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Reflections on Art from 100 Years Ago

The Reunion

By Fr. Peter Fennessy, SJ

Ernst Barlach, The Reunion (1926), sapeli mahogany sculpture, 35.4 × 15 × 9.8 inches, Ernst Barlach House.
(Photo credit: Rufus46, Wikimedia Commons)

Thomas wasn’t with the other disciples when Jesus appeared to them Easter Sunday evening. He declared he wouldn’t believe Jesus was risen unless he put his finger into the wounds in His hands and his hand into the wounds in His side. Today’s Gospel (John 20:19-31) relates how Jesus appeared a week later and offered Thomas the opportunity to do just that.  Paintings of this event are usually entitled “The Incredulity of Thomas” and focus of the probing of the wounds. Barlach’s sculpture, “The Reunion,” focuses instead on the essence of these appearances—relationship and reunion.

Jesus stands straight, strong, tall; Thomas bends over, faltering. They embrace tenderly and are reconciled; the bond between them is renewed and strengthened.  Jesus holds and supports Thomas and offers him understanding, compassion, acceptance, forgiveness, love. He accepts even the unreasonable demands Thomas has made. Thomas leans on Jesus with sorrow, repentance, relief, joy and love. He no longer needs to probe the wounds; the presence and embrace of Jesus is enough. “The Reunion” means more than this one encounter. It alludes to the emotions that create, destroy and reestablish all human relationships. It invites us to examine the relationships in our own lives.

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Reflections on Art from 100 Years Ago

The Pietà

By Fr. Peter Fennessy, SJ

dead figure lays on tomb, two men stand behind him, another man in right corner

Albin Egger-Lienz, Pietà (1926), oil on canvas, 68.1 × 90.9 inches, The Leopold Museum, Vienna, Austria.

Its orientation recalls Mantegna’s “Lamentation of Christ.” Egger-Lienz’s mourners are less distraught than Mantegna’s, but they’re well acquainted with grief, and their mourning is the more moving for being solemn and silent. This woundless body might represent any death in the peasant community; these mourners might stand for all who mourn. The empty place in the lower left invites us to enter the scene as a fourth mourner.

Egger-Lienz’s “The Dead Christ” (1926) is an almost exact copy of this painting without the mourners, as if He were lying in the tomb. “Pietà” focuses on sorrow; “The Dead Christ” focuses on the silence of the tomb.

On Holy Saturday we grieve with Mary and the disciples, or we rest with Christ and so may say with Paul Claudel, “With you I have descended into the tomb, and have lain there without motion, and the confines of your tomb have become the confines of my universe.”

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Reflections on Art from 100 Years Ago

The Annunciation of the Virgin Mary

By Fr. Peter Fennessy, SJ

Harald Slott-Møller, The Annunciation of the Virgin Mary (1926), oil on canvas, 19.3 × 25.6 inches, private collection.

We celebrate today the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary (the earliest feast dedicated to her) and the Incarnation of the Lord, since the Word became flesh when Mary gave her consent. The abundant flowers denote new life and fecundity as well as purity. Today’s Gospel tells the story (Luke 1:26-38). And Harald Slott-Møller’s “The Annunciation of the Virgin Mary” (1926) illustrates it.

Painters often depicted Mary regally dressed and in palatial surroundings to stress her dignity, worth and nobility. Here, Mary is a young girl beside a humble home. She’s bare footed and clad in a simple shift. When the angel appeared, she had been doing some household task and, suddenly startled, she dropped a container behind her. The Archangel Gabriel bows to her, his arms are crossed in reverence. She shows what kind of person she is by her posture, facial expression and open arms with which she gives herself totally to God’s will. To become pregnant but not by Joseph could result in divorce, disgrace and even stoning to death. She has ample reason for anxiety and fear. But her response to that is the simple reply: “I am God’s servant. Whatever God wants, my answer is ‘Yes’.”

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Reflections on Art from 100 Years Ago

Desert sojourn, a honeymoon with the Lord

By Fr. Peter Fennessy, SJ

Frank J. Girardin, Desert Landscape (1926), oil on canvas, 20 × 30 inches, private collection.

