Tag: three wise men

In the church calendar, the linked seasons of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany are sometimes referred to as the “cycle of light.” “Since earliest times the Christian community has utilized light as a primary symbol to convey the meaning of the Christ-event,” writes Wendy M. Wright in The Vigil: Keeping Watch in the Season of Christ’s Coming. “The power of the symbol was not lost on most generations of believers who lived closer than we do to the truth that we are all ultimately dependent upon the light of the sun for warmth, vision, and life itself” (152). Light imagery permeates scripture and the writings of the church fathers.

The capstone of the cycle of light, celebrated each year on January 6, is Epiphany, which means “manifestation” or “appearance.” In the West, this feast commemorates the visit of the magi, to whom the divinity of Christ was revealed, and who brought back the light they received to their homelands, an early spreading of the gospel. Epiphany is exactly one month away, but I wanted to provide a few resources in advance. For those in the DC metro area: note that there are just two weeks left to see the Anne Lindberg exhibition!

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NEW PLAYLIST: Epiphany (Art & Theology): I put together a playlist of nearly a hundred Epiphany songs that celebrate Jesus as the light of the world and that mark the magi’s transformative encounter with him.

Besides the classic “We Three Kings,” it also includes a few versions of the ancient hymn “Phos Hilaron” (originally written in Koine Greek and translated into English as “Gladsome [or Gladdening] Light”), a Provençal carol popularized by Bizet, a shape-note hymn from Appalachia, aguinaldos from Puerto Rico, Arabic hymns from Syria and Lebanon, plainchant scripture settings, Renaissance motets, traditional and contemporary Black gospel songs, indie songs (including retuned hymns) from the past decade, and choral works from the UK, Jamaica, and Argentina. Some of the selections are quieter, more reflective, whereas others are very exuberant, like “Jesus Is the Light” by Hezekiah Walker and the Love Fellowship Crusade Choir:

And “Los Reyes Magos,” the fifth movement of Ariel Ramirez’s folk drama Navidad Nuestra (lyrics here); the song was written as a taquirari, a type of Bolivian folk song that has a syncopated rhythm and that is danced to, and features a charango (small guitar) and siku (Andean panpipe):

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ART COMMENTARIES: The VCS Advent Calendar 2023: Every Advent, the Visual Commentary on Scripture sends out a daily image from its online archives to its email list around a seasonal theme. This year’s theme is “light.” The images are keyed to particular scripture passages having to do with light and are accompanied by commentary from a range of contributors. So far the VCS has featured a Genesis 1–inspired Sistine Chapel fresco, John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens’s extraordinary Baptistery Window at Coventry Cathedral, a Trinitarian miniature from an English book of hours, a heliotropic landscape sculpture by David Wood, a light installation by Dan Flavin at a church in Milan, and Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night.

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EXHIBITIONS:

>> What color is divine light? by Anne Lindberg, January 5–December 22, 2023, Textile Museum at George Washington University, Washington, DC: I saw this installation last month, and it is striking! About four thousand strands of complementary yellow and blue cotton thread (and some white and green), stretching across the gallery against a backdrop of lavender-painted walls, evoking light. The artist describes the work as a drawing made of textile material in the air. It was inspired by a 1971 essay of the same title by the art historian Patrik Reuterswärd (see The Visible and Invisible in Art: Essays in the History of Art), and it opened adjacent to an exhibition of prayer carpets, titled Prayer and Transcendence.

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In addition to the video above, you can view gorgeous photos of the installation on Lindberg’s website.

>> Bubble Universe: Physical Light, Bubbles of Light, Wobbling Light, and Environmental Light by teamLab, opens early February 2024, Borderless (museum), Azabudai Hills, Tokyo: teamLab is an international collective of “ultra-technologists” consisting of artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians, and architects who collaborate on immersive art projects. One of their upcoming installations is a room with hundreds of glowing spheres, each containing unique changing lights that interact with guests and the environment itself. [HT: My Modern Met]

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NEW ALBUMS:

>> The Light by Sarah Sparks: A four-song EP by a Christian singer-songwriter from Hawaii. Here’s the first track:

>> Morning Star: Music for Epiphany Down the Ages by the Gesualdo Six: Released November 3, this wonderful album comprises twenty-one choral pieces for Epiphany—a mix of plainchant propers for Mass, hymns, Renaissance motets, and twenty-first-century works. One of the contemporary works is a setting by Owain Park of Psalm 43:3: “O send out thy light and thy truth, that they may lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy dwelling”: