Modern Artistic Depictions of the Saints

[Francis Coffee]

Interview with 'The Modern Saints' artist Gracie Morbitzer: "In these paintings I have corrected ethnicities to show the Church’s more widespread, though hidden, diversity, I have given each a character or personality and a real human expression, and I have given each a style and a modern twist. " https://www.themodernsaints.com  https://fscc-calledtobe.org

 

[Anastasia]

I did not watch the interview but looked into the person's website. Arguably, an artist can do anything because it is "a self-expression" and no one prohibit it. Yet the artist calls her works "icons" on her website and tries to stylize them as such, via painting halos and inscription while her images have nothing to do with icons. They are not sacred images; in many respects, unfortunately they are their antithesis.

Her "icon" of St John the Baptist

 

The modern (20 c.) icon of of St John the Baptist by Sister Johanna (Reitlinger)

 

The old icon of St John the Baptist

 

The sole purpose of the icons is a prayer. It is a bit hard to imagine someone praying before this [ the "icon" of St John the Evangelist]:

 

Remove a halo and a very typical way of inscribing - no problem, they will be no longer "icons".
I somehow recalled how some local politician was "so impressed" with my icons that he asked me if I could paint... a crucified kangaroo with a halo, to signify as he put it "the lack of care for the wild life".
Wrong purpose, wrong means.

PR For Eastern Orthodox believers the icons are holy, the state the reality of the Incarnation. Saints in our Church were martyred for them.

[Anastasia]

I thought a bit more - the pseudo-icons above are the result of using something improperly. The icons are for a prayer, they actually induce contemplation and they are the means, just like the Scripture, of putting a believer in touch with God and Saints. Because God and Saints are in the transfigured reality they are painted in a special way best suited to depict that very reality. They paint eternity and lift a person up into eternity.

The artist clamed that she deliberately "brought saints down" to be more accessible to the modern person. As a result, she did away with the very reason an icon is painted because her images can no longer induce a prayer. It would be the same as if someone decided to edit the Gospels to be more accessible and wrote "Jesus got up and said "Hey dudes, put that dam*n fish and bread into a basket and give me a joint".
[sorry Lord]

Edited December 4, 2020 by Anastasia

[SicutColumba]

2 hours ago, Anastasia said:

I did not watch the interview but looked into the person's website. Arguably, an artist can do anything because it is "a self-expression" and no one prohibit it. Yet the artist calls her works "icons" on her website and tries to stylize them as such, via painting halos and inscription while her images have nothing to do with icons. They are not sacred images; in many respects, unfortunately they are their antithesis.

Her "icon" of St John the Baptist

 

The modern (20 c.) icon of of St John the Baptist by Sister Johanna (Reitlinger)

 

The old icon of St John the Baptist

 

The sole purpose of the icons is a prayer. It is a bit hard to imagine someone praying before this [ the "icon" of St John the Evangelist]:

 

Remove a halo and a very typical way of inscribing - no problem, they will be no longer "icons".
I somehow recalled how some local politician was "so impressed" with my icons that he asked me if I could paint... a crucified kangaroo with a halo, to signify as he put it "the lack of care for the wild life".
Wrong purpose, wrong means.

PR For Eastern Orthodox believers the icons are holy, the state the reality of the Incarnation. Saints in our Church were martyred for them.

 

2 hours ago, Anastasia said:

I thought a bit more - the pseudo-icons above are the result of using something improperly. The icons are for a prayer, they actually induce contemplation and they are the means, just like the Scripture, of putting a believer in touch with God and Saints. Because God and Saints are in the transfigured reality they are painted in a special way best suited to depict that very reality. They paint eternity and lift a person up into eternity.

The artist clamed that she deliberately "brought saints down" to be more accessible to the modern person. As a result, she did away with the very reason an icon is painted because her images can no longer induce a prayer. It would be the same as if someone decided to edit the Gospels to be more accessible and wrote "Jesus got up and said "Hey dudes, put that dam*n fish and bread into a basket and give me a joint".
[sorry Lord]

I somewhat understand this artist’s point of view—that she wants to make the saints accessible and attractive to young people today—but they’re already accessible and human and universal. It’s not as though a Catholic today can’t relate to Saint Thérèse de l’Enfant-Jésus or to Saint John the Baptist because they don’t look like a modern Catholic in the world today. To me this is a superficial understanding of others that permeates a lot of our thinking. We should be able to understand and empathize with and learn from those who don’t resemble us in every way. Sure, Saint Thérèse never went through a painful breakup but  she suffered greatly in other ways and that doesn’t mean that someone going through a painful breakup can’t turn to Saint Thérèse for her intercession. Just because my suffering is not identical to yours doesn’t mean we can’t share in the merits afforded by our sacrifice. The saints’ struggles and spirituality are totally universal. It’s one thing to depict Our Lord and Our Lady in the dress of a non-Jewish, non-33 AD culture. It’s another thing to erase the actual diversity of the saints and the image of the universality of the Church to make them seem relevant and hip, as though the “youth” are so disgusted by anything outdated that they can’t bear to see a depiction of a person who lived before circa 1990. 

