Hildegard de Bingen: Vitreous painting on glass

Hildegard de Bingen, Vitreous painting on glass, 8 x 10"

Alleluia-

Verse for the Virgin

Alleluia! light

burst from your untouched

womb like a flower

on the farther side

of death. The world-tree

is blossoming. Two

realms become one.

-Hildegard of Bingen

Dates

1098 - September 17, 1179
Feast Day: September 17

Known for:

Medieval mystic or prophet and visionary. Abbess. Composer of music, Writer of books on spirituality, visions to paintings, medicine, and nature. Correspondent with many ordinary and powerful people. Critic of secular and religious leaders.

Also Known As:

Hildegard von Bingen, Sibyl of the Rhine

Hildegard of Bingen - Life

Born in Bemersheim (Böckelheim), West Franconia (now Germany), she was the tenth child of a well-to-do family. She'd had visions connected with illness (perhaps migraines) from a young age, and in 1106 her parents sent her to a 400-year-old Benedictine monastery which had only recently added a section for women. They put her under the care of a noblewoman and resident there, Jutta, calling Hildegard the family's "tithe" to God.

Jutta, whom Hildegard later referred to as an "unlearned woman," taught Hildegard to read and to write. Jutta became the abbess of the convent, which attracted other young women of noble background. In that time, convents were often places of learning, a welcome home to women who had intellectual gifts. Hildegard, as was true of many other women in convents at the time, learned Latin, read the scriptures, and had access to many other books of religious and philosophical nature. Those who have traced the influence of ideas in her writings find that Hildegard must have read quite extensively. Part of the Benedictine rule required study, and Hildegard clearly availed herself of the opportunities.

When Jutta died in 1136, Hildegard was elected unanimously as the new abbess. Rather than continue as part of a double house -- a monastery with units for men and for women -- Hildegard in 1148 decided to move the convent to Rupertsberg, where it was on its own, not directly under the supervision of a male house. This gave Hildegard considerable freedom as an administrator, and she traveled frequently in Germany and France. She claimed that she was following God's order in making the move, firmly opposing her abbot's opposition. Literally firmly: she assumed a rigid position, lying like a rock, until he gave his permission for the move. The move was completed in 1150.

The Rupertsberg convent grew to as many as 50 women, and became a popular burial site for the wealthy of the area. The women who joined the convent were of wealthy backgrounds, and the convent did not discourage them from maintaining something of their lifestyle. Hildegard of Bingen withstood criticism of this practice, claiming that wearing jewelry to worship God was honoring God, not practicing selfishness.

Part of the Benedictine rule is labor, and Hildegard spent early years in nursing, and at Rupertsberg in illustrating ("illuminating") manuscripts. She hid her early visions; only after she was elected abbess did she receive a vision which she said clarified her knowledge of "the psaltery..., the evangelists and the volumes of the Old and New Testament." Still showing much self-doubt, she began to write and to share her visions.

Hildegard of Bingen lived at a time when, within the Benedictine movement, there was stress on the inner experience, personal meditation, an immediate relationship with God, and visions. It was also a time in Germany of striving between papal authority and the authority of the German (Holy Roman) emperor, and by a papal schism.

Hildegard of Bingen, through her many letters, took to task both the German Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and the archbishop of Main. She wrote to such luminaries as King Henry II of England and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. She also corresponded with many individuals of low and high estate who wanted her advice or prayers.

Richardis or Ricardis von Stade, one of the convent's nuns who was a personal assistant to Hildegard of Bingen, was a special favorite of Hildegard. Richardis' brother was an archbishop, and he arranged for his sister to head another convent. Hildegard tried to persuade Richardis to stay, and wrote insulting letters to the brother and even wrote to the Pope hoping to stop the move. But Richardis left, and died after she decided to return to Rupertsberg but before she could do so.

A final famous incident happened near the end of Hildegard's life, when she was in her eighties. She allowed a nobleman who had been excommunicated to be buried at the convent, seeing that he had last rites. She claimed she'd received word from God allowing the burial. But her ecclesiastical superiors intervened, and ordered the body exhumed. Hildegard defied the authorities by hiding the grave, and the authorities excommunicated the entire convent community. Most insultingly to Hildegard, the interdict prohibited the community from singing. She complied with the interdict, avoiding singing and communion, but did not comply with the command to exhume the corpse. Hildegard appealed the decision to yet higher church authorities, and finally had the interdict lifted.

