheism, early missionaries denounced it as sinful. Over the last half century or so, however, most missionaries have changed their stance toward this and other traditional forms of artistic expression—not only in Hawaii, but in whatever their host culture—seeing how such forms can offer more authentic ways for the people to connect to and worship the Christian God.

In the video below, Moani Sitch and ‘Anela Gueco perform a hula noho (“seated hula”) at the 2006 Urbana student missions conference sponsored by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. It’s to the Christian hymn “‘O ‘Oe ‘Io” (You Are God), originally written in Maori by Luke Kaa Morgan but translated into Hawaiian by Moses Kaho‘okele Crabbe. The sacred name for Creator God—‘Io—is the same in both languages. The lyrics are below. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

‘O ‘oe ‘Io, e makuna lani (You are God, Heavenly Father)
‘O ‘oe ‘Io, ka waiola (You are God, the Living Water)
‘O ‘oe ‘Io, e kumu ola (You are God, the Source of Life)
Ka mea hana i na mea apau (The one who has made all things)
E ku‘u Haku (My Lord)
Ka mauna ki‘eki‘e (Who is the Highest Mountain)
‘O ‘oe ‘Io (You are God)

For a fantastic religious history of Hawaii, see this PDF booklet published by Aloha Ke Akua (“God Is Love”) Ministries. Among the many things I learned is that Hawaiians regard the arrival of Christian missionaries as the fulfillment of their elders’ prophecies that the one true God would one day return to the islands.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: “Jesus as Chief: ‘Baptism Mural’ by Tony Hunt”: First Nations artist Tony Hunt Sr. died last month, just two months after his son Tony Hunt Jr., also a renowned carver. Read about Hunt Sr.’s inculturated serigraph of Christ’s baptism at my old blog, The Jesus Question—part of a seven-part series I did on Christian art of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Based on a carved and painted design he made for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, it shows John the Baptist as a Kwakwaka’wakw shaman in Native dress and with ceremonial rattle, installing Jesus as chief. The Father is manifest as Sun and the Spirit as Thunderbird. Continue reading “Roundup: Modern Bible illumination; hula; First Nations baptism design; father-daughter waltz; Tamayo and Parker” →

Roundup: Book list, Piano Guys, Mongolian Jingle Bells, call for papers, sacred landscapes, art installation in cave

December 31, 2017January 1, 2018 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY: “Art and theology” books published in 2017: I had fun compiling this book list for ArtWay, which spans the disciplines of art history, theological aesthetics, visual theology, philosophy, museum studies, liturgical studies, and Christian ministry. Let me know if I’m missing any titles. (For books published on art and theology between 2014 and 2016, click here.)

Art and theology books 2017

Among those geared toward popular audiences are In the Beauty of Holiness, a lavishly illustrated hardcover survey of eighteen hundred years of Christian fine art; Imaging the Story, structured as a small-group study with a “make” component; and a how-to manual for church leaders written by the director of Sojourn Arts, a flourishing church ministry in Louisville, Kentucky. There are books centered on biblical art from non-Western countries, like New Zealand, Tonga, and Australia, and on art by racial minorities, as in Beholding Christ and Christianity in African American Art, as well as books that focus on a single biblical symbol (e.g., the cross) or group of narratives (such as those unique to John’s Gospel).

But there are also books that focus on the contemporary art world, encouraging Christians to engage works beyond just those with explicitly Christian content or just those made by Christians.

Several books published this year engage with the ideas of leading early Protestant theologians, like Luther, Calvin, and (later) Kuyper, as they relate to visual art, and one even examines Reformational influences on Michelangelo’s late work. A smorgasbord indeed!

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SONGS:

Today is the seventh day of Christmas—the celebration continues! Here are two fun songs for your listening pleasure.

^^ “Angels We Have Heard on High,” arranged and performed by the Piano Guys: In this unique piano arrangement for eight hands, Jon Schmidt, Al van der Beek, Steven Sharp Nelson, and Paul Anderson strike, pluck, bow, and percuss the instrument, creating a more complex texture than you would expect. All the sounds you hear (except for the voices) are produced by the piano.