I can’t claim to know anything about iconography but to me the point of religious art has always been to aid in contemplation, to reflect the beauty of God who is beauty itself. Here it seems like we’re dumbing down the saints so they seem relevant when in fact they’re universally relevant without our own spin on them and it’s we who are supposed to rise to their level. For example, on a lesser level, I can’t imagine anyone would be put off from reading Homer because they couldn’t relate to Achilles because he didn’t have blue hair or Jane Austen because she never knew what it was like to go through the pain of getting a tattoo and her characters couldn’t reflect that. But perhaps someone else has a different, enlightening perspective on this artist’s work and maybe these pictures help some people to contemplate. 

Edited December 4, 2020 by SicutColumba

[SicutColumba]

 

I don’t think I could personally ever contemplate on her modern icons of Saint Cecilia or Saint Joan but these images too I believe are problematic and I wish the artistic sensibilities of Roman Catholics as a whole were better formed. These images above don’t inspire me with prayer so it’s not just a problem with modern depictions. 

[Anastasia]

31 minutes ago, SicutColumba said:

But perhaps someone else has a different, enlightening perspective on this artist’s work and maybe these pictures help some people to contemplate. 

I agree with you about what you wrote in your message. One comment to the line I quoted: I do not believe though that anyone can be drawn into a contemplation before those images (of the artist in the video) because contemplation is based on awe, reverence. One can be drawn into contemplation seeing the beauty of creation for example and this is awe. The vector of a prayer is “up” but in those images there is nothing that induces a vector “up”. They are made without reverence. By the way, it is possible to paint Christ wearing a modern dress and yet do this with reverence.

[Anastasia]

5 minutes ago, SicutColumba said:

I don’t think I could personally ever contemplate on her modern icons of Saint Cecilia or Saint Joan but these images too I believe are problematic and I wish the artistic sensibilities of Roman Catholics as a whole were better formed. These images above don’t inspire me with prayer so it’s not just a problem with modern depictions. 

I hope no one will take an offence but I read somewhere an article called "Why Roman Catholic art is so bad?" or something like that, written by a Roman Catholic. The author mostly meant the degeneration into sugar-sweet images which are of a bad taste... I think that tendency began in 18c. On the image above St Therese was made look "pretty", not beautiful. Those modifications remove the depth visible on her photos.

I think the Roman Catholic liturgical art degenerated because the Roman Catholic Church did not accepted fully or better to say did not take seriously the theology of the sacred images. (This is not say that the eastern Orthodox Church does not have problems with icons. The appearances are preserved but the content is often lacking.)

[Guest]

11 hours ago, Anastasia said:

they actually induce contemplation and they are the means

?

  That is the precise image that triggered me to choose "Therese" for my Confirmation patron.  Because she was a nun, holding a crucifix with roses, all of which I loved - and what clinched my choice was I was told I could with St Therese have a REAL picture of a REAL saint.  The above image was a huge picture in my classroom in primary school. The others had such serious and sad expression or eyes raised to the heavens.  The artistic image of St Therese had a sort of smile and it seemed to look right at one and follow one.

I only read her biography some years after Confirmation.  It did not appeal to me much at all as it was too sweet for me, too holy.  It was even longer before I was reading 'between the lines' as it were.  When I was accepted at 16yrs of age to enter Carmel (advised to do so - my director confessor asked my permission to speak with the prioress) when I turned 21, I only share with close Catholic friends what I replied when the prioress asked me why I liked St Therese.   I know now probably why I was accepted (extern sisters would call on me at times where I worked back then and after my interview with the prioress) and that in my own quite childish and dreadful (yet honest) wording, I had hit the nail right on the head re holiness and sanctity and what Carmel is really all about.  I had had no 'holy' repertoire whatsoever.  Some of my friends when I told them what I said have looked quite shocked, until I explained.

I returned to that Carmel in my twenties, married with a child.  I attended Mass.   The prioress was very ill with terminal cancer but caught sight of me, remembered me from 16yrs of all things and sent one of the externs to say she wanted to speak with me.  I had only ever spoken with her that once at 16 yrs in the parlour and there was then the grille and a curtain.  She could see me, but I could not see her. It struck me back then as a bit spooky   We had a brief exchange.  She died not all that long after - a year or so later I think it was.

