JACQUELYN MCBAIN: The Illumination of Saint Paul 2018

In Victorian times, the sublime and the beautiful were split into two domains of study, the sublime for men with things massive, terrifying and awe inspiring;
the beautiful for women with pretty flowers, shells… delicate things.
In a very small rebellion for women past, I painted a giant mustard leaf, with such powerful, red veins, a depiction of a volcano’s cross-section underground. Then, in the distance, I painted a very small volcano. Saint Januarius is invoked against diseases of the blood and of volcanic eruptions and on his feast day, his blood is said to become liquid, again and boil.

Saint Joseph Invoked for Happy Death
Belief in a beneficent creator becomes strained when innocents die. The cicada killer, a type of wasp, lays her egg on a cicada she has paralyzed and stuffed into a burrow. Her offspring then has fresh food as it grows; carefully eating around the vital organs so the cicada survives to the last. Rather than individuals within the painting standing in for Joseph, it works as an illumination of a drama within a private floral space, a reminder of nature’s often grisly particulars. But comfort comes from words by ecologist, Paul Shepard, “The teeth of the predator may be painless for the prey because of brain-made endorphins, so that death may be euphoric, even a kind of epiphany.” In hagiography, the happiest, cushiest death is believed to have been St. Joseph’s, as he was cared for by Mary and Jesus until his final sigh.

Saint Benedict—July 11

PATRON OF ARCHITECTS, COPPERSMITHS, THE DYING, EUROPE, FARM WORKERS, MONKS, SERVANTS, SPELUNKERS; INVOKED AGAINST GALLSTONES, POISON, AND WITCHCRAFT

Benedict, the founder of Western Monasticism, had an immense influence on the Christianization of post-Roman Empire Europe. His “how-to” book for monks, the Rule of Saint Benedict, is one of the basic documents of the Middle Ages, those centuries during which monasteries were Europe’s only surviving centers of art, learning, law, science—in a word, civilization. He was born in Norcia, Italy, early in the fifth century, of noble parents. His twin sister was Saint Scholastica. As a student in Rome, he feared spiritual contamination from his godless peers, and after his first miracle (he repaired, by prayer, a dish a servant had broken by accident) he retreated to an underground cave at Subiaco, where he lived for three years dressed in animal skins, fed either by a fellow hermit named Romulus or a magic raven. During this period, the Devil tormented him constantly. At one point the Tempter assumed the form of a black bird and flew into the Saint’s face, reminding him of a beautiful girl he had seen in Rome. Thinking fast, Benedict tore off his garments and threw himself into a thorn bush. He was never again troubled by sexual desire. He was soon joined by disciples and students, and together they formed a religious order, the one still known as “Benedictine”. It was dedicated to the principle “To work is to pray”—thereby opposing the foolish prejudice of those unenlightened days against manual labor. Benedict could read the minds of his fellow monks, and follow them in his own mind on their distant journeys. He was obliged to leave Subiaco when a wayward priest named Florentius dropped by and tried to poison Our Saint (by putting a toad in his drinking cup), as well as turning loose a troupe of naked hussies among the monks. Benedict made his way to Monte Cassino by the Lombards. After Benedict’s death, his great monastery was indeed razed to the ground, restored, sacked by the Saracens, rebuilt, and destroyed a final time by the Allies in World War II, who incorrectly thought it to be a German headquarters. Pope Pius XII declared Benedict Patron of cave explorers and architects. John XXII made him Patron of farm workers, and Paul VI proclaimed him Patron of all Europe.

JACQUELYN MCBAIN

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Tuesday, December 19, 2017

The Illumination of Saint Paul 2018

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Cicada Killer and Globe Cabbage

Paintings in Progress

Link to resume

Link to archival print series

Blog Archive

Saint Francis of Assissi

Saint Benen With Worms

Saint Emygdius Invoked Against Earthquakes and Continental Drift

Saint Januarius

Saint Andrew's Cross

Lindau Gospels

The Vision of Saint Hubert

Saint Expeditus Invoked Against Procrastination

St. Peter

Saint Augustine in His Manichaean Phase and a Madagascar Moon Moth

The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian

Saint Ambrose and the Killer Bees

Saint Roch

St. Joseph Invoked For Happy Death

Saint Benedict's Cup