^^ “Mongolian Jingle Bells” by Altai Kai: This video shows a Mongolian musical ensemble performing their own rendition of “Jingle Bells” using local instruments—including a yatga (plucked zither), shanz (plucked lute), and morin khuur (bowed horsehead fiddle)—and overtone singing. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

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CALL FOR PAPERS: “Art as a Voice for the Church,” Princeton Theological Review: I regret not finding out about this opportunity earlier, as the due date is just a week away, but I’m posting it so that you can be sure to look out for this art and theology–themed issue in the spring!

Graduate students and early-career scholars are invited to submit papers to the spring 2018 edition of the Princeton Theological Review. We welcome papers from various disciplinary perspectives (theology, philosophy, church history, biblical studies, social sciences, etc.) as they relate to the theme of art and the church. How does theology manifest in all different forms of art (painting, poetry, photography, sculpture, music, theater, film, literature, dance, or any other creative endeavors)? How does artistic expression give voice to piety, critique, worship, or spiritual struggle? How has art influenced and been influenced by biblical interpretations, theological movements, historical context, or cultural conditions? Why is art such a powerful medium for Christian expression? All submissions are due January 8, 2018.

The current issue of PTR, released this fall, is on the same topic and is available for free download. Subtitled “A Festschrift for Gordon Graham,” it includes reflections by three leading thinkers on Professor Graham’s latest book, Philosophy, Art, and Religion: Understanding Faith and Creativity, as well as three essays: “Visual Images and Reformed Anxieties: Some Scottish Reflections” by David Ferguson; “The Scandal of the Evangelical Eye” by Matthew J. Milliner; and “God, One and Three—Artistic Struggles with the Trinity” by Gesa E. Thiessen. [HT: millinerd.com]

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COMPANION EXHIBITIONS
October 10, 2017–January 14, 2018
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

“Sacred Landscapes: Nature in Renaissance Manuscripts”: “In Renaissance Europe, many people looked to nature for spiritual inspiration and to guide their contemplation of the divine. In manuscripts created for personal or communal devotion, elements of nature—such as rocks, trees, flowers, waterways, mountains, and even the atmosphere—add layers of meaning to the illuminations, which were painted with careful observation of every minute detail. These landscapes remind readers to appreciate, and respect, the wonder of creation.” Read more at The Iris, the blog maintained by Getty curators, educators, conservators, and other staff.

“Giovanni Bellini: Landscapes of Faith in Renaissance Venice”: “Giovanni Bellini’s evocative landscapes are as much the protagonists of his paintings as are the religious subjects that dominated 15th-century Italian art. One of the most influential painters of the Renaissance, he worked in and around Venice, and while his landscapes are highly metaphorical, they also accurately reflect the region’s topography and natural light. Created for sophisticated patrons, Bellini’s works present characters and symbols from familiar sacred stories, set in a dimension of reality and lived experience to a degree unprecedented in the history of Italian painting.”

Crucifixion (detail) by Giovanni Bellini — Giovanni Bellini (Italian, ca. 1430–1516), *Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist* (detail), ca. 1459. Oil and tempera on wood panel. Museo Correr, Venice.

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TEMPORARY INSTALLATION: Yesterday was the last day to see “Nativity Scenes of the World” by Ejti Štih, an installation of thirty culturally diverse, life-size cut-out figures inside the concert hall of Slovenia’s famous Postojna Cave. What a location! Click here for a quick video tour of all the figures.

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I’m excited to dig into the new books I got for Christmas! Thanks, family—you’re the best. (And no, Mom, the book-length bibliography of ekphrastic poetry was not a mistake on my wishlist. Yes, really.)

Christmas books

Roundup: Animated Nativity short; Bethlehem speaks; “Glory in the Darkest Place”; Norwegian jazz; gilding goldfinch

December 21, 2017October 24, 2023 Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

SHORT FILMS:

>> Rozhdestvo (The Nativity) (1996), written and directed by Mikhail Aldashin: I am blown away by this wordless animated short from Russia. Using a naive art style washed in sepia tones and set to a soundtrack of Bach and Beethoven, it tells the story of how angels, humans, and animals came together on the first Christmas to worship the newborn Christ. It opens with Gabriel peeking out from behind a tree at Mary hanging laundry, then chasing her down a footpath to tell her what God is up to. For every person and critter he encounters, Gabriel flashes open the book of God’s word, pointing them to the shalom it prophesies and inviting them to enter in. By the end, shepherds, fishermen, kings, rabbits, lambs, and lion are participating in a round dance outside the stable, while an angel orchestra (which includes violins and timpani!) plays from the rooftop.

