Icon of the God Who Is Love
This work by Maurice Denis is a sketch made for the decoration of the Church of Saint Nicasius of Reims (France). Construction of this sublime art-deco church started in 1923, in the center of the Cité-jardin du Chemin Vert (Garden City of the Green Path). An initiative of the Social Catholicism movement, this new town was built on a landscaped tract measuring seventy-five acres to offer working-class families better living conditions.
The theme the artist was supposed to illustrate in frescoes on the walls of the church came from the Litany of Saint Joseph, which had been approved by Pope Pius X in 1909.1 The idea was to highlight the role of the father as provider, guardian, guide, and tender protector of the family. In depicting an idealized moment during the flight into Egypt, Maurice Denis executes the plan well with a Saint Joseph firmly portrayed as standing, showing the right direction with his staff, and taking his wife and the Child Jesus under his arm tenderly.
But the artist goes further: against a uniform, celestial blue background, he depicts a Holy Family in monochrome ocher with gold highlights, a color scheme signifying humanity radiant with a divine presence. The three members of this family are profoundly united: The Child is adorably nestled in his Mother’s arms; the two are surrounded by the loving arm of the father—as if the painter wanted to suggest that, to the extent that we can say this, the three persons of the Holy Family are one in the love that unites them.
Maurice Denis was willing to take his inspiration from the iconographic tradition of the “double Trinity,” in which the Infant Jesus was depicted at the center of the work, flanked on the horizontal axis by Mary and Joseph, with the Father and the Holy Spirit above him on the vertical axis.2 In keeping with the insight of this tradition, he enjoyed depicting the Holy Family as an earthly icon presenting the heavenly Trinity for our contemplation. He hoped in this way to reveal to Christian families the greatness of the mission associated with fidelity to their vocation: to be, here below, the icon of God inasmuch as he is Love; an imperfect icon, certainly, but one instituted for this purpose from the beginning of the world, then transfigured by the sacramental grace of marriage.
We are all “bearers of Christ”
But you may say: “Where does the donkey come in?” Well, my dear friends, the donkey that carried the pregnant Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the donkey that carried Mary and the newborn Jesus to Egypt, the donkey that carried Jesus during his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, this brave, sympathetic, yet sometimes stubborn and ill-tempered donkey represents us Christians. Isn’t it our vocation—preeminently after receiving Holy Communion—to be Christophoros, “Christ-bearers” along the roads of the world where our particular vocation leads us? And today, in our post-Christian civilization, to be this donkey that is denounced as a dumb animal, a half-wit, a throwback who dares to defend as human rights “the right to life, an integral part of which is the right of the child to develop in the mother’s womb from the moment of conception; the right to live in a united family…; the right freely to establish a family, to have and to rear children through the responsible exercise of one’s sexuality…; [the right to] religious freedom, understood as the right to live in the truth of one’s faith and in conformity with one’s transcendent dignity as a person” (Pope John Paul II, Centesimus annus, 47). This donkey that will be condemned more and more often, as were the prophets before him and the One whom he carries; this donkey that carries Christ in the 21st century—does it not represent us Christians? Is it not you who read my words and I who write them to you?
_________________________________
1 Click here to read the text of this Litany
2 Click here to see the Murillo’s admirable painting The Two Trinities.
Pierre-Marie Dumont
The Flight to Egypt (1926), Maurice Denis (1870–1943), Museum of Fine Arts, Reims, France.
© Christian Devleeschauwer.
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Icon of the God Who Is Love
Le December 1, 2024
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This work by Maurice Denis is a sketch made for the decoration of the Church of Saint Nicasius of Reims (France). Construction of this sublime art-deco church started in 1923, in the center of the Cité-jardin du Chemin Vert (Garden City of the Green Path). An initiative of the Social Catholicism movement, this new town was built on a landscaped tract measuring seventy-five acres to offer working-class families better living conditions.
The theme the artist was supposed to illustrate in frescoes on the walls of the church came from the Litany of Saint Joseph, which had been approved by Pope Pius X in 1909.1 The idea was to highlight the role of the father as provider, guardian, guide, and tender protector of the family. In depicting an idealized moment during the flight into Egypt, Maurice Denis executes the plan well with a Saint Joseph firmly portrayed as standing, showing the right direction with his staff, and taking his wife and the Child Jesus under his arm tenderly.
But the artist goes further: against a uniform, celestial blue background, he depicts a Holy Family in monochrome ocher with gold highlights, a color scheme signifying humanity radiant with a divine presence. The three members of this family are profoundly united: The Child is adorably nestled in his Mother’s arms; the two are surrounded by the loving arm of the father—as if the painter wanted to suggest that, to the extent that we can say this, the three persons of the Holy Family are one in the love that unites them.
Maurice Denis was willing to take his inspiration from the iconographic tradition of the “double Trinity,” in which the Infant Jesus was depicted at the center of the work, flanked on the horizontal axis by Mary and Joseph, with the Father and the Holy Spirit above him on the vertical axis.2 In keeping with the insight of this tradition, he enjoyed depicting the Holy Family as an earthly icon presenting the heavenly Trinity for our contemplation. He hoped in this way to reveal to Christian families the greatness of the mission associated with fidelity to their vocation: to be, here below, the icon of God inasmuch as he is Love; an imperfect icon, certainly, but one instituted for this purpose from the beginning of the world, then transfigured by the sacramental grace of marriage.
We are all “bearers of Christ”
But you may say: “Where does the donkey come in?” Well, my dear friends, the donkey that carried the pregnant Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the donkey that carried Mary and the newborn Jesus to Egypt, the donkey that carried Jesus during his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, this brave, sympathetic, yet sometimes stubborn and ill-tempered donkey represents us Christians. Isn’t it our vocation—preeminently after receiving Holy Communion—to be Christophoros, “Christ-bearers” along the roads of the world where our particular vocation leads us? And today, in our post-Christian civilization, to be this donkey that is denounced as a dumb animal, a half-wit, a throwback who dares to defend as human rights “the right to life, an integral part of which is the right of the child to develop in the mother’s womb from the moment of conception; the right to live in a united family…; the right freely to establish a family, to have and to rear children through the responsible exercise of one’s sexuality…; [the right to] religious freedom, understood as the right to live in the truth of one’s faith and in conformity with one’s transcendent dignity as a person” (Pope John Paul II, Centesimus annus, 47). This donkey that will be condemned more and more often, as were the prophets before him and the One whom he carries; this donkey that carries Christ in the 21st century—does it not represent us Christians? Is it not you who read my words and I who write them to you?
_________________________________
1 Click here to read the text of this Litany
2 Click here to see the Murillo’s admirable painting The Two Trinities.
Pierre-Marie Dumont
The Flight to Egypt (1926), Maurice Denis (1870–1943), Museum of Fine Arts, Reims, France.
© Christian Devleeschauwer.
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