As humanists sought the truth by mastering ancient languages, and reformers by printing the Gospels in vernacular ones, Holbein pursued the truth by recording his subjects—both Protestants and Catholics—in honest, startling detail. Continue Reading »
Political messaging can make for bad art—but also for masterpieces. Continue Reading »
Modern people, despite being drawn to medieval aesthetics and artificats, cannot seem to bear to examine what those artifacts are modeled on: the intelligible order glimpsed by the eye of faith. Continue Reading »
Van Gogh didn’t reject the supernatural, but naturalized it. What terror there is in his paintings is the sublime terror evoked by the uncanny beauty of what Scripture identifies as the glory of God. Continue Reading »
Throughout his career, Bogdanovich stood apart from his New Hollywood peers, presenting a far milder view of human nature untainted by cynicism. Continue Reading »
The planned redesign of Notre-Dame de Paris’s interior is an atrocity that will turn the cathedral into little more than a Catholic Disneyland. Continue Reading »
The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is open again. One has to book an entry time so that the museum can control the (tiny) crowds during the time of the virus. It’s hardly a fight to get in. Architecturally redone not so long ago with a steady but meditative touch by Frank Gehry, the AGO houses small . . . . Continue Reading »
We mustn't turn music, in its most complex and profound form, into a museum, dedicated only to reenacting the past. Continue Reading »
A Catholic understanding of art is about more than cherishing faded glories.
Continue Reading »
A century ago, a little-known Belgian artist named Albert Servaes became famous when cardinals at the Holy Office in Rome censured him for depicting Jesus Christ in a way they considered unsuitable for Catholics. The story made the front page of American Art News in New York. In this . . . . Continue Reading »
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