Category: religion

Calendar: February 7

Year: Day to Day Men: February 7

Late Morning Riser

The seventh of February in 1497, Shrove Tuesday, marks the day on which supporters of the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola lit the bonfire of the vanities in the public square of Florence, Italy. 

Born in the Duchy of Ferrara in September of 1452, Girolamo Savonarola was an ascetic Italian Dominican friar and an active preacher in Renaissance Florence. He was known for his prophecies of civic glory and his advocacy for the destruction of secular art and culture, as well as his denunciation of both clerical and papal corruption. Savonarola’s education was overseen by Michele Savonarola, his grandfather and a successful physician. He earned an arts degree at the University of Ferrara and prepared for medical school; however at some point, he decided on a life in religion.

In April of 1475, Savonarola traveled to Bologna and entered the Friary of San Domenico of the Order of Friars Preacher. After a year, he was ordained to the priesthood and studied scripture, logic, Aristotelian philosophy and Thomistic theology. In 1476, Savonarola was sent to the Dominican priory of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Ferrara as an assistant master of novices. Six years later, he was sent to the Convent of San Marco in Florence where, assigned as a teacher of logic, he wrote manuals on ethics, philosophy and prepared sermons. It was during this period that Savonarola, while studying scripture, became to broach apocalyptic themes.

Girolamo Savonarola lived for several years as an itinerant preacher with messages of repentance and reform. In 1490, he was again assigned to San Marco. Italian philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who due to his unorthodox views of the Church was living in Florence under the protection of Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici, persuaded de’ Medici to bring Savonarola to the city. Savonarola arrived in Florence in the middle of 1490 and began drawing large crowds with his preaching. He made pointed allusions to tyrants who usurped the people’s freedom and railed against the rich who exploited the poor.

Calling for repentance and renewal before the arrival of a divine scourge, Savonarola wanted to establish Florence as the New Jerusalem, the center of the Christian world. The people of Florence embraced his extreme moralistic campaign to rid the city of vices. New laws were passed against public drunkenness, sodomy, adultery, and other moral transgressions, including immodest dress and behavior. Savonarola saw sacred art as a tool for his worldview and, therefore, was opposed to secular art which he saw as worthless.

Pope Alexander VI for some time tolerated Savonarola’s criticism of the Church, an undercurrent theme that had slowly been increasing in Savonarola’s sermons over the years. After he refused to appear before the pope in Rome, the Vatican banned him from preaching. Seeing his influence wane, Savonarola resumed his sermons which were becoming more violent in tone. He attacked secret enemies at home whom he suspected in league with the papal Curia and condemned conventional Christians who were slow to respond to his callings. Savonarola held special Masses for the youth, processions, bonfires, and religious theater in San Marco.

The  phrase “Bonfires of the Vanities” refers historically to the bonfire of the seventh of February in 1497 when Savonarola’s supporters gathered and burned thousands of objects in Florence’s public square. Held on Shrove Tuesday, an initial day of the religious observance Lent, the focus of this destruction was on objects that might tempt one to sin, including vanity items such as mirrors, cosmetics, fine dresses, playing cards and musical instruments. Other objects that burned in the bonfire included books Savonarola thought immoral, manuscripts of secular songs, and artworks including paintings and sculptures that were not sacred in nature. Anyone who raised objections against the destruction were forced to contribute by teams of Savonarola supporters.

Notes:  Girolamo Savonarola, invited to Florence at the request of Lorenzo de’ Medici, eventually became one of the foremost enemies of the House of Medici and assisted in their downfall in 1494. Campaigning against what he saw as the excesses of Renaissance Italy, Savonarola’s power grew so much that he became the effective ruler of Florence with soldiers assigned for his protection. 

In 1495, Savonarola refused to join Pope Alexander VI’s Holy League against the French. When summoned by the Vatican to Rome, he refused to go and continued preaching under a ban imposed by the Vatican. After describing the Church as a whore, Savonarola was excommunicated in May of 1497 for heresy and sedition. He was executed in May of 1498 in Florence’s Piazza della Signoria, the site of his bonfires of the vanities; his body was burnt. By papal authority, Savonarola’s writings were to be given to a papal agent within four days for destruction. Anyone who did not comply faced excommunication.

Amida Nyorai

Amida Nyorai (Amida Buddha), Lacquer, Gold and Pigment on Cypress (Hinoki), Crystals, 12th Century, Japan, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Amida Buddha, also known as the Buddha of Immeasurable Light and Limitless Life, resides over the Buddhist western paradise or heaven. He is the most loved Buddha in East Asia. Since the introduction of Buddhism to Japan during the 6th century, Amida Buddha has become the most popularly worshiped icon.

