04 Works, Today, April 8th, is Julian of Saint Augustine's day, With Footnotes - #95

Blessed Julian of Saint Augustine

The father of Blessed Julian was a French nobleman who, in order to escape from the violent pressure exerted on him by the Calvinists to make him apostatize from the Catholic Faith, fled to Spain leaving all his wealth behind. 

Artist unknown

John Garrett, publisher

'The Candle is lighted, we can not blow out'

(Leading Theologians of the Protestant Reformation)

Line engraving

10 1/8 in. x 14 5/8 in. (257 mm x 372 mm) paper size

National Portrait Gallery

This 17th century engraving includes Reformed theologians Theodore Beza, Martin Bucer, Heinrich Bullinger, John Calvin, John Knox, William Perkins, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Girolamo Zanchi, Johannes Oecolampadius and Ulrich Zwingli gathered around Martin Luther with a candle representing the Gospel. The pope, a cardinal, a monk, and a demon try to blow the candle out.

There Julian was born and reared amid unpretentious circumstances, but in a very Christian manner. The boy was devoted to piety, his greatest pleasure being to serve the priests at the altar.

The Franciscans

As a young man Blessed Julian of Saint Augustine accompanied for some time a missionary of the Franciscan Order on his apostolic journeys. The missionary arranged for his admission with the Friars Minor as a lay brother in the convent of Maria of Salzeda. Julian began his convent life with ardent zeal, yes, he practiced such extraordinary acts of mortification that he was considered eccentric; and God almighty permitted, as a means of trial, that he was dismissed from the novitiate. This trial Julian bore with admirable fortitude.

Mortification of the flesh is an act by which an individual or group seeks to mortify, or put to death, their sinful nature, as a part of the process of sanctification. In Christianity, common forms of mortification that are practiced to this day include fasting, abstinence, as well as pious kneeling. Also common among Christian religious orders in the past were the wearing of sackcloth, as well as flagellation in imitation of Jesus of Nazareth's suffering and death by crucifixion. Christian theology holds that the Holy Spirit helps believers in the "mortification of the sins of the flesh." More on Mortification

Blessed Julian of Saint Augustine withdrew to a neighboring mountain, where he built a hut in order to live as a hermit.

Pinturicchio, (1454–1513)

Saint Jerome in the Wilderness, between 1475 and 1480

Oil, and oil gilding on canvas

Height: 149.8 cm (58.9 in); Width: 106 cm (41.7 in)

Walters Art Museum

 St. Jerome (ca. 347-420) spent four years in the Syrian desert as a hermit, mortifying his flesh and elevating his spirit through study. The open book contains a passage from a letter attributed to St. Augustine in which Jerome is compared to St. John the Baptist, another saint who lived in the wilderness. More on this painting

Pintoricchio or Pinturicchio, whose formal name was Bernardino di Betto, also known as Benetto di Biagio or Sordicchio, c.1454–1513, Umbrian painter whose real name was Bernardino di Betto. A prolific and facile painter, he was influenced by Perugino, with whom he collaborated on the frescoes for the Sistine Chapel. Pinturicchio worked chiefly in Perugia, Rome, and Siena. He decorated the Borgia apartments in the Vatican and several churches in Rome. His most elaborate project was the decoration of the cathedral library in Siena. In the Metropolitan Museum are many panels of mythological scenes from the ceiling of the reception room in the Palazzo del Magnifico in Siena. More on Pinturicchio

Once a day he came to the gate of the convent from which he had been dismissed, to receive food with the other poor. While waiting for the food to be dispensed, he would instruct the others in the catechism, and when a poor person one day came poorly clad, he took off his own garment and gave it to that person.

He was eventually asked to join in the friars’ preaching missions and he proved himself to be an eloquent and effective preacher and was regarded by many as being a prophet.