The Jews spent 40 years in the desert, and so “40” came to signify a time of prayer, preparation and perhaps penance. Moses, Elijah and Jesus all fasted for 40 days, and also in the desert.

The desert became a special place for Israel. Their sojourn in the desert, despite difficulties, was a honeymoon with the Lord. When later Israel became unfaithful, God declared He would allure her into the desert and speak tenderly to her heart, and she would respond to Him as in the days of her youth (Hosea 2:14-15). Today we begin 40 days of Lent, and Jesus invites us to come apart with Him into a desert place and rest awhile (Mk 6:31).

Those who venture into the desert must leave the superfluous behind, travel with the bare necessities and depend on God alone. They must enter its solitude and silence to hear the small still voice of God. They must encounter the demons that are there and those they bring with them, discover their deceptions and resist their temptations as Jesus did. The desert is a place of purification and conversion, but rain from heaven can make even our desert bloom into newness of life.

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Reflections on Art from 100 Years Ago

In the storm with Jesus

Eero Järnefelt, detail of In a Storm with Jesus (1926), original size 17.7 feet high × 12.1 feet wide, Church of the Holy Trinity, Raahe, Finland.

Today’s Gospel (Mk 4:35-41) tells the story of Jesus calming the storm. Eero Järnefelt’s altarpiece, “In a Storm with Jesus” (1926), portrays the moment when Jesus commands the wind and waves to be still. 

The experienced fishermen were in fear for their lives, while the landsman Jesus stayed soundly asleep. They woke Him in their panic. “Didn’t He care that they were perishing?” What could they possibly have expected Him to do? In fact, He did something they could never have expected. Jews believed that only God could command the wind and waves. But Jesus, by doing precisely that and with just a word, proved that He possessed an authority and power reserved for God alone. Well might the awe-struck disciples ask, “Who is this man, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”

Storms and raging waters are Biblical metaphors for the trials and troubles of life. This story then is a parable about our own struggles and emotional storms, when God seems far away or fast asleep. It invites us to trust that Christ will deliver us by His power from the storms that rage outside or sustain us by His presence from the tempestuous fears within.

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Reflections on Art from 100 Years Ago

Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

By Fr. Peter Fennessy, SJ

Joseph Stella, The Virgin (1926), oil on canvas, 39.7 × 38.8 inches, Brooklyn Museum.

Joseph Stella became famous for his Cubo-Futurist compositions of New York. But he felt suffocated by the big city and longed for his native Italy. In “The Virgin” (1926) he turned away from urban imagery back to nature, spirituality and the traditions of his homeland.

Behind Mary’s halo Mount Vesuvius rises over the Bay of Naples. The vibrant colors of this painting are those of the ceramics of southern Italy. The Virgin is what he remembered from the Italian Renaissance altarpieces and the religion of his youth. And although the lilies to her left proclaim Mary to be a virgin, she’s surrounded by birds and by Mediterranean fruits and flowers that stand for life, fecundity and fruitfulness. Flowers adorn her mantle, tunic, hands and significantly the circle that in icons of Our Lady of the Sign represents her womb which holds the newly conceived Son of God.

She has become the Mother of God, whose feast we celebrate this first day of the year. Mary’s face shows peace, her lowered eyes humility and prayerfulness, her folded hands acceptance of God’s will and her love of the Child within her. She is a model for us and our mother as well. 

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Reflections on Art from 100 Years Ago

Madonna of the Fir Tree

By Fr. Peter Fennessy, SJ

Marianne Preindelsberger Stokes, Madonna of the Fir Tree (1925), tempera and gilt on on board, 11.5 × 8.8 inches, private collection.