Until the 12th century the Amida Buddha was usually represented seated on a lotus flower waiting for our arrival to the afterlife. However during the Heian and Kamakura periods the concept of raigō (welcoming decent) became popular and Amida Buddha was often represented in a standing pose descending from the heavens to fetch his devotee and personally transport them back to his blissful paradise.

Amida Buddha displays one of nine different mundra (hand gestures) that determine the nine possible paths for the dying to enter paradise. This gesture ‘jōbon geshō’ is one of the best known gestures in Japanese Buddhist imagery.

Another distinguishing feature of the Amida Buddha is the extended lobe on top of his head to accommodate his advanced understanding of the truth. His large ears allow him to hear all people in need. The rose coloured crystal set amongst his curly hair emits rays of light to display his supreme knowledge. A single white spiral of hair on his forehead indicated by a white crystal shows his love and affection for humanity; and the folds on his neck indicate compassion to all people.

Calendar: January 11

Year: Day to Day Men: January 11

The Stucco Effect

The eleventh day of January in 1494 marks the death of Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Ghirlandaio from pestilential fever at the age of forty-five. 

Born in June of 1448 in Florence, Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bigodi was part of the third generation of Florence Renaissance painters among whom were Sandro Botticelli, Andrea de Verracchio, and the Pollaiolo brothers, Antonio, Piero and Simone. Bigodi was known professionally by the name Domenico Ghirlandaio.

Domenico Ghirlandaio received his initial training as an apprentice in his goldsmith father’s workshop where he often made portraits of the shop’s visitors. Ghirlandaio was later apprenticed to painter Alesso Baldovinetti for training in painting and mosaic work. In Florence, he was apprenticed at the workshop of sculptor and painter Andrea de Verracchio and maintained close associations with both Boticelli and the Umbrian school painter Pietro Perugino, who became the teacher of painter and architect Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known as Raphael. 

Ghirlandaio is predominantly known for his fresco work in which he excelled and a number of important works executed in tempera. Among his fresco works are two depicting the miraculous events at the death of Saint Fina for the city of San Gimignano’s Chapel of Santa Fina; “St. Jerome in His Study”, a companion piece to Botticelli’s “Saint Augustine in His Study” in Florence’s Church of Ognissanti; and several frescoes depicting popes and Biblical scenes at the Palazzo Vecchio. 

In 1481, Domenico Ghirlandaio was summoned to Rome by Pope Sixtus IV as part of a team of Umbrian and Florentine painters to create a series of frescoes on the walls of the Sistine Chapel. The foremost of his work there was “The Vocation of the Apostles” that depicts the Gospel narrative of Jesus calling Peter and Andrew to become his disciples. Between 1482 and 1485, Ghirlandaio painted a fresco cycle for the Sassetti Chapel  of Santa Trinita that was commissioned by Medici banker Francesco Sassetti and Giovanni Tornabuoni, who later became Ghirlandaio’s patron. 

In 1485, Ghirlandaio painted “Adoration of the Shepherds” for the Sassetti Chapel’s altarpiece. Ghirlandaio worked on the Santa Maria Novella, the family chapel of the Ricci family, from 1485 to 1490. For the family, he produced frescoes depicting the lives of the Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist. In addition to this fresco cycle, he painted no fewer than twenty-one portraits of the Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci families, who provided the finances for the chapel’s restoration.

Domenico Ghirlandaio had a large workshop which included his two brothers, Davide and Benedetto, his brother-in-law Bastiano Mainardi, and later his son Ridolfo, who also became a painter. He had many apprentices over the years, among whom was Michelangelo. Although Ghirlandaio had a long line of descendants, the family name died out in the seventeenth century, when its last members entered monasteries. 

Calendar: January 6

Year: Day to Day Men: January 6

Just Slightly Peeking

On the sixth of January in 1501, construction began on Portugal’s Jerónimos Monastery in the parish of Belém of the Lisbon Municipality. This monastery became the necropolis of the Portuguese royal dynasty, the House of Aviz, in the sixteenth-century until its secularization in December of 1833 by state decree. Its ownership was then transferred to the Real Casa Pia de Lisboa, a charitable institution. 

The Jerónimos Monastery was designed by architect Diogo de Boitaca, an influential architect and engineer of some of the most important buildings in Portugal. In this church, he continued his concept of a nave, the central part of the church, and two side aisles of equal height which unified the inner space as in a hall church. The richly ornate vaulting in the main chapel shows ribs with the shape of a twisted rope, a common theme of the Manueline style which incorporated maritime elements. The Jerónimos Monasteryis considered the most prominent of the late Portuguese Gothic Manueline style of Lisbon architecture. 