Hildegard of Bingen Writings

The best-known writing of Hildegard of Bingen is a trilogy (1141–52) including Scivias, Liber Vitae Meritorum, (Book of the Life of Merits), and Liber Divinorum Operum (Book of the Divine Works). These include records of her visions -- many are apocalyptic -- and her explanations of scripture and salvation history. She also wrote plays, poetry, and music, and many of her hymns and song cycles are recorded today. She even wrote on medicine and nature -- and it's important to note that for Hildegard of Bingen, as for many in medieval times, theology, medicine, music, and similar topics were unitary, not separate spheres of knowledge.

Hildegard of Bingen - Feminist?

Today, Hildegard of Bingen is celebrated as a feminist; this has to be interpreted within the context of her times.

On the one hand, she accepted many of the assumptions of the time about the inferiority of women. She called herself a "paupercula feminea forma" or poor weak woman, and implied that the current "feminine" age was thereby a less-desireable age. That God depended on women to bring his message was a sign of the chaotic times, not a sign of the advance of women.

On the other hand, in practice, she exercised considerably more authority than most women of her time, and she celebrated feminine community and beauty in her spiritual writings. She used the metaphor of marriage to God, though this was not her invention nor a new metaphor -- but it was not universal. Her visions have female figures in them: Ecclesia, Caritas (heavenly love), Sapientia, and others. In her texts on medicine, she included topics which male writers usually did not, such as how to deal with menstrual cramps. She also wrote a text just on what we'd today call gynecology. Clearly, she was a more prolific writer than most women of her era; more to the point, she was more prolific than most of the men of the time.

There were some suspicions that her writing was not her own, and could be attributed to her scribe, Volman, who seems to have taken the writings that she put down and made permanent records of them. But even in her writing after he died, her usual fluency and complexity of writing is present.

Hildegard of Bingen - Saint?

Perhaps because of her famous (or infamous) flouting of ecclesiastical authority, Hildegard of Bingen was never canonized by the Roman Catholic Church as a saint. She has been honored locally as a saint.

Hildegard of Bingen - Legacy

Hildegard of Bingen was, by modern standards, not as revolutionary as she might have been considered in her time. She preached the superiority of order over change, and the church reforms she pushed for included the superiority of ecclesiastical power over secular power, of popes over kings. She opposed the Cathar heresy in France, and had a long-running rivalry (expressed in letters) with another whose influence was unusual for a woman, Elisabeth of Shonau.

Hildegard of Bingen is probably more properly classified as a prophetic visionary rather than a mystic, as revealing knowledge from God was more her priority than her own personal experience or union with God. Her apocalyptic visions of the consequences of acts and practices, her lack of concern for herself, and her sense that she was the instrument of God's word to others, differentiate her from many of the (female and male) mystics near her time.

For more information on Hildegard de Bingen: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/hildegarde.asp

To view my forming archive, Uomini Famosi: https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

Rachel Ruysch: Vitreous painting on glass

Rachel Ruysch, vitreous painting on glass, 8 x 10”

Rachel Ruysch (June 3, 1664 - August 12, 1750)

Ruysch was a Dutch artist who specialized in still-life paintings of flowers. She was born in The Hague, but moved to Amsterdam at a young age. Her father Frederik Ruysch (1638 – 1731), a famous anatomist and botanist, was appointed a professor there. He gathered a huge collection of rarities in his house. She assisted her father decorating the prepared specimen in a liquor balsamicum with flowers and lace. At fifteen Ruysch was apprenticed to Willem van Aelst (1627 – 1683), a prominent painter from Delft, also known for his flower paintings.
In 1693, she married the portrait painter, Juriaen Pool (1666-1745), with whom she had ten children. In 1701 Ruysch was inducted into the painters' guild in The Hague. Several years later Ruysch was invited to Düsseldorf, along with the painters Jan Weenix (1640 – 1719) and Adriaen van der Werff (1659 – 1722), to serve as court painter to Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine (1658 – 1716). She remained there from 1708 until the prince's death, after which she returned to Holland where she continued painting for prominent clients. Of her works from this period is the still-life, Fruits and Insects, now in the Uffizi Gallery.
Ruysch was also noted for her paintings of detailed and realistic crystal vases. Ruysch lived eighty-five years and her dated works establish that she painted from the time she was a young woman until she was an octogenarian (in her 80s). She is known to have created about a hundred paintings, usually marked by a use of dark backgrounds.