An emphasis on the sweet humanity of the holy couple—scared, tired, joyful, loving—makes this film especially endearing, and the roles given to animals reminds us that under Christ, all creation will be redeemed. I’m adding this to my annual Christmas watchlist! [HT: ArtWay]

>> O Little Town of Bethlehem (2012), dir. Tim Parsons: Commissioned by St. Paul’s Arts and Media (SPAM) in Auckland, New Zealand, this film tells the story of Christ’s Nativity through the voices of those who currently live in and around his birthplace of Bethlehem. A Palestinian shepherd, taxi driver, street vendor, midwife, peace activist, and antiquities dealer are among those interviewed, each reflecting on the significance of Christ’s story and providing a window into Middle Eastern culture. Some are Christian, others are Muslim (the Koran has its own account of the virginal conception and birth of Jesus—or Isa, as he is known in that tradition).

Though filmed five years ago, the living conditions captured in this video still exist. The West Bank’s 440-mile wall, built by Israel on seized land, plows through front yards, farms, and university campuses and restricts the movement of Palestinians—to water, work, prayer, and hospitals. Since the establishment of the modern State of Israel in 1948, many Palestinians have been displaced from their homes and live in refugee camps. The director said he didn’t want to make the film political but that he couldn’t avoid filming these realities. The hopes and prayers expressed by the film’s subjects we should adopt as our own this Christmas as we reflect on the birth of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love two thousand years ago in this little Palestinian town.

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SONGS:

>> “Glory in the Darkest Place” by Brittany Hope: Last December Brittany Hope Kauflin (whose professional name drops the “Kauflin”) wrote “a song for those in darkness this Christmas season,” video-recording it at home with her sister McKenzie and her dad Bob. The outpouring of appreciation she received made her recognize the demand for soft and somber Christmas songs that probe for the light—as for many people, the holidays are characterized more by sadness than by celebration. Now the song is available, along with seven others in the same vein, on the album Glory in the Darkest Place. To read an introduction to the song by Bob Kauflin and/or to download the chord chart, piano score, and lyrics, click here. [HT: Bruce Benedict]

>> “Hellige Natt” (O Holy Night), arr. Eirik Hegdal, feat. Kirsti Huke: This innovative Norwegian jazz arrangement of the Christmas classic “O Holy Night” is performed inside the medieval Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) Jazz Ensemble and the NTNU Chamber Orchestra. An impressive space whose grandeur is matched by this rich, expressive performance. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

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ILLUMINATED POEM: “Goldfinch” by Robert Macfarlane, illuminated by Jackie Morris: Nature writer Robert Macfarlane’s critically acclaimed book The Lost Words: A Spell Book, illustrated by Jackie Morris and published this October, is a joyful celebration of the nature words that were dropped from the 2008 edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary. Aiming to “enchant nearby nature again” for both kids and adults, it comprises a series of acrostic poems whose main letters are gilded in gold leaf.

Goldfinch poem — Poem by Robert Macfarlane. Art by Jackie Morris.

I’m pleased to see that Macfarlane’s collaboration with Morris has continued with his latest “Goldfinch”—a “‘charm’ about hope, harm, gift & darkness.” Handwritten over a painting by Morris, the poem begins

God knows the world needs all the good it can get right now—and
out in the gardens, the woods, goldfinches are gilding the land for free,
leaving little gifts of light . . .

The piece is reproduced in the latest issue of Elementum Journal, and the original has sold. Hear Morris read the poem in the SoundCloud player above.

Click here to read an interview with Macfarlane and Morris on the making of The Lost Words, and here to read Macfarlane’s response to a 2002 study that found that four- to eleven-year-old Brits are better at identifying Pokémon characters than native species of plants and animals, like oak tree and badger. Also, check out his other books, like Landscape, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, The Wild Places, and Mountains of the Mind.

Many of the artworks and resources I share on these roundup posts I discover through the individuals, organizations, or publications I follow on social media or via RSS. If I’m not introduced to the content directly by its maker, I will try to indicate an “HT” credit, shorthand for “hat tip,” meaning thank you, X, for bringing this to my attention! All descriptions and commentary, however, are my own, unless set in quote marks.