Master of the Embroidered Foliage - Virgin and Child in a Landscape
Master of the Embroidered Foliage (active 1480 – 1510) was a Netherlandish painter or a group of painters who worked out of Bruges and Brussels.
n 1926 the German art historian Max Jakob Friedländer attributed a group of paintings of the Virgin and Child in a landscape, in identical poses to “Master of the Embroidered Foliage.” The foliage painted in these works was likened by Friedländer to the repeated pattern of stitches in embroidery, thus the unusual name for the artist.
Max Jakob Friedländer (5 July 1867 in Berlin – 11 October 1958 in Amsterdam) was a German museum curator and art historian. He was a specialist in Early Netherlandish painting and the Northern Renaissance, who volunteered at the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin in 1891 under Friedrich Lippmann. On Lippmann’s recommendation, Wilhelm von Bode took him on as his assistant in 1896 for the paintings division. He was appointed deputy director under Bode in 1904 and became director himself from 1924 to 1932, working on his history From Van Eyck to Bruegel and the 14-volume (printed in 16, with supplements) survey Early Netherlandish Painting. In 1933 he was dismissed as a “non-Aryan” and in 1939 had to move to Amsterdam as a result of being a Jew. He attained the rank and title of geheimrat (privy councillor) under the German Empire.He also donated several works to the collection and worked in the art trade as an advisor, to Hermann Göring among others.
Friedländer’s approach to art history was essentially that of a connoisseur. He gave priority to a critical reading based on sensitivity rather than on grand artistic and or aesthetic theories. He described it as follows:
If the determination of the authorship of an individual work of art most certainly is not the ultimate and highest task of artistic erudition; even if it were no path to the goal: nevertheless, without a doubt, it is a school for the eye, since there is no formulation of a question which forces us to penetrate so deeply the essence of an individual work as that concerning the identity of the author. The individual work, rightly understood, teaches us what a comprehensive knowledge universal artistic activity is incapable of teaching us.
This rare four-lobed plaque is a superb example of émail de plique, a virtuoso enameling method popular in Paris during the late 1200s with the court of Philip the Fair (reigned 1285–1314). Plaques like this were prepared in advance to be attached to larger works including crosses, chalices, reliquaries, or even sewn into precious fabrics for decoration. Given the very distinctive shape of this plaque it is certain to have been created for a specific commission. Size: Overall: 4.8 x 4.8 cm (1 7/8 x 1 7/8 in.) Medium: Gold, translucent enamel
The words of St James, his injunctions about care and love for the poor would have resonated in the heart and actions of today’s Dominican blessed. For although he is renowned as a painter and indeed is regarded as the patron saint of artists, Blessed John of Fiesole’s own epitaph, carved around his tomb in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in the centre of Rome says: “When singing my praise, don’t liken my talents to those of Apelles. Say, rather, that, in the name of Christ, I gave all I had to the poor. The deeds that count on Earth are not the ones that count in Heaven. I, Giovanni, am the flower of Tuscany.” So, it is fitting on his feast day to remember that Blessed John did not want so much to be remembered for his artistic talents as for his charity, his love of the poor, his unseen deeds which honour Christ on earth in the poor and needy, and which thus redound to his glory in heaven. For as Christ warns in the Gospel today: “What gain, then, is it for a man to win the whole world and ruin his life?” No, it is better to strive for treasure and beauty in heaven through good deeds on earth, as St James says.
And yet this is a side of Blessed John that is often neglected: the aspects which account for his sanctity and his reputation in his lifetime that led to him being called Fra Angelico, the angelic friar. It’s often forgotten, even by Dominicans, that Blessed John was a pious layman and professional painter before he joined the Order; that he had joined a Confraternity that believed in physical asceticisms and discipline; that he was deeply influenced by the teachings and writings on social justice and economic reform advanced by the Dominican Archbishop of Florence, St Antoninus; and that in 1420 he joined the Observant branch of the Dominicans at Fiesole, who were engaged in acts of corporal mortification, severe fasting and asceticism, prayer and study by day and throughout the night, and a strong commitment to poverty. Fra Angelico would become the Prior of St Dominic’s Priory in Fiesole, a convent nestled in the secluded Tuscan hills near Florence, where he painted many altarpieces.
In 1439, St Antoninus, who was then Prior of St Mark’s in Florence, asked Fra Angelico to come to Florence and to paint frescoes of the Passion of Christ and of various Mysteries of the Rosary in the rooms of the friars. Whereas earlier theologians and ascetics had dismissed art and beauty as frivolous or a distraction from prayer and study, St Antoninus affirmed the importance of art in moving souls to devotion, and as an aid to prayer, focusing the mind on sacred things, and helping us to contemplate the higher things of God. Undoubtedly, St Antoninus’s view on sacred aesthetics was a great encouragement to Fra Angelico, and the beautiful convent of San Marco in Florence, which is now a museum of Fra Angelico’s art, is a testimony to the power of sacred art to inspire prayer and devotion. Hence, Dominican churches such as this one, which is full of sacred art especially in our Rosary Chapels, follow the insights of St Antoninus and Blessed John, which is that art and beauty lead us to contemplate divine mysteries with greater efficacy.
Thus many of the friars’ rooms in Florence are painted with images of the Cross and Passion of Christ, inviting them to meditate on the love of the suffering Christ. The words of today’s Gospel would have resonated in the minds of the friars who studied and prayed in those cells: “If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me”. Indeed Fra Angelico painted many images of the Crucifixion with St Dominic or a friar clinging to the cross.