For more information on Rachel Ruysch, visit:

http://www.nmwa.org/collection/profile.asp?LinkID=388

To view my Uomini Famosi archive, visit: https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

Rosa Bonheur: Vitreous painting on glass

Rosa Bonheur, vitreous painting on glass, 8 x 10”

Rosa Bonheur (1822 - 1899)

Rosa (Marie Rosalie) Bonheur was born March 16th 1822 in Bordeaux, France. She is widely acclaimed as an animal painter and was influenced by the work of the English artist, Landseer.

Rosa Bonheur was one of the most renowned animal painters in history. Her earliest training was received from her father, a minor landscape painter, who encouraged her interest in art in general and in animals as her exclusive subject. He allowed her to keep a veritable menagerie in their home, including a sheep that is reported to have lived on the balcony of their sixth-floor Parisian apartment.

Bonheur's unconventional lifestyle contributed to the myth that surrounded her during her lifetime. She smoked cigarettes in public, rode astride, and wore her hair short. To study the anatomy of animals, Bonheur visited the slaughterhouse; for this work, she favored men's attire and was required to obtain an official authorization from the police to dress in trousers and a smock.

While radical in her personal life, Bonheur was artistically conservative. Henri Cain would later recall that she "was not only an exceedingly intelligent artist, but a very conscientious and hard-working one....She believed in honesty in art and ever desired to keep very close to nature." Bonheur's reputation grew steadily in the 1840's; she exhibited her animal paintings and sculptures at the Paris Salon regularly from 1841 to 1853. The Salons tended to support traditional styles, and most artists still sought to exhibit at the annual shows, as it was the primary way for their work to be seen by the public. In 1845 Bonheur won a third prize and in 1848 a gold medal.

Because of this recognition from official sources, she was then awarded a commission from the French government to produce a painting on the subject of plowing. Plowing in Nivernais, exhibited at the Salon of 1849, firmly established her career in France. Bonheur later won international acclaim with her life size painting The Horse Fairexhibited at the 1853 Salon.

Bonheur's popularity in England was assured after two versions of The Horse Fair were exhibited there, and Queen Victoria ordered a private viewing of the original at Windsor Castle. The artist's chief source of revenue in the 1860s and 1870s came from sales in England rather than from her native France. In 1894 she was the first woman to receive the Grand Cross of the French Legion of Honor.

For more information on Rosa Bonheur, visit:

http://www.nmwa.org/collection/profile.asp?LinkID=95

To view my Uomini Famosi archive, visit: https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

Judith Leyster: Vitreous Painting on glass

Judith Leyster, vitreous painting on glass, 8 x10”

Judith Leyster (1609-60)

Dutch baroque-era painter. Student of Frans Hals. Well known and appreciated during her lifetime. She worked briefly in Amsterdam but mostly spent her life in Haarlem. She taught art to male pupils. However, in later years her work was often attributed to Frans Hals until a Louvre discovery in 1898 suggested she was the true painter of her own artwork. Member of the Haarlem Guild of Painters. She painted genres, portraits and still-lifes, including well-known paintings of tulips. She often painted scenes of women lit by candlelight, or merry groups of musicians. Predictably, after her marriage in 1636 she produced far less paintings, busy giving birth to five children. She signed her paintings with a star, a play on her last name, which means "Lode star" in Dutch. Her surviving body of work is less than thirty paintings.

In the late 1800s, museum officials at the Louvre in Paris discovered a signature on a painting long thought to be by the great Dutch artist Frans Hals. While cleaning The Jolly Companions, they found with surprise that the signature read "Judith Leyster" (lie-stir), not "Frans Hals."

Leyster, the "mystery artist" behind The Jolly Companions, had been born about 250 years earlier in the Dutch city of Haarlem. At a time when women seeking art careers were often helped by artist fathers, Leyster—a brewer's daughter—had to rely on talent alone. By the age of 17, she had gained a reputation as an artist of great promise, and at age 24 she was elected to the painters' Guild of St. Luke. She taught painting for several years before she married another painter, Molenaer, in 1636 and moved to Amsterdam. After her marriage, she produced fewer and fewer paintings.