Christmas has come, and in “Madonna of the Fir Tree” by Marianne Stokes, the Virgin proudly shows us her Son, the newborn Savior of the world. His halo bears a cross that alludes to the way in which He will save us. The symbolism in this painting is open to various interpretations. The fir tree is associated with the Christmas tree and so with the birth of Christ. As an evergreen it can represent eternal life and hope. Its strength in storms makes it a symbol of resilience and the ability to overcome adversity. Crows are sometimes seen in combination with symbols of hope or redemption; they manifest the contrast between light and darkness, life and death, despair and salvation. So, this painting might portray the fact that light, hope and eternal life have entered our world of darkness and sin in the person of the newborn Lord. It might refer to the prophecy of Isaiah, “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree” (Isaiah 55:13), the thorn here symbolizing pain, sorrow and suffering that will give place to beauty, fragrance and endless life. Or perhaps it is just a lovely picture of Mary and her newborn Child.

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Reflections on Art from 100 Years Ago

Thanksgiving at Plymouth

By Fr. Peter Fennessy, SJ

Jennie Augusta Brownscombe, (detail) Thanksgiving at Plymouth (1925), oil on canvas, original 30 × 39.13 inches, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.

Colonists in New England and Canada regularly celebrated days of prayer and thanksgiving. Jennie Augusta Brownscombe’s “Thanksgiving at Plymouth” depicts Plymouth Colony’s first harvest feast in 1621, often thought to be the origin of our Thanksgiving. Although Native Americans attended this celebration, Brownscombe may have been making a point when she huddled them together so far to the side. Thanksgiving is not a happy feast for Native Americans.

Christians believe gratitude is appropriate every day. Each day at the Eucharist (Greek for “thanksgiving”) most Prefaces begin, “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give You thanks, Father most holy, through Your beloved Son, Jesus Christ.” Saint Paul writes, “In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Saint Ignatius, in the final Contemplation of his Spiritual Exercises, says that all things around and within us are gifts from God, for which we ought to be grateful. For Ignatius, ingratitude was the greatest of all sins. We should make our own the prayer of Dag Hammarskjöld that begins, “For all that has been—Thanks!”

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Reflections on Art from 100 Years Ago

By Fr. Peter Fennessy, SJ

Hubert McGoldrick, (detail) Revelation of The Sacred Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1925), stained glass window, St. Brendan’s Cathedral, Loughrea, County Galway, Ireland

We celebrate the feast of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque on October 16 not only because of her holiness of life, but also because of the Lord’s revelations to her of His love for us, illustrated in this stained-glass window.

Those revelations led to our modern devotion to the Sacred Heart and its feast. Pope Pius XI said, “the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was instituted at a time when men were oppressed by the sad and gloomy severity of Jansenism, which had made their hearts grow cold, and shut them out from the love of God and the hope of salvation.” That heresy taught that people were predestined to heaven or hell and could do nothing about it, that most people couldn’t love God enough to be forgiven their sins and were unworthy to receive Communion or its grace.

In apparitions to Margaret Mary between 1673 and 1675 Jesus made clear His love for us and His disappointment—not anger—when we fail to return the love that He so much desires from us. Margaret Mary’s director, St. Claude La Colombière, SJ, and his fellow Jesuits today promote this devotion to the Sacred Heart and oppose any Jansenist denial of it.

stained glass
CategoriesArt Reflection, 100th Anniversary by

Reflections on Art from 100 Years Ago

By Fr. Peter Fennessy, SJ

Ivan Milev, Prayer (1925), Iskra Historical Museum, Kazanlak, Bulgaria.

woman praying

Ivan Milev was said to be the first and only artist to paint Bulgarian rural Christians where we can see their souls, customs and hopes. His attention to the poor villagers led him to appreciate their spirituality and prayer.

In his “Evening Prayer in the Field” (1925) two peasants pause, sickles still in their hands, to bow, bless themselves and pray in the midst of their work. In “Prayer” (also 1925) a peasant woman prays before her home icons.  Her pious features are also iconic—geometric, abstract, intimating her unearthly, eternal and spiritual dimension. She has turned away from her daily labors and also from us to be absorbed in her prayer and intent only on the Lord.

She symbolizes and models for us why Manresa Jesuit Retreat House was founded. It is a holy place to which we withdraw from our usual lives. We enter into its silence and the silence of our hearts, the better to hear God’s words and receive God’s graces. It is holy ground where we refresh ourselves, our spiritual energies and our relationship with the Lord, and from which we return again to our usual lives strengthened in the Spirit and more fully ourselves.