Durham Cathedral

Durham's massive patterned columns hold aloft the finest cathedral in northern Europe, built (between 1093 and 1128) to symbolise the power of the conquering Normans, and embodying revolutionary technology.
Description from Paul Johnson, photo via Wikipedia.

 Absolutely gorgeous isn't it? A bit about cathedrals in general from Paul Johnson's Art: A New History.

The liturgical demands of the cathedral, which were complicated and exacting and continually becoming more so, meant that it had to be designed from the inside outwards. The dynamic force pushing the designer against the frontiers of his technology was the insistence of bishop and chapter, backed by the public, that he provide an ever-larger enclosed space in the middle of the church. This was reinforced by a religious and aesthetic urge to let in more light by building the walls higher and higher. To the early medieval man, the church was an epitome of his cosmology. The stone with which it was built symbolised eternity. The walls upheld the firmament above. There God dwelt to receive his voice and prayers ascending upwards. Worship was a rising motion and the higher the ceiling the closer man's prayer and song, which filled it with sound, would come to God. And the higher the roof, the more detached it was from the clayey prison of the earth beneath. Height was therefore an escape from earth to Heaven and that was why the cathedral had to provide it.

He goes on to talk about why Durham is so revolutionary and the constraints the artist was working with in order to built a fitting tribute to God.

Book of Durrow

The Book of Durrow (seventh century) is a masterpiece of calligraphy,
 drawn from late Roman models, and merged into Celtic passion for abstract decorative forms.

 The above caption comes from Art: A New History by Paul Johnson. This book is a simply marvelous way to read about history, as focused through the lens of artistic development.

I've always loved illuminated manuscripts and I wish that there was a version of them produced in modern times. I would snap up a Bible thusly illustrated. Think how it would enrich one's meditation to have art and words working together to raise our communication with God to a higher level.

My wishes aside, our modern age does allow us to enjoy illustrated manuscripts from ages past. I particularly love the page above with the dragon-ish capital N.

These artistic instincts and skills were in due course Christianised, and put to work in the monastic scriptoria which were springing up all over western Europe. The result was a kind of art which, in its intricacy of line and colour, has never been excelled. ...

These monasteries began, from the early seventh century, to produce illuminated manuscripts of great beauty and elaboration. It is not always possible to discover which house produced which book, and scholarly argument, reflecting modern nationalism, rages round the provenance. ... Then follow the three "luxury" manuscripts, prepared by great artists as a feast for the eyes of Dark Age kings: the Book of Durrow, from about 670 (Dublin, Trinity), the Lindisfarne Gospels, c. 700 (British Library) and the Book of Kells, c. 800 (Dublin, Trinity). These three masterpieces have never been excelled in the history of book production: the concentrated skill they display astonishes, mystifies, overwhelms and even alarms modern eyes. It is hard for us to get inside the mind of the scribe-artist who spent months, perhaps years, decorating a single page with a combination of abstract motifs, zoomorphic or terrestrial stylised figures, major initials and elaborate script, all integrated in designs which are self-perpetuating patterns of dynamic movement.

The workmanship is so close to perfection that it is almost impossible to detect signs of fatigue or flagging invention. ...

Worth a Thousand Words: Court of Lions

Court of the Lions, Alhambra, Granada, is the epicentre of the greatest concentration of high Islamic art, through which runs the perpetual trickle of water that Muslims thought essential to architecture.

 This photo is nowhere near the quality that is featured in Art: A New History, but it gives a flavor of the delight I felt upon seeing the image in the book. I absolutely loved the idea of water being a part of the architecture of a building.

The second feature of the Alhambra is the presence of water, which flows, drips, splashes and spouts in dozens of different ways, and in scores of places, throughout the immense complex of buildings, though it is visible chiefly in the courts. The Patio de los Leones, or Court of the Lions, built in the 1370s, summarises everything the Islamic world had learned about water-architecture. it has a central fountain resting on the backs of twelve white marble lions. The water trickles away in narrow canals between systems of twin-pillared arches, forming arcades on which rest four magnificent reception rooms on the first storey. They overlook the court, but are remarkable also for their starry vaults, lit by great windows which admit and discipline the sunlight. The decoration is provided by Kufic patterning and by poetry in brilliant cursive script, and a poem also adorns the fountain itself. Font and arch, marble and glass mosaic, paint, stone and script, tile and open window, grass and herb, light, shade, and brilliance all combine together to create a sense of airy lightness, reassuringly underwritten by marmoreal solidity. ...

