macseamus1

I have a show of artwork this August. The work may be seen online here: http://www.laurarusso.com/artists/cain_s.html

Comments are welcome.

Sean

The figure has been the sole subject of my work for almost twenty years. Perhaps the reason for this ought to be more fully explored, but up to now it is something taken as given.

The figure in my paintings emerges simultaneously inwardly and out-of-doors. The figure is often engaged in activities that are at once familiar and strange to the viewer. Something seems to be happening, yet it is impossible to tell what it is or at what point in the narrative the viewer has entered (or even if there exists a discernible narrative). In creating such images I desire to explore the themes of presence, continuity, and wonder.

The theme of presence means to me both the strength of the image itself and of how it becomes real to the viewer. Although my canvases and panels are now smaller, I originally painted life-sized figures so that the viewer automatically would relate to the image in a 1:1 ratio: by their sheer size, my images would invite the viewer to enter the image, so to speak, and participate in it creatively.

In turn, the power of presence secures the element of continuity where the painting is not experienced as an irruption into everyday life, but is rather as an elevation of it. The mundane is the origin of the marvelous and the source of wonder. The deep focus of so many of the images, inspired by the early Netherlandish masters, provides the scope and scale for wonder, for all the things beheld and contemplated that finally speak of life’s mystery, its terrifying uncertainty and unknowableness as well as its givenness and giftedness.

I understand my work to exist within the tradition of western painting as exemplified above all by the early Netherlandish masters, but also by the earlier tradition of Byzantine iconography from which it in part descends. The classical notion of iconography as opening “a window onto heaven” interests me, particularly to the degree that the opening offers a chance for the viewer to “revisit childhood at will,” as Baudelaire said. This heaven is neither the ignorance nor innocence of childhood, but is the incarnate experience of wonder which is the child’s way.

Abraham Heschel, echoing Sophocles, tells us that “the beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe.” I suppose this tendency in my work connects the paintings to a long tradition of sacred art, but not by means of the overt imagery often associable with pious beliefs.

In this, my canvases and panels may tend toward a corporeal religion, but without figural piety; toward sanctity, but without sanctimoniousness.

Well, that's it. I'm interested in reading your comments/suggestions.

Sean

From his blog (http://www.cardinalseansblog.org/): "That evening, I went to celebrate Easter with the Greek Orthodox Church in Boston. Just as we always invite Metropolitan Methodios to our Chrism Mass and give him the opportunity to bring a greeting from the Greek Orthodox community, they invite me to their Easter vigil celebration at which I always read the Gospel in English and bring a greeting to the Orthodox community. I was very happy to be a part of the celebration.

As you may know, the Orthodox and the Eastern Rite Catholics follow a different calendar from ours. Their Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox that is after the Jewish Passover.

We, on the other hand, celebrate Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon of the spring equinox. Their celebration has a tie to the Jewish calendar in a way that ours does not.

Last year, our celebrations coincided. This year our Easter was very, very early — almost as early as it can be.

It is my hope that we might, through dialogue, come up with a common date for Easter. I think that would be an excellent sign of Christian unity. In the past, there was so much animosity over this and other customs which are very long-standing. Today, people realize that the date itself is rather arbitrary, and that the important thing is the mystery we are celebrating. It is the most important article of our faith — that Jesus has conquered sin and death. He lives and touches our lives through the sacraments. He is there in the Church, teaching us in the living Word.

As I said in another recent blog posting, the Eastern Churches in general have always put a great emphasis on an “Easter spirituality.” In the Latin rite, we have tended to stress Good Friday as our day and then, after Lent was over, everything sort of ended. Whereas for the Greeks and Eastern Rite Catholics, the 50 days of Easter and the time to Pentecost are very important. They have the beautiful custom during the Easter season of using the greeting “Christos anesti! Alithos anesti!” or “Christ is risen! He is truly risen!” And after the Easter vigil, many people leave the church with their lit candles, take the Easter flame to their home and light an oil lamp in front of an icon. They keep the flame burning all year, which is a very beautiful symbol."

William Butler Yeats:

TO ALL ARTISTS AND WRITERS

We are Catholics, but of the school of Pope Julius the Second and of the Medician Popes, who ordered Michael-angelo and Raphael to paint upon the walls of the Vatican, and upon the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the doctrine of the Platonic Academy of Florence, the reconciliation of Galilee and Parnassus. We proclaim Michaelangelo the most orthodox of men, because he set upon the tomb of the Medici “Dawn” and “Night,” vast forms shadowing the strength of antediluvian Patriarchs and the lust of the goat, the whole handiwork of God, even the abounding horn. We proclaim that we can forgive the sinner, but abhor the atheist, and that we count among atheists bad writers and Bishops of all denominations. “The Holy Spirit is an intellectual fountain,” and did the Bishops believe that, the Holy Spirit would show itself in decoration and architecture, in daily manners and written style. What devout man can read the Pastorals of our Hierarchy without horror at a style rancid, coarse and vague, like that of the daily papers? We condemn the art and literature of modern Europe. No man can create, as did Shakespeare, Homer, Sophocles, who does not believe, with all his blood and nerve, that man’s soul is immortal, for the evidence lies plain to all men that where that belief has declined, men have turned from creation to photography. We condemn, though not without sympathy, those who would escape from banal mechanism through technical investigation and experiment. We proclaim that these bring no escape, for new form comes from new subject matter, and new subject matter must flow from the human soul restored to all its courage, to all its audacity. We dismiss all demagogues and call back the soul to its ancient sovereignty, and declare that it can do whatever it please, being made, as antiquity affirmed, from the imperishable substance of the stars."

And Vatican II hadn't happened yet! It's hard to be too upset at the bishops since we all have the same sickness.

See here for the origin of international paper sizes and appreciate the square root of two: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html.