Wedding at Cana (in the style of Japanese art)

We're off for the weekend to help St. Joseph's parish with their Beyond Cana retreat. After this one, their retreat team will be completely made up of their own parishioners! This seemed like the perfect piece of art for today.

Wedding at Cana
by Daniel Mitsui
This image is under copyright. The artist has given me permission to share his images on this blog.

I get excited every time I get one of Daniel Mitsui's newsletters. I know there it is always going to include at least one piece of art that thrills me. I'm such a fan of Asian art that I haven't been able to stop examining this depiction of the wedding at Cana.

Of this piece, Daniel says:

The original was created on private commission. This is the fifth commission I have received to transpose traditional subjects from medieval European art into the style of Japanese art. Various Japanese woodblock prints of the 18th and 19th centuries were used for visual reference. Paintings by Hinrik Funhof, Hieronymus Bosch, Gerard David and Bertram von Minden were among the occidental works that influenced the content and arrangement.

The Wedding at Cana is depicted in the middleground as a Japanese marriage ceremony, with the bride wearing the traditional garb, about to sip sake. Christ and Mary converse in the foreground, while a servant fills the six stone jars with water.

There is much more, which you can read here. For example the images on the jars and both sets of screens have very specific symbolic significance.