A Star Wars Last Supper

Via Neatorama

Okay, so I don't have a lot of content today. But I finished CPE in Jacksonville on Friday, pastored on Saturday, Sunday, and this morning, and am now back in Orlando for the first time in ten weeks. My wife and I have a date. Some things are more important than blogging. Just not many.

Art Blogging: Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) was a German Renaissance painter and engraver. He was born and raised in Nuremburg, the son of a prosperous goldsmith. A prodigy, he was already creating salable works of art by the age of 13. At the age of 15, he was apprenticed to Michael Wohlgemut and learned the craft of woodcut.

He traveled through the Netherlands, Alsace, and Switzerland before returning to Nuremburg. During this first phase of his artistic development, his style was firmly Gothic. But then Durer traveled to Italy for the first time in 1495. There, under the influence of Antonio Pollaiuolo and Andrea Mategna, he incorporated the human figure depiction and Classical subject matter emerging in High Renaissance Italy into his painting. This Italian influence is seen strongly in Christ Among the Doctors (1507, oil on panel, at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection in Lugano, Switz.)

His woodcuts and engravings, however, remained strongly Gothic in character and contributed to the rise of printmaking from a commercial to a fine art. Among his most famous prints is The Apocalypse (1498, woodcut, in a private collection), which displays rigorous emotion and fluidity in a usually static medium. Yet despite these German influences, Durer represented the Italian cascade that fell upon Germany in the late Fifteenth Century. Durer contributed to this trend by composing several textbooks on aesthetics and artistic geometry from the Italian perspective.

His fame peaked with his appointment to the court of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and later, Charles V. Among his works in service to the Emperor were iron etchings, such as The Agony in the Garden (1515, etching, at the Met). This powerful depiction of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane displays remarkable motion and volatility. The observer almost feels blasted by the divine wind from which the disciples are struggling against. Such was the genius of Durer, a master of devotional art coupled with the highest caliber of sheer technical skill and creativity.

Art Blogging On Request: Resurrection by Piero della Francesca

Requested by Jonathan Marlowe.

Piero della Francesca (1415-1492) was an Italian Early Renaissance painter, mathematician and theorist. Emerging from the Medieval tradition, he pioneered the rediscovery of Classical norms and the formulation of visual perspective. He was a careful perfectionist who worked tirelessly to create a small number of truly outstanding works. The majesty of the Italian High Renaissance is indebted to his foundations.

This is Resurrection, a depiction of the victorious Christ rising from the grave before the sleeping Roman soldiers. Typical of Francesca's work, the figures are still, unmoving, solemn, and emotionless. Christ is shown as perfectly calm and serene, unshakable by death. This is Christ the King, Christ the Warrior -- who bears a battle standard in his hand.


(1463-1465, oil and tempera, at the Palazzo Communale of Borgo in Tuscany)

Jonathan, please tell us what this painting means to you.