However, it is Fra Angelico’s depictions of Our Lady, especially his paintings of the Annunciation, which are probably his most luminous works. A divine light suffuses his paintings, which in their beauty and serenity are the fruit of Blessed John’s contemplation; they are painted sermons which endure and continue to inspire us long after the homilies of contemporary preachers have faded from memory. For as Pope St John Paul II said: “Angelico was reported to have said: ‘He who does Christ’s work must stay with Christ always.’ This motto earned him the epithet ‘Blessed Angelico,’ because of the perfect integrity of his life and the almost divine beauty of the images he painted.”
So today, as we honour Blessed John of Fiesole, we recall not only his art but also his words, his teaching, his inspirations, and the beauty of his life – beautiful because of its integrity and authenticity as a Dominican friar preacher; beautiful because he so closely followed and contemplated Christ and Our Lady; and beautiful because his life shone with good works. May he pray for us, that our lives may also reflect the beauty of holiness.
“Does Christ reign in your heart? Ask the things you have stored up there. See what they tell you. Does self-reliance seem like the most reliable way home? Everyone has a list of failures to demolish that claim. Only knowing the Lord as your yokemate and redeemer enables a passage through the strictest crevice. The approach is all different: no longer trying like a fly to buzz through a sunlit window pane, but as one carried not along the way, but by Him who is the Way.”
Now the green blade riseth, from the buried grain, Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain; Love lives again, that with the dead has been: Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.
In the grave they laid Him, Love who had been slain, Thinking that He never would awake again, Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen: Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.
Forth He came at Easter, like the risen grain, Jesus who for three days in the grave had lain; Quick from the dead the risen One is seen: Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.
When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain, Jesus’ touch can call us back to life again, Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been: Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.
12 March: the Feast of St Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome from 3 September 590 to his death.
The Mass of St Gregory is a favourite depiction in Christian art.
Tradition has it that, once when celebrating Mass, a woman smiled when receiving Communion. Questioned, she laughed at Gregory’s reverence for the host, insisting that it was nothing more than bread she had baked that day. Legend holds the host then appeared as a finger. Subsequently, tradition asserted that the image of Jesus as the “Man of Sorrows” appeared on the altar during the Mass.
“All human situations of suffering and exclusion invite a comparison with the suffering of Christ, the death of Christ. And [the Pietà] condenses and concentrates a devout reflection on that.”
St Joseph, Guardian of Sons – Melchior Paul von Deschwanden
Eternal God, originator of Fatherhood, I offer to you the blessed office of Father. May the men who occupy this dignified place protect and care for their children and wives with valiant honesty, heroic chastity, noble humility, and stern sobriety.
Ignite a fire in the hearts of men, O God, so that they may respond to the Divine call to fatherhood, both natural and spiritual, and model themselves after the holy example of Blessed Joseph, Father of the Universal Church.
Through his intercession, may fathers be strengthened to flee from sin, subdue their flesh, wrestle with the powers of corruption, banish the darkness, and obtain victory over hell and its agents.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, sanctifier of all men, to the glory of God the Father. Amen.
The ancient statue of Christ Crucified being taken out of the Armenian Catholic Cathedral of Lviv, the historic capital of Galicia, now in western Ukraine, to be stored in a bunker for protection. The last time it was taken out was during WW2.
Saint John of God, heavenly Patron of the Sick, I come to you in prayer to seek your help in my present sickness. Through the love which Jesus had for you in choosing you for the sublime vocation of serving the sick, and through the tender affection with which the Blessed Virgin Mary placed upon your head a crown of thorns as a symbol of the sufferings you would undergo in the service of the sick to attain to your crown of glory, I beg you to intercede for me to Jesus and Mary that They may grant me a cure, if this should be according to the Will of God.
When the Portuguese arrived in Japan in 1549 they brought Christianity with Jesuit missionaries. During this period Japan was in a period of civil war known as the Sengokuera where several warlords were in conflict with each other for control of Japan. Unsurprisingly, many samurais - particularly ronins who did not serve a master of their own - adopted Christianity choosing Jesus as their lord instead. Curiously, many of these samurais did not share the same common practices as their fellow warriors like seppuku where they committed ritualistic suicide to restore their honor because suicide is a sin and instead they fought to the death. The most well-known of them are Dom Justo Takayama who is on his way of becoming the first Japanese saint recognized by the Catholic Church, and Amakusa Shiro, who is revered as an folk saint by Japanese Roman Catholics.
![kleinecharlotte:Art History Meme [1/6] Themes or Series or Subjects ↳ Rose Windows](https://64.media.tumblr.com/2bbaaaa5f67384d0a2d2665067c81890/tumblr_muo4gdOGp71rdf1x2o1_500.png "kleinecharlotte:Art History Meme [1/6] Themes or Series or Subjects ↳ Rose Windows")
![kleinecharlotte:Art History Meme [1/6] Themes or Series or Subjects ↳ Rose Windows](https://64.media.tumblr.com/b3bbae93b0f30a53fedcc7bae0a3baec/tumblr_muo4gdOGp71rdf1x2o2_500.png "kleinecharlotte:Art History Meme [1/6] Themes or Series or Subjects ↳ Rose Windows")
