Today in “On the Square,” R. R. Reno reflects on an artist whose work expresses an Augustinian understanding of man who is not at home in the world. Enrique Martinez Celaya, whose paintings are being shown at both the Museum of Biblical Art and the (Episcopal) Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Reno writes in The Body of Death, Pictured ,
unsettle. They do so because they evoke the fact that we are not at home in the world, that we are damaged and entangled in the earthly city.
In his work, the human forms are always solitary and isolated, often slumping and sometimes seemingly wounded or injured. The subject matter is universal: our troubled humanity. If there is a biblical theme—as one perhaps expects at the Museum of Biblical Art—it comes from St. Paul: “Who will deliver me from this body of death” (Rom 7:24).
Update: In an e-mail to friends mentioning the article, Reno added this useful information:
Also, if you have a chance take a look at a small, well-focused exhibition of ancient ceramics, jewelry, and sculpture, originally put together by the Walters Art Gallery, that illustrate the ways in which heroic figures (Achilles, Odysseus, Jason, Hercules, and so forth) were represented in Greek and Roman culture. It’s on view at the Onassis Cultural Center , 645 Fifth Avenue (entrance on 51st, just across from St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
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