I could keep going but then I'd just have to give you the whole book. Paul Johnson is not a bad artist with words himself as we can see.

My husband has always wanted to see the Alhambra. After reading Johnson's look at it and seeing photos I can understand why. I'd like to see it myself.

St. Mark

Donatello, St. Mark (1411-13)
via Wikipedia

... it also remains true that Italian sculptors, like those north of the Alps, were moving relentlessly in the same direction: the discovery and representation of the individual human being, with truth and dignity. It was a move away from mere human symbols and archetypes toward actual flesh-and-blood men and women. For the Christian faith taught that humans were not types. Each had an immortal soul, and the carvers began to look for it in the faces and bodies they saw. But whereas the northern sculptor had no theory and worked by instinct—and his instinct for realism, as we have seen, was overwhelmingly strong—the Italian sculptors were beginning to learn about humanism, the knowledge from the past which directed fierce attention on the human body and psyche, created in God's image and the potential master of the universe and all it contained. The human being was all-important and sacrosanct, and to portray him accurately and vividly was a God-like act, worthy of the utmost pains and the highest genius.

Paul Johnson, Art: A New History

Amen.

I really, really like it when historians are not afraid to acknowledge all sorts of influences on people, including their faith. And to go to the trouble to understand the faith enough that they can see how it influences the people.

Queen of Time, Selfridges

Gilbert Bayes, The Queen of Time, at Selfridges
Source 

 Isn't this magnificent? If ever I get to London again I will certainly be sure to go to see it and all the other wonderful art at Selfridges. I first came across the reference to this glorious piece of art in Art: A New History by Paul Johnson.

Be sure to go to the source link for more photos and information about the art of Selfridges. For more of this artist's work, check out the page at The Victorian Web.

Voting democracy and market democracy

The United States was the first to introduce voting democracy. Almost equally central to the ethos of the country was market democracy, in which ordinary people voted with their wallets and, in doing so, insured that they got what they wanted. Salesmanship, market research, advertising, the rapid response of production machinery to perceived customer requirements‚all these forms of materialism which, in their more raucous aspects, are identified as American failings or rather excrescences, are in fact central to its democratic strength. The story of Sears Roebuck, for instance, is a tale of how high-quality products, once the preserve of the rich, were humbled and distributed literally everywhere.

Paul Johnson,

A History of the American People

Iron Rolling Mill

Adolph Menzel (1815–1905), The Iron Rolling Mill
Source

 I originally came across this when reading Paul Johnson's Art: a New History. I love these big subjects with the humanity reflected in the little scenarios around the corners, like the fellows in the bottom right having a quick meal. Click through on the link so you can really look at the details closely.

America as a great cultural nation

That the United States, lifted up by an extraordinary combination of self-created wealth and native talent, became a great cultural nation in the second half of the 19th century is a fact which the world, and even Americans themselves, have been slow to grasp.

Paul Johnson,

A History of the American People

Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls, 1857, Frederic Edwin Church
via Wikipedia

I love these sorts of pieces by painters who did such a splendid job of showing North America's natural beauty. They're often called the Hudson River School or the Luminous School but Paul Johnson in Art: A New History argues that that is limiting the artists too much.

This painting reminded me of the breathtaking paintings we saw at the Hudson River School show at the Amon Carter Museum years ago. There is simply nothing like seeing these (or any) paintings in real life.

The computer can't do it justice but do be sure to click through on the link above to see the painting in as large a size as possible.

What we lose track of in Exodus

The stories of the plague of Egypt, and the other wonders and miracles which preceded the Israelite break-out, have so dominated our reading of Exodus that we sometimes lose sight of the sheer physical fact of the successful revolt and escape of a slave-people, the only one recorded in antiquity.

Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews

Melk Staircase

Stift Melk, staircase near church, photographed by David Monniaux, Creative Commons licensing

 I first saw this gorgeous piece of architecture in Art: A New History by Paul Johnson. I could look at this all day.

The Beheading of John the Baptist

Rogier van der Weyden, in his Beheading of John the Baptist (c. 1455-60),
transforms a horrific act into a scene of
elegance, subtle feeling and beauty-in-depth. (Paul Johnson)

This selection and the appreciation below are from Paul Johnson's Art: A New History which is an unusual window into history. This does not show us history as much as help to understand what the artist was trying to get across. It certainly helps me to understand why so many artists portrayed historical scenes with contemporary clothing and details.

