Month: December 2018

Art Schematic of Church Painting

On By Deacon Paul O. IaconoIn Art, Art Education, Artists, Beauty, Catholic Art, Catholic Education, Catholicism, Christianity, Education, Evangelization, painting, Roman Catholic, Roman Catholicism, Sacred Art, Sacred Artists, TeachingLeave a comment

 

This is an easier way to view the material within yesterday’s post.

image001

 

Copyright © 2011- 2018 Deacon Paul O. Iacono All Rights Reserved

Roman Catholic Sacred Art – Categories

On By Deacon Paul O. IaconoIn Art, Art Education, Catholic Art, Education, Evangelization, New Evangelization of the Catholic Church, painting, Religious Art, Roman Catholic, Roman Catholicism, Sacred ArtLeave a comment

Tonight we will use yesterday’s post as a starting point to examine Roman Catholic painting. I mentioned that there are seven disciplines within the definition of Art. One of those disciplines is painting.

As it applies to this discussion when we consider the discipline of painting we can say that there are two major categories: Roman Catholic Sacred Painting and Secular Painting.

We can then subdivide these two major categories.

Within the category of Roman Catholic Sacred Painting we have two major subcategories: Sacred Icons and Sacred Images.

I propose that there is a subcategory below Sacred Images, it is called Religious Images. I will explain in later posts the difference between Sacred Images and Religious Images.

Within the category of Secular Painting we can say that there are two subcategories. Let us call the first subcategory A Variety of Images. It consists of all the different types of paintings, made for the purpose of being “artifact, entertainment, political or social commentary, therapy, or a combination of two or more.” (Sporre, 1996; see previous post). It begins with the many generational wall and ceiling cave paintings painted by Paleolithic Man in the Vezere Valley, France approximately 17,000 years ago and continues with contemporary painters. Mankind loves to paint pictures.

The second subcategory within Secular Painting, as it applies to this discussion, is what I call Absurd Religious Images. Even though it has religious subject matter it is, in my opinion, secular art. I will provide a definition of that subcategory in an upcoming post and images which will make it recognizable.

Thanks for stopping by and spending some time here.

Copyright © 2011- 2018 Deacon Paul O. Iacono All Rights Reserved

What is Art?

On By Deacon Paul O. IaconoIn Art, Blessed Mother, Catholic Art, Catholic Education, Catholicism, Christianity, Education, Evangelization, Mary, Mary - Our Blessed Mother, Prayer, Religious Art, Roman Catholic, Sacred Art, Virgin Mary2 Comments

Hello!  Glad to be back after a series of learning experiences which took me away from the keyboard. I see from the website’s analytics that we are still popular on a worldwide level (thank you!). I also appreciate and thank all of the hundreds of subscribers that have stayed with this blog and continue to use and enjoy the material I’ve presented and the many tens of thousands that have popped in and out over the past seven years.

Last week I made a church presentation (a power point lecture) on “Our Blessed Mother and Sacred Art Applied to Prayer.” For the upcoming weeks, during the Advent and Christmas seasons, I will be presenting to you – in short form – my lecture notes accompanied by relevant sacred and religious art. This is probably one of the busiest times of the year so I will be blogging it to you in small doses on a frequent basis. If you use any of it in your work, ministry, or studies please reference me. Thanks.

My lecture had  three major goals:

  1. What is Art and its forms of sacred, religious, and absurd religious painting?
  2. What are the major/minor stages of  sacred art within the history of the Roman Catholic Church?
  3. How do we apply sacred art, specifically in reference to the Blessed Mother, to the prayer form of Lectio Divina?

Let’s tackle the first part of the first goal: What is Art?

My perception is that art is a process in which an artist: 

  1. Creatively thinks,
  2. Makes a product (there are seven major historical disciplines in which products are made: architecture, drama, literature, music, painting, poetry, and sculpture),
  3. Intends that the product will cause a reaction/response (for the artist alone and/or from the public).

The above process occurs in all seven major disciplines of art. More recent historical artistic disciplines such as photography, computer art, grand and small scale landscape architecture possess this process, too.

Also, Professor Dennis J. Sporre has discussed that “Art has four functions: artifact, entertainment, social and political commentary, and therapy. These functions, or options, are not mutually exclusive, nor is one more important than the others” (found in his book The Creative Impulse, Prentice Hall, 4th ed., 1996. When I taught Humanities years ago this highly valuable book was one of the foundation blocks of my lectures and activities).

Tomorrow I will discuss Roman Catholic sacred art within the discipline of painting.

Thanks for joining me today.

Copyright © 2011- 2018 Deacon Paul O. Iacono All Rights Reserved