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Way of Beauty
A triumphant vision of the Church in Rome
"Moses" by Michelangelo in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome.
Unescapable death
by Elizabeth Lev In the late 12th century, Ubaldo Lanfranchi, archbishop of Pisa, returned from the Holy Land to his native city. As papal legate to the Third Crusade, he traveled with 52 ships, which he had filled with dirt from Mount…
The ‘vast cosmic drama’
by Fr. Anthony Giambrone, OP Hieronymus Bosch (circa 1450–1516) is certainly one of the most singular visionaries in the history of Western religious art. While the essential theology and moral message of his images accords perfectly with…
Jesus’ crucifixion up close
Spanning the gap between the late medieval world and the so-called modern age, a phenomenon called the devotio moderna reshaped European religious sensibilities. A variety of pious interests characterize this loose movement, which strove to…
Tanner’s Realistic Annunciation
BY ELIZABETH LEV If the Virgin Mary is the most visually represented woman in history, then the Annunciation is the most favored scene from her life. Centuries of artists have fashioned images of this scene according to the spirituality of…
The mystery of the Epiphany
Blasco de Grañén, a Spanish artist from Zaragoza in the kingdom of Aragon, painted Nativity in the 15th century to depict the Magi adoring the Christ Child. Presumably it was created as one panel in a much larger retablo, an elaborate…
The Light of the World
The Nativity of Jesus has been inspiring Christian art since Christian art first began. One of the most primitive Christian images, in fact, dating back to the third century and found in the Catacombs of Priscilla in Rome, is a picture of…
St. Michael, protect us!
The art known as Gothic began in the middle of the 12th century in France. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the Gothic language or the Gothic ethnicity; the name Gothic was first used as an insult by its detractors. The aesthetic ideas…
Jesus to Matthew: ‘Follow me’
Certainly one of the most gifted and original painters of all time, Caravaggio (1571–1610) was also a moral shipwreck of the first order. The dramatic play of shadows that is the characteristic mark of his style somehow reflects the…
The Vatican’s masterpiece loan: Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘St. Jerome’ at the Met
To commemorate the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s passing, the Vatican Museums have loaned one of the artist’s greatest paintings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Saint Jerome Praying in the Wilderness is on view in…