Leyster's work has often been compared with that of Frans Hals, the artist originally assumed to have painted The Jolly Companions. Hals was a friend of Leyster's. She learned from the elements of his technique, especially his brushwork. Leyster turned to other artists as well. She heard about Caravaggio's use of light and dark to heighten drama in a painting and experimented with the effects of light in her paintings throughout her career.

For more information on Judith Leyster, visit: http://www.nmwa.org/collection/profile.asp?LinkID=1047

To view my progressing archive of women artists, my Uomini Famosi, visit:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

Artemisia: Vitreous Painting on glass

Artemisia, 8 x10”, Vitreous Painting on glass

Artemisia Gentileschi (July 8, 1593–1652)

This website is dedicated to the life and art of Artemisia Gentileschi. It features a guided tour of thirty-four of her paintings in approximate chronological order. Each painting is on a separate page with details about the work itself along with biographical details of the artist's life contemporaneous with the work.

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 - 1652/1653), daughter of well-known Roman artist, Orazio Gentileschi (1563 - 1639), was one of the first women artists to achieve recognition in the male-dominated world of post-Renaissance art. In an era when female artists were limited to portrait painting and imitative poses, she was the first woman to paint major historical and religious scenarios.

Born in Rome in 1593, she received her early training from her father, but after art academies rejected her, she continued study under a friend of her father, Agostino Tassi. In 1612, her father brought suit against Tassi for raping Artemisia. There followed a highly publicised seven-month trial. This event makes up the central theme of a controversial French film, Artemisia (1998), directed by Agnes Merlet.

The trauma of the rape and trial impacted on Artemisia's painting. Her graphic depictions were cathartic and symbolic attempts to deal with the physical and psychic pain. The heroines of her art, especially Judith, are powerful women exacting revenge on such male evildoers as the Assyrian general Holofernes. Her style was heavily influenced by dramatic realism and marked chiaroscuro (contrasting light and dark) of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573 - 1610).

After her death, she drifted into obscurity, her works often attributed to her father or other artists. Art historian and expert on Artemisia, Mary D. Garrard notes that Artemisia "has suffered a scholarly neglect that is unthinkable for an artist of her calibre." Renewed and overdue interest in Artemisia in recent years has recognized her as a talented seventeenth-century painter and one of the world's greatest female artists. The first book devoted to her, Artemisia Gentileschi - The Image of The Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art. by Mary D. Garrard, was issued in 1989; her first exhibition was held in Florence in 1991. A TV documentary, a play and, more recently, a film have advanced her visibilty as an important artist.

For more information on Artemesia:

http://clara.nmwa.org/index.php?g=entity_detail&entity_id=2992

To view the progressing archive of my Uomini Famosi: https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass#

Cartoon for Homage to Frida:

Homage to Frida: Cartoon detail

I have been working on varied pieces over the past week:

• The cartoon for the Homage to Frida: Stained glass
• An underpainting for a painting, Mi Frida
• An underpainting for an Homage to Krasner

The cartoon for the Homage to Frida, I really thought I had taken photographs of a few days ago. Must of dreamed it! I have been finessing over the drawing for a few days, especially over the eyes. When I first completed, or thought I completed the cartoon, the portrait I felt conveyed her looking too much like an indian. While I liked the native quality of her in the photograph taken by Imogen Cunningham, which it was referenced from, I felt her too distant from a likeness of her.

I referenced a few photographs of her as an older adult, for the eye quality.

I am looking forward to getting started on this assemblage and will create fused murrini/ millefiori elements in the background.

You can also visit the stages of my oil paintings if you look to the righthand column here at my blog, or follow the links from the titles above. Deb Verhoff, in a discussion with her at the last residency, asked me why I was documenting the stages of my work, particularly my paintings. I think that as a process within this program, and doing such sustained work, that it is important to document what I have been doing. These pieces just begun will probably not see their conclusion until the end of the semester.

I especially feel this will be important this semester, as my mentor is further away. So seeing all of this work in reality will be a challenge, due to the nature of the material and the works in progress.