Many years later (after divorce, annulment) I was in the guest house on retreat.  An extern sister asked me what line in Scripture really appealed to me.  I replied "rejoicing always in His presence. I rejoiced in His whole world, rejoicing with Him in the children of men" i.e. people (Proverbs Ch 8)  It still has wondrous appeal for me.  One of those verses where one is reading and suddenly a passage sort of leaps out of the pages as it were, and grabs you.

_______________

Incidentally, I find icons really beautiful and appealing.  Personally, not so much the modern ones in this thread.  I went out with a carer today and we agreed that we were not of this generation talking together about technology, we were oldies and had best let the youngies get on with it, whatever they are going to make of this world.  I have hope.

[Guest]

10 hours ago, SicutColumba said:

We should be able to understand and empathize

What appeals and speaks to one person, may not do the same for another.  Being something of an artist, I know that what an artistic image says to a person is what that image is about.  A work of art can speak many languages and say many things.  When I saw the artistic image in this thread of St John The Baptism with a cigarette in his mouth, I thought to myself about teenagers in my previous suburb, some of whom were sort of at a crossroads ... a sort of heaven or hell type of choice that could well dictate the course of the rest of their lives.  It reminds me too of what they had been through in their so young, far too young, lives.  I used to live in a very poor area beset by probably every social problem in the book.  These teenagers had probably died a thousand times before becoming teenagers even.  It reminds me to keep them in prayer.

[Ash Wednesday]

I'm pretty picky about the religious art I like. I love traditional icons, though. And I can also understand the issue of icon elements being misused in modern art. Halos and specific poses in the past were used with very specific intent and meaning, so I really can't stand it when secular modern figures are, literally -- visually canonized -- when they are not canonized saints. I've seen an icon of George Floyd being cradled by the Blessed Mother but they used the inscriptions of Christ as the Alpha and Omega and the Cross around his head, and I did not think the usage of the Christ halo and inscriptions were appropriate. I get it, that it's a reference to suffering humanity being the suffering Christ and I don't think the artist intended harm. But I do think in terms of the connection between visuals and meaning, some things really are meant to be reserved for Christ alone, and the Christ halo is literally meant to assign Divinity.  If the Blessed Mother were cradling Floyd without the halo and inscriptions, I would have not taken issue with it. I've seen some paintings of the Blessed Mother hugging Floyd without the Christ halo and I could appreciate them.  But we don't visualize George Floyd with a Sacred Heart, in the monstrance, or on the cross. Floyd did not die on the cross, and he is not the Alpha and Omega. The Christ halo in an icon traditionally is meant to carry the same visual symbolism, weight and message. 

I don't mind an artist wanting to visualize the authentic way a saint looked, and I can appreciate the artist's unmistakable talent (in the OP). I looked at this artist's website and the visual execution of some of their work I really like a lot. But some of their visual decisions I really don't agree with, such as her painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe in sneakers, wearing a peasant dress with a high skirt and showing bare legs well above the knee -- I can't imagine Our Lady ever appearing to anyone in an apparition in this way, and she certainly didn't to St. Juan Diego. So I didn't think that was appropriate. The St. John the Evangelist cigarette painting gives off some kind of weary and cynical Bob Dylan or Kerouac expression that does not positively resonate with me as someone who wrote one of the books of the Gospel. I suppose I can appreciate and respect that the artist wanted to depict the saints as they may have been to her imagination, specifically. But how we imagine saints without photos -- ones mileage may vary and differ. I suspect that many artists that use things like iconography or halos are often not extensively familiar with the weight of their traditional usage in devotion and liturgy, so yes it really does come across as "off" to those of us that are.  

Given that we have photos, I prefer the images of St. Therese that have her face less stylized. The artists may have idealized her out of love but I loved her face just the way it was. 

Honestly I have to commend artists, those with the right intentions, that are able do religious art on the regular. I'm an artist but I think religious art is actually the hardest to do, the bar is the highest --  the audience has specific notions of the visuals in their minds -- and the subjects are sacred and what we hold dearest in our hearts.

[Anastasia]

I wonder if an author realizes that if she brought her work to an Eastern Orthodox country it would cause protests there because the Orthodox would see her paintings as a mockery of icons and the depicted on them. They probably would even try to destroy the image of Theotokos (Our Lady) wearing a mini skirt as a blasphemy and “a lie” that must be destroyed. The Eastern Orthodox attitude here boils down to “how dare you, are you nuts to do that?” I am conveying a normal response of an Orthodox in the language that matches the language of the paintings. I think it is useful for those who engage in such practices (for whatever reason) or approve them to hear the response of those from whose tradition they borrow.