Blessed Julian of St. Augustine died on April 8, 1606, and was beatified in 1825. More on Julian of Saint Augustine

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07 Works, Today, March 24th, is St. Gabriel the Archangel's Day, With Footnotes - #82

Pinturicchio,  (1454–1513)

St. Gabriel the Archangel, c. 1501

Fresco

Collegiate church Santa Maria Maggiore

Pintoricchio or Pinturicchio, whose formal name was Bernardino di Betto, also known as Benetto di Biagio or Sordicchio, c.1454–1513, Umbrian painter whose real name was Bernardino di Betto. A prolific and facile painter, he was influenced by Perugino, with whom he collaborated on the frescoes for the Sistine Chapel. Pinturicchio worked chiefly in Perugia, Rome, and Siena. He decorated the Borgia apartments in the Vatican and several churches in Rome. His most elaborate project was the decoration of the cathedral library in Siena. In the Metropolitan Museum are many panels of mythological scenes from the ceiling of the reception room in the Palazzo del Magnifico in Siena. More on Pinturicchio

Gabriel, in the Abrahamic religions, is an archangel. He was first described in the Hebrew Bible and was subsequently adopted by other traditions.

Follower Francesco Solimena

The Archangel Gabriel appears to the Prophet Daniel

Oil on canvas

110 x 117.5cm (43 5/16 x 46 1/4in) 

Unknown location

Francesco Solimena (October 4, 1657 – April 3, 1747) was a prolific Italian painter of the Baroque era, one of an established family of painters and draughtsmen. He received early training from his father, Angelo Solimena, with whom he executed a Paradise for the cathedral of Nocera and a Vision of St. Cyril of Alexandria for the church of San Domenico at Solofra.

He settled in Naples in 1674, there he worked in the studio of Francesco di Maria and later Giacomo del Po. He apparently had taken the clerical orders, but was patronized early on, and encouraged to become an artist by Cardinal Vincenzo Orsini (later Pope Benedict XIII). By the 1680s, he had independent fresco commissions, and his active studio came to dominate Neapolitan painting from the 1690s through the first four decades of the 18th century. He modeled his art—for he was a highly conventional painter—after the Roman Baroque masters. Solimena painted many frescoes in Naples, altarpieces, celebrations of weddings and courtly occasions, mythological subjects, characteristically chosen for their theatrical drama, and portraits. His settings are suggested with a few details—steps, archways, balustrades, columns—concentrating attention on figures and their draperies, caught in pools and shafts of light. Art historians take pleasure in identifying the models he imitated or adapted in his compositions. His numerous preparatory drawings often mix media, combining pen-and-ink, chalk and watercolor washes. More on Francesco Solimena

In the Hebrew Bible, Gabriel appears to the prophet Daniel to explain his visions. The archangel appears in such other ancient Jewish writings as the Book of Enoch. Alongside archangel Michael, Gabriel is described as the guardian angel of Israel, defending this people against the angels of the other nations.

Domenico Ghirlandaio  (1449–1494)

Announcement of the angel to San Zaccaria , c. 1480

Fresco

330 × 450 cm

Tornabuoni frescoes chapel in Florence. 

Domenico Ghirlandaio (2 June 1448 – 11 January 1494) was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Florence. Ghirlandaio was part of the so-called "third generation" of the Florentine Renaissance, along with Verrocchio, the Pollaiolo brothers and Sandro Botticelli. Ghirlandaio led a large and efficient workshop that included his brothers Davide Ghirlandaio and Benedetto Ghirlandaio, his brother-in-law Bastiano Mainardi from San Gimignano, and later his son Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. Many apprentices passed through Ghirlandaio's workshop, including the famous Michelangelo. Ghirlandaio's particular talent lay in his ability to posit depictions of contemporary life and portraits of contemporary people within the context of religious narratives, bringing him great popularity and many large commissions. More on Domenico Ghirlandaio

El Greco

Anunciación, c.1600; Spain  

Oil on canvas

91 x 66.5 cm

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH, US

Doménikos Theotokópoulos (1541 – 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco; Spanish for "The Greek", was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. The nickname "El Greco" refers both to his Greek origin and Spanish citizenship. The artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters.