The Homage to Krasner underpainting was influenced a little by some recent videos I have watched on Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler, and Joan Mitchell. Having a consistency of insomnia during my nights, watching art videos on Youtube, provides a good use of my time.

My first mentor asked me a year ago about my underpainting, and propelled me to think about doing something that was more individualistic to my own painting, than something more referenced to Rothko. That question, as all good questions do, has stuck with me. I believe at heart, I am an abstract expressionist as a painter, so this is a vehicle for me and my new underpainting. I looked at paintings of Lee Krasner before beginning the underpainting, wanting to catch an essence of her in these first steps of this homage to her.

In addition to the starts of the pieces discussed above, this week I have been researching 3 different public art opportunities, that I may develop a proposal for or apply to. Ben Sloat, my new advisor, has indicated he would like me to work architecturally. Since most architectural work is commissioned, I have put that out of my vision for the duration of this program. However Ben has directly encouraged me to pursue it, so I am making steps in that direction.

Homage to Frida: Stained Glass

I have just worked on a charcoal drawing of Frida Kahlo, as a study for an homage I will be creating this semester, as a stained glass assemblage. This charcoal drawing is 22 x 28" and references a 1931 black and white photograph taken by Imogen Cunningham. I will reference one of Kahlo's self portrait paintings for the background composition. I haven't decided how large the stained glass assemblage will be yet, but probably 20 x 40".

This homage will fit into my meta-narrative on women artists.

You can follow the stages of this Homage to Frida as it evolves into stained glass at: https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/HomageToFrida_StainedGlass?authkey=Gv1sRgCJOU66_OvejJbw

Celebrating... well a little bit

Well today I am celebrating my '15 minutes of fame' per an article/ Artist's Profile that was written and published today in Relish, of the Winston Salem Journal. You can view the article online at: http://www2.journalnow.com/entertainment/2011/jul/07/wsrel10-a-window-of-opportunity-to-create-ar-1184243/

The article had a few flaws but I am honored to be highlighted.

It is all a little humbling, all this attention.

The Start of Semester 3: Visit with Mentor

The start of the new semester has been a little rough: Arriving back to NC with a bad cold from walking in the cold rain and remaining in damp clothes through the day within the residency in Boston, left my first days back home bedridden with fever and chills.

By the end of the week I was feeling better and able to connect with Ben for approval of my new mentor, Pam Toll .

Over the weekend my family and I took a respit in Wilmington, NC where my mentor lives and works. I was able to gain a little time lost by arranging a studio visit with her, and to discuss my current body of work and direction for the semester.

I quickly realized that this semester will be very different from my first two. My first two mentors, who were excellent, visited 'me', as they were both local to Winston Salem. I though have felt like I have been missing out on a integral piece of this MFA program by not visiting my mentor artists in 'their' studios.

Visiting Pam in her studio on Saturday availed me to viewing her work firsthand, that leaves a richer sensation than looking at photos of artwork online. Her work is mostly oil painting with collage elements. I was impressed at the Chagall-like quality of her paintings. Chagall of course is a major reference for me, as a painter and stained glass artist.

Because I was visiting in Toll's studio and sharing my work, our discussion turned in different ways than if she were to visit me. Pam shared her recent experiences in South Africa with the Paint a Future program, and her trip to Macedonia with UNCW students.

While visiting and since I heard the echoes of Jan regarding how the artist enters the discourse, and Sunanda on what is global, what is u(U)niversal. Toll, my new mentor, is outside the arena of the NYC milieu, yet she has enveloped into a discourse that I find global and universal. It is refreshing and somewhat contradictory to what I have been exposed to in New England, with so much focus being on the contemporary New York scene.

I think these questions are the most vital of any as I prepare myself professionally as a full-time artist.

So I have begun to ask myself: What is the discourse I am entering? Where and how am I entering the discourse that I envision myself?

While traveling to and from Wilmington, I was able to complete reading:

[Grid< >Matrix], Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Sabine Eckmann and Lutz Koepnick.

Back in Winston Salem now, although still with this lingering cold; I am well enough and ready to start digging into the next semester.

I have some part-time teaching appointments through the summer afternoons, so mornings will be spent in the my morning lit studio and hot afternoons in air conditioned studio classrooms.