If this seems like too much text to bother with, be sure at least to read the last couple of sentences. It is the essence of the thing and also may pique your interest for the rest.

... Rogier introduced many cunning innovations in presenting his work—shifting the angles, moving the main figures closer to the viewer, then pushing them back, framing them in architectural fantasies, windows and painted surrounds, devices which then become standard in northern art.

But in one respect, Rogier was faithful to his tradition. He loved detail, and it was always contemporary detail. Of his many large-scale works, the one which brings this out best is his Scenes from the Life of John the Baptist in Berlin. These three pictures convey an enormous amount of detail. Salome has certainly not been performing a dance. She is dressed in the height of Brussels fashion, c. 1450, and holds the dish to receive the severed head disdainfully, as though she was not accustomed to handling platters of any description. Every detail of her presentation is perfect. The executioner must have been done from life at a ceremonial chopping, of which there were many the artist could have witnessed. The way the man has stripped himself of most of his garments to get a perfect swing to his sword, itself rendered in fearsome detail, is unforgettable. Behind the pair and the ghoulish head, which glows with recently dead pallor, is a passageway, closely guarded, which opens in to the banquet scene itself, in the far distance but lovingly rendered so that we have a good idea of what was being eaten before the head made its entrance. The story of the head, which never failed to arouse interest anywhere in Europe for a thousand years—it was still going strong in the days of Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley—is here used as an excuse for a piece of dramatised genre painting. The details told the viewers two things. First, "All this is true," and secondly, "Take note of these events, they are part of your life also."

The whole purpose of sacrifice ...

Isaac was chosen as the offering not only because he was Abraham's most precious possession but because he was a special gift of God's under the covenant, and remained God's like all the rest of his gifts to man. This underlines the whole purpose of sacrifice, a symbolic reminder that everything man possesses comes from God and is returnable to him.

Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews

The Bible is a work of history

The Bible is not a work of reason, it is a work of history, dealing with what are to us mysterious and even inexplicable events. It is concerned with the momentous choices which it pleased God to make. It is essential to the understanding of Jewish history to grasp the importance the Jews have always attached to God's unrestricted ownership of creation. Many Jewish beliefs are designed to dramatize this central fact. The notion of an elect people was part of God's purpose to stress his possession of all created things.

Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews

God made us creators

Creativity, I believe, is inherent in all of us. We are the progeny of almighty God. God is defined in many ways: all-powerful, all-wise, and all-seeing; everlasting; the lawgiver; the ultimate source of love, beauty, justice, and happiness. Most of all, he is the creator. He created the universe, and those who inhabit it; and, in creating us, he made us in his own image, so that his personality and capacities, however feebly, are reflected in our minds, bodies, and immortal spirits. So we are, by our nature, creators as well. All of us can, and most of us do, create in one way or another. We are undoubtedly at our happiest when creating, however humbly and inconspicuously. ...

... the only problem is how to bring it out. A farmer is creative—none more so—and so is a shoemaker. A ticket collector on a red double-decker once remarked to me: "I run the best bus route in London." His pride was proprietorial, and clearly he felt he was creating something, rather like Pascal, the moral philosopher, who in the mid-seventeenth century first conceived the idea of an omnibus service for big cities like Paris. I sometimes talk to a jovial sweeper, who does my street, and who comes from Isfahan, in Persia, wherein lies the grandest and most beautiful square in the world, the work of many architects and craftsmen over centuries, but chiefly of the sixteenth. I asked him if he felt himself creative, and he said: "Oh, yes. Each day they give me a dirty street, and I make it into a clean one, thanks be to God." People do not always discern the creative element in their lives and work. But those who do are more likely to be happy.

Paul Johnson, Creators

I was really stunned to read this in the introduction to Paul Johnson's book. As a personal witness it can't be beat. Plus, of course, being true.

Weepers

Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, was the leading art patron of fourteenth-century France. His tomb, by Claus Sluter and Claus de Werve, is inhabited by alabaster hooded figures, known as "weepers." Description from Paul Johnson, image via Wikipedia

I really love these figures with their individual features and positions. Paul Johnson, Art: A New History, delights in this eloquently. Of course, I am going to share his comments!