The Jerónimos Monastery was erected near the Tagus River launch point of Vasco de Gama’s first journey; its construction was funded by a five percent tax on the profits of the yearly Portuguese India Armadas. With the influx of such riches as imported spices and the redirection of funds from other proposed monasteries, Diogo de Boitaca was not limited to small-scale plans. He chose calcário de lioz, a gold-colored limestone for its construction. During his span of overseeing the construction, De Boitaca was responsible for drawing the plans and contracting work on the monastery, the sacristy and the refectory. 

Architect Juan de Castillo succeeded Diogo de Boitaca in 1517. He moved from the Manueline to the Spanish Plateesque style, an ornamentation that included decorative features constructed of silverware, plata. With the death of King Manuel I, construction halted until 1550, at which time architect Diogo de Torralva was in charge. He was followed by Jérôme de Rouen who added some classical elements. Throughout the following years, construction was halted several more times before the monastery’s completion, a span of work that lasted over one hundred years.

The Jerónimos Monastery became in 1640 a burial place for the Portuguese royal families. Among those entombed within the monastery were four of the eight children of John IV, King Alfonso VI, the Infanta Joana, and Catarina de Bragança. In 1880, Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama’s remains and those of poet Luís de Camões, who wrote “The Lusiad, a celebration of da Gama’s first voyage, were moved to newly carved tombs in the monastery’s nave, just a few feet from the tombs of Kings Manuel I and John III, who da Gama served. The monastery is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

Josh Bulriss

Josh Bulriss, “The Buddha Project”

Josh Bulriss  is traveling all across Asia in search of Buddhas, many of them lost or unknown to most visitors. Fascinated by Buddhism from his first trip to Asia ten years ago, Bulriss has built a strong fanbase for his art works and prints online, especially on social media Instagram where he has built a following of more than 33,000 people who find inspiration from his work, and Buddhist sayings he shares with them.

Now he’s back on the road for “The Buddha Project,” aiming to be the first photographer to capture a variety of Buddhas from across Asia. The collection will be produced in his first fine-art book.

The Buddha Project : http://www.joshbulriss.com/buddha-project

Torii Gates

Photographer Unknown, “Torii Gates, Fushimi Inari Shrine, Mount Inari, Japan”

In the seventh century the Hata family began construction of the Fushimi Inari shrine. A shrine dedicated to Inari, the god of rice and sake. Over the centuries, as Japan slowly transformed itself from an agricultural nation to an industrial one, the shrine became important for providing luck in business. It is now one of Japan’s most visited shrine.

One of the main attractions is the climb to the top of the mount which is lined with over 4000 Torii gates. They form a glowing red tunnel that winds itself up the narrow mountain path. The oldest gates are from the 8th century, and new ones are added constantly. Each of the gates has been donated by a Japanese business to insure them luck.

Anek Suwannaphoom

Anek Suwannaphoom, “Big Buddha in Wat Phra Yai Temple”

Wat Phra Yai is a Buddhist temple on Ko Phan, a small island offshore from the northeastern area of Ko Samui, Thailand which is connected to the island by a short causeway.

The Buddha statue depicts Buddha in a state of calm and purity and resolve, having overcome temptation and fear sent at him by Mara, Lord of Illusion. Known as the Mara posture, the left hand rests palm open and up in the statue’s lap, the right hand facing down over the right knee, almost to the ground.

Nisachar

Nisachar, “Lord Agni”

Agni in Sanskrit means fire and is the name of the Vedic fire god. Agni is also one of the guardian deities of direction, who is typically found in the southeast corners of Hindu temples. In classical cosmology, Agni as fire has been one of the five inert impermanent constituents, Dhatus, along with space: Akasa, water: Ap, air: Vayu, and earth: Prithvi. The five combine to form the empirically perceived material existence or Prakriti.

In the Vedic literature, Agni is a major and oft invoked god along with Indra and Soma.  Agni is considered as the mouth of the gods and goddesses, and the medium that conveys offerings to them in a home or votive ritual.  He is conceptualized in ancient Hindu texts to exist at three levels, on earth as fire, in atmosphere as lightning, and in the sky as sun. This triple presence connects him as the messenger between gods and human beings in the Vedic thought.

White Tara

Artist Unknown, “White Tara”

“When one past thought has ceased and a future thought has not yet risen, in that gap, in between, isn’t there a consciousness of the present moment; fresh, virgin, unaltered by even a hair’s breadth of a concept, a luminous, naked awareness? Well, that is what Rigpa is! Yet it doesn’t stay in that state forever, because another thought suddenly arises, doesn’t it? This is the self-radiance of that Rigpa.

However, if you do not recognize this thought for what it really is, the very instant it arises, then it will turn into just another ordinary thought, as before. This is called the “chain of delusion,” and is the root of samsara. If you are able to recognize the true nature of the thought as soon as it arises, and leave it alone without any follow-up, then whatever thoughts arise all automatically dissolve back into the vast expanse of Rigpa and are liberated.”

Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

Hevajra’s Esoteric Dance

The Esoteric Dance of Hevajra Surrounded by Dakinis

Hevajra (ཀྱེའི་རྡོ་རྗེ) is one of the main yidams or Enlightened Beings in Tantric, or Vajrayana Buddhism.  The Tibetan term ‘Dakini’ means “sky goer” and may have originated in the Sanskrit khecara, a term from the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra. Dakinis are often represented as consorts in Yab-Yum representations. The masculine form of the word is ḍāka, which is usually translated into Tibetan as pawo “hero”.

Cesare Nebbia

Cesare Nebbia, The Dome of the Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome, 1585-1590

Cesare Nebbia was an Italian painter from Orvieto, Italy, who painted in the style of Mannerism, a European style that emerged in the latter part of the Italian High Renaissance. This style emerged around 1520 and lasted until the end of the 16th century in Italy, replaced by the Baroque style. While the Renaissance art emphasized proportion, balance and ideal beauty, Mannerism exaggerated such qualities, leading to asymmetrical or unnaturally elegant compositions, which favored compositional  tension and instability.

The Mannerist interior decoration of the Santa Maria Maggiore’s Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament was completed from 1587-1589 by a large team of artists, directed by Cesare Nebbia and Italian Draughtsman and painter Giovanni Guerra. Recent scholarship found that the hand of Nebbia drew preliminary sketches for many, if not all, of the frescoes that cover the walls.

Francois Andre Vincent

Francois Andre Vincent. French, “Saint Sebastian”, 1789, Oil on Canvas, Musee Fabre, Montpellier

Francois Andre Vincent, a French Neo-Classical painter, was the son of the miniaturist François-Elie Vincent and studied under Joseph-Marie Vien. He was a pupil of École Royale des Éleves Protégés and studied from 1771-75 at the Académie de France. Vincent travelled to Rome, where he won the Prix de Rome in 1768 at the age of twenty-two..

After being awarded the Prix de Rome, Vincent spent the years of 1771 to 1775 in Italy, studying at the French Academy in Rome. It was there that he produced a series of witty and revealing portraits, along with paintings of ordinary people doing their daily activities, landscapes and a few drawings.

Francois Andre Vincent was installed at the Palais Mancini in Rome, where he painted numerous portraits, inspired by painterJean-Honoré Fragonard’s style. Vincent’s studies, such as his 1777 “The Drawing Lesson”, show him responding to Fragonard’s gentle and traditional Louis XV vocabulary of sentiment. At his first Salon of Paris exhibition in 1777, Vincent had fifteen pieces to show, of which three are now at the Fabre Museum in Montpellier. He also participated at the Salon in 1782, 1785, and 1787.

Francois Vincent was a leader of the neoclassical and historical movement in French art, along with his rival Jacques-Louis David, another pupil of Joseph-Marie Vien. Vincent maintained a successful career in France but always in the shadow of David, who was  the dominant artist of the day. His wide range of styles contributed to his obscurity, as people usually expected the same style in each painting from one artist. Vincent was a prolific artist whose work, produced in oil on canvas, pen and chalk drawings and watercolors, covered many themes.

In 1790 Vincent was appointed master of drawing to Louis XVI of France and two years later, he became a professor at the elite eighteenth-century French institution for art, The Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Having flourished under the ancient regime and weathered the chaos of Revolution, he survived to see authoritarianism return with a vengeance under Napoleon. A combination of ill health and disillusionment prevented Vincent from taking up the imagery of  Empire to any great extent.

The Theyyam Ritual

The Theyyam Ritual

Theyyam is a popular ritual form of worship of North Malabar in Kerala, India, predominant in the Kolathunadu area (consisting of present-day Kasargod, Kannur Districts, Mananthavady Taluk of Wayanad and Vadakara and Koyilandy Taluks of Kozhikode of Kerala) and also in Kodagu and Tulu nadu of Karnataka as a living cult with several thousand-year-old traditions, rituals and customs.

The performers of Theyyam belong to the lower caste community, and have an important position in Theyyam. People of these districts consider Theyyam itself as a God and they seek blessings from this Theyyam.

There are different patterns of face-painting. Some of these patterns are called vairadelam, kattaram, kozhipuspam, kottumpurikam, and prakkezhuthu. Mostly primary and secondary colours are applied with contrast for face painting. It helps in effecting certain stylization in the dances. Then the dancer comes in front of the shrine and gradually “metamorphoses” into the particular deity of the shrine.

He, after observation of certain rituals places the head-dress on his head and starts dancing. In the background, folk musical instruments like chenda, tudi, kuzhal and veekni are played in a certain rhythm. All the dancers take a shield and kadthala (sword) in their hands as continuation of the cult of weapons. Then the dancer circumambulates the shrine, runs in the courtyard and continues dancing there.