Among other things, the author seems not to understand that a halo and inscription signify a state of a Saint in the Kingdom of Heaven, they are standing before God. The icons depict the transfigured reality, they do not depict the lives of Saints before they departed, the icon is not a life story. Everything in an icon has a symbolic meaning. For example, some Saints are depicted holding in their hands a miniature building (the monastery they established), some Saints – an icon, some others – Lily flower (for purity), some – the tool of their martyrdom etc. St John the Baptist usually hold Cross or, on some Russian icons, his own head on a platter. And on the author’s pseudo-icon of St John the Baptist we see the cigarette being included into the “iconic” space thus a cigarette becomes a symbol in eternity. He also does not look at the viewer (impossible for an icon). Hence the paintings look like a mockery of icons (unintentional but still makes that impression on an Eastern Orthodox who simply cannot conceive how anyone could paint such a thing; living in the West I know now that such things can be done out of extreme carelessness and ignorance). On the other hand, if the author did the paintings about the earthly lives of the Saints I would even not comment. She has a choice: either it is a painting but then remove haloes and inscription or it is an icon and then learn a proper iconography.

I can say much on the subject but I will simply provide the Prayer before the beginning of the icon painting and also some rules for an iconographer, to taste the real thing.
 

A Prayer before beginning an Icon:

O DIVINE LORD of all that exists, Thou hast illumined the Apostle and Evangelist Luke with Thy Holy Spirit, thereby enabling him to represent Thy most Holy Mother, the One who held Thee in her arms and said: The Grace of Him Who has been born of me is spread through the world!
Enlighten and direct my soul, my heart and my spirit. Guide the hands of Thine unworthy servant so that I may worthily and perfectly portray Thine Icon, that of Thy Mother, and all the Saints, for the glory, joy and adornment of Thy Holy Church.

Forgive my sins and the sins of those who will venerate these icons and who, kneeling devoutly before them, give homage to those they represent.

Protect them from all evil and instruct them with good counsel. This I ask through the intercession of Thy most Holy Mother, the Apostle Luke, and all the Saints. Amen.

 

The Rules:

Before starting work, make the sign of the Cross; pray in silence and pardon your enemies.

Work with care on every detail of your icon, as if you were working in front of the Lord Himself.

During work, pray in order to strengthen yourself physically and spiritually; avoid all useless words, and keep silence.

Pray in particular to the Saint whose face you are painting. Keep your mind from distractions, and the Saint will be close to you.

When you choose a colour, stretch out your hands interiorly to the Lord and ask His Counsel.

Do not be jealous of your neighbour’s work; his/her success is your success too.

When your icon is finished, thank God that His Mercy granted you the grace to paint the Holy Images.

Have your icon blessed by putting it on the Holy Table of your parish church. Be the first to pray before it, before giving it to others.

Edited December 6, 2020 by Anastasia

[Anastasia]

About ethnicity which the author claims to return to the Saints who are depicted white as she says. Incorrect, because 1) on the Byzantine icons people tend to be dark, Mideastern looking and some plain Africans 2) the sacred art often depicts Jesus, Our Lady, saints being of the ethnicity of the iconographer and this is a completely natural approach as well. I wrote this as an excuse to post some Christian sacred art of different cultures and ethnicities. It is bright, unusual and some is modern.

Chinese

Australian Aboriginal

 

African

[SicutColumba]

15 minutes ago, Anastasia said:

About ethnicity which the author claims to return to the Saints who are depicted white as she says. Incorrect, because 1) on the Byzantine icons people tend to be dark, Mideastern looking and some plain Africans 2) the sacred art often depicts Jesus, Our Lady, saints being of the ethnicity of the iconographer and this is a completely natural approach as well. I wrote this as an excuse to post some Christian sacred art of different cultures and ethnicities. It is bright, unusual and some is modern.

Chinese

Australian Aboriginal

 

African

The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a perfect example of this. It can be done reverently, tastefully, and beautifully, so as to inspire prayer. Our Lady showed herself as a Mexican Indian woman in the sixteenth century and it’s a glorious and beautiful image that shows us that this is possible, all the more so since it was she who chose to appear that way. Without the halos and inscriptions we wouldn’t even know that the modern saints are meant to be saints. 

52 minutes ago, Anastasia said:

The icons depict the transfigured reality, they do not depict the lives of Saints before they departed, the icon is not a life story

This is a very enlightening comment. Honestly I never knew much about iconography but for me this one sentence  makes me understand so much more profoundly and clearly. 

[Anastasia]

2 hours ago, SicutColumba said:

Honestly I never knew much about iconography but for me this one sentence  makes me understand so much more profoundly and clearly. 

I am very glad that my words about holy images were helpful. Some time ago I wrote a short guide 'Icons are for prayer' for the purpose of helping Western Christians to understand icons and to connect with them; you may wish to look into it http://orthodox-christian-icons.com/icons-are-for-prayer.html It is about the purpose of an icon, how to see it, how to pray before it etc.