Sluter was obliged to interrupt his work to attend to Philips tomb, a grand affair mainly in alabaster ... Sluter was bidden to attend the funeral and observe it, and his contract specified that he had to provide, in addition to the effigy of Philip, fifty-four angels and forty "Images pleurants." The angels are lost but the "weepers," as they were known--cowled figures common in late medieval art--were all done from life, and may have been actual participants in the obsequies. Slater was a master of the draped figure and its folds, in which he took exquisite delight, especially when working in a soft, luminous stone like alabaster. But he also put in wrinkles and beards, even the stubble, and all the details of costume under the drapes, down to buttonholes and laces. What strikes one most, however, is not such details as rosary beads, important though they are in creating verisimilitude, so much as the facial expressions, which though convey shamelessly the mixed emotions of a funeral: genuine and feigned grief, joy that one is still alive, sharp observation of how other people are behaving. Even funeral fashions are attended to, for each figure is clothed according to rank and personality, and each has a distinctive, often slyly observed,life of its own. After looking at these works, we feel we have a clear idea of what a grand early-fifteenth-century funeral was like. And that was Sluter's intention, for he did not want to change the world, merely to record it truthfully. If only all great artists were like him!

A powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance

The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.

Paul Johnson

Doge Leonardo Loredan

Giovanni Bellini, portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan
via Wikipedia

The Doge Leonardo Loredan (1501-1505) by Giovanni Bellini shows how a great master can turn a formal state portrait into both a penetrating study of character and an image of beauty. ...He had a wonderful eye for a face and huge skill at getting it down on panel. He broke the old Venetian tradition that a ruler could only be presented in a formal "medal" profile, by showing the Doge Leonardo Loredan in an almost frontal position, a faultless work which many would rate one of the best half-dozen portraits ever painted.

Paul Johnson, Art: A Modern History

All I know is that when I look at this portrait it almost looks as if someone photographed a modern face and stuck it between the hat and cape. Simply amazing.

The Meeting Scene

Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506), The Court of Mantua
via Wikipedia

I love how realistic this is. I discovered it in Paul Johnson's "Art: A New History" where he tells us:

The Camera delgi Sposi, being an exercise in contemporary realism, is perhaps the most authentic presentation of court life in Italy's golden age that we possess. The painter actually witnessed it, and the two main scenes, one outdoors (The Meeting), one indoors (The Signing of the Contract), take us straight into the world of marriage diplomacy, ceremony, intrigue and secret manoeuvering we read about in letters and chronicles. That world was later described by Machiavelli in The Prince and by Castiglione in The Courtier. But Mantegna's cold brush brings it horribly to life. I say horribly because, though there is exquisite beauty in the room, particularly in the rendering of the young, their elders have hearts of ice. ... there are no tricks about the figures, which have a Flemish realism. They are the actual faces of living people--fifteenth-century Italians of the urban, courtly breed, whispering in ready ears, hiding their deepest thoughts, making honeyed speeches, dissimulating and boasting, Cutting a bella figura while keeping their poignards sharp, strutting for effect and feigning every kind of emotion ... As in all Mantegna's works, one learns a great deal because, though a master of illusionistic devices, he always tells the truth.

Truly this man was the Son of God!*

In short, we must dismiss any idea of Jesus being a simple figure. His actions and motives were complex and he taught something which was hard to grasp... How could the intentions of God be conveyed so as to be understood by all men and for all time? Equally, how could any solution contain elements meaningful for all types and temperaments of men, as well as all races and generations: the activist, the militant, the doctrinaire, the ascetic, the obedient, the passive, the angular, the scholar, and the simple-hearted? How could it impart both a sense of urgency and immediacy, and at the same time be valid for all eternity? How could it bring bout, in men's minds, a confrontation with God which was both public and collective, and individual and intimate? How could it combine a code of ethics within a framework of strict justice and a promise of unprecedented generosity? These were only a few of the evangelical problems confronting Jesus. Moreover, he had to resolve them within a preordained series of historical events which could be adumbrated [suggested or disclosed partially] but not forecast and whose necessary enactment would terminate his mission.

A History of Christianity by Paul Johnson

I never looked at Jesus' ministry in those terms. What an impossible task and, yet, He did it perfectly. It just affirms, in my mind, His divinity and God's omnipotence. *Mark 15:39