El Greco was born in Crete, which was at that time part of the Republic of Venice, and the center of Post-Byzantine art. He trained and became a master within that tradition before traveling at age 26 to Venice, as other Greek artists had done. In 1570 he moved to Rome, where he opened a workshop and executed a series of works. During his stay in Italy, El Greco enriched his style with elements of Mannerism and of the Venetian Renaissance. In 1577, he moved to Toledo, Spain, where he lived and worked until his death. In Toledo, El Greco received several major commissions and produced his best-known paintings.

El Greco's dramatic and expressionistic style was met with puzzlement by his contemporaries but found appreciation in the 20th century. El Greco is regarded as a precursor of both Expressionism and Cubism, while his personality and works were a source of inspiration for poets and writers. El Greco has been characterized by modern scholars as an artist so individual that he belongs to no conventional school. He is best known for tortuously elongated figures and often fantastic or phantasmagorical pigmentation, marrying Byzantine traditions with those of Western painting. More on El Greco

The Gospel of Luke relates the stories of the Annunciation, in which the angel Gabriel appears to Zechariah and the Virgin Mary, foretelling the births of John the Baptist and Jesus, respectively. Many Christian traditions—including Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Roman Catholicism—revere Gabriel as a saint.

Mohammed receiving his first revelation from the angel Gabriel

Miniature illustration on vellum from the book Jami' al-Tawarikh by Rashid al-Din, published in Tabriz, Persia, 1307 CE 

Edinburgh University Library, Scotland.

Islam regards Gabriel as an archangel sent by God to various prophets, among them Muhammad. The first five verses of the 96th chapter of the Quran, the Clot, is believed by Muslims to have been the first verses revealed by Gabriel to Muhammad.

James E. McConnell, (1903-95)

Noah's ArkNoah's Ark

Gouache on paper

James Edwin McConnell (15 July 1903 - 4 May 1995) was a British book and magazine cover artist best known for Western and historical subjects.

Born in Bedlington, Northumberland, McConnell worked for a local blockmaker before moving to London where he continued in the same trade whilst studying part-time at St. Martin's School. He went freelance in 1933, working through the Partridge Agency with whom he remained until 1953.

McConnell's early freelance work was in advertising and designing book covers. After the Second World War he established himself as one of the leading artists for the burgeoning paperback market. 

McConnell painted over 1,000 covers and frontispiece illustrations. He also contributed to the artwork in the American Roll of Honour, which lies in the American Chapel, St Paul's Cathedral, London.


As he was primarily a paperback cover artist, McConnell has rarely come to the attention of critics, although an exhibition of his Western artwork was held at the Association of Illustrators Gallery in London in 1976. More on James Edwin McConnell

The Latter Day Saints hold that the angel Gabriel is the same individual as the prophet Noah in his mortal ministry.

Melek Taus

Akshardham Temple,  India, Delhi

Yazidis consider Gabriel one of the Seven Mysteries, the heptad to which God entrusted the world and sometimes identified with Melek Taus.

The feast of Saint Gabriel was included by Pope Benedict XV in the General Roman Calendar in 1921, for celebration on 24 March. More on St. Gabriel the Archangel

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, Art of the Nude and The Canals of Venice, Middle East Artists, 365 Saints, 365 Days, and Biblical Icons, also visit my Boards on Pinterest and my art stores at  deviantart and Aaroko

Images are copyright of their respective owners, assignees or others. Some Images may be subject to copyright

I don't own any of these images - credit is always given when due unless it is unknown to me. if I post your images without your permission, please tell me.

Ads are shown only to compensate the hosting expenses.

If you enjoyed this post, please share with friends and family.

Thank you for visiting my blog and also for liking its posts and pages.

Please note that the content of this post primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online.