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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!”

CategoriesArt Reflection, 100th Anniversary by

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.