Chartreuse and the Carthusians

I was intrigued by The Wall Street Journal about the Carthusians of Chartreuse limiting their production of that famous liqueur, published on Good Friday: "The Monks Who Make Chartreuse Don't Care About Fancy Cocktails"! The Robb Report offers these two quotations from the article, which is of course behind a paywall:

“The monks are not in this to drive Mercedes and live a lavish life,” Tim Master, the senior director of spirits at Frederick Wildman and Sons, the only American importer of Chartreuse, told the WSJ. . . .

“Unlike nearly all other companies in the world, the monks don’t care about constant growth,” Father Michael Holleran, a former Carthusian monk who led Chartreuse production in the late 1980s, told the WSJ.

The Carthusians, according to their external partner in production have decided they needed to “protect their monastic life” and were “not looking to grow the liqueur beyond what they need to sustain their order.” So production has been capped at about 1.2 million bottles a year, about 10 percent less than in 2021."

The Robb Report article comments: 

Perhaps if the monks shared the recipe, they wouldn’t have to be the only ones in charge of meeting demand. But that seems even more unlikely than increasing output . . .

And The Wall Street Journal article ends with a quotation from Joseph McDonald from a Nashville retailer: "In two years you'll probably have eight companies trying to knock that recipe off" (p. A9 of the print edition for Friday, April , 2023.

As the Carthusian motto states: Stat crux dum volvitur orbis (The Cross Stands Still as the World Turns).

Reading the reaction to the production curtailment of the yellow and green shades of the liqueur as afficiandoes try to understand the monks' decision reminded me of Dom David Knowles' appreciation of the Carthusians of London Charterhouse, dying of dehydration and starvation during Henry VIII's reign:

Rarely indeed in the annals of the Church have any confessors of the faith endured trials longer, more varied or more bitter then these unknown monks. They had left the world, as they hoped, for good; but the children of the world, to gain their private ends, had violated their solitude to demand of them an approval and a submission which they could not give. They had long made of their austere and exacting Rule a means to the loving and joyful service of God; pain and desolation, therefore, when they came, held no terrors for them. When bishops and theologians paltered or denied they were not ashamed to confess the Son of Man. They died faithful witnesses to the Catholic teaching that Christ had built his Church upon a rock.

From Saints and Scholars: Twenty-Five Medieval Portraits, with St. John Houghton, holding his heart, on the cover (based on the painting by Zurbaran).

Now, I'm not saying that cocktail drinkers are as bad as Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell, but there is a gap in understanding how the monks of Chartreuse, in their Great Silence, regard their eternal purpose versus the world's demand for a liqueur! 

But notice what the "world" says: you should meet our demands! Or you should give us the recipe! When you don't, we will steal (knock off) your recipe and make the liqueur ourselves!

Nor am I saying that these monks are making a decision as meritorious as that of the Carthusians under Henry VIII's demands, but still, they are trying to remain true to their purpose and their way of life without concern for how the world turns. 

As The Wall Street Journal article headline on the front page says: "The Monks . . . Don't Care"!

I have never tasted Chartreuse, by the way, and if I was going to spend that much for something, it would be for a book!

Saint Bruno of Cologne, pray for us!

Saint John Houghton and all the Carthusian martyrs of England, pray for us!

Newman's Heart Speaks to Hearts

Lucy Beckett reviews Eamon Duffy's John Henry Newman: A Very Brief History (SPCK: 2019) for The Wall Street Journal:

Anyone daunted by more weighty biographies, the best being Ian Ker’s (1988), should read Eamon Duffy’s short, fresh account. The Cambridge scholar of religion’s calm judgment expertly illuminates every aspect of Newman’s life, work and—until he was very old—unceasing mental and spiritual attention.

Newman was a very unusual theologian. Mr. Duffy is right to point out that he was not so much a Victorian as a Romantic, less than six years younger than Keats, though he would outlive, mostly by decades, all the other great English writers of his generation. Like St. Augustine, whose works were partly responsible for Newman’s conversion from the Anglican to the Catholic Church, Newman did his theology, always, by thinking for himself about the truths of faith that he held with the loyalty of deep feeling.

When Newman looked back, it was not to the high Middle Ages or the Counter-Reformation, but to the early church of the Greek and Latin fathers. Neither Thomism nor the Neo-Scholasticism practiced by his contemporaries hampered the speculation of his free intellect, even if doctrinal orthodoxy framed and anchored everything he wrote. Newman had the greatest respect for rational argument, and was unusually good at it, but at the same time he knew (as did Augustine) that no one had ever become a Christian because of a logical proof.

It may be behind the paywall but I searched for it ("Lucy Beckett Saint John Henry Newman Duffy") and gained access. 

The timing of this review with Beckett's emphasis on Newman's motto as a Cardinal in the title ("‘John Henry Newman’ Review: A Heart That Speaks to Hearts") seems providential as two converts from Anglicanism reflect on their past, present, and future.

Reverend George W. Rutler, oft mentioned on this blog, looks back on his ordination as an Episcopalian priest on December 20, 1969 in Crisis Magazine. He mentions some of the weaknesses he soon found in the Episcopalian church and his decision to join the Catholic Church and become a priest. Naturally, he highlights St. John Henry Newman's influence:

Let mine be a letter of affection without reproach, from one whose roots disdain emotion, to those who were patient with me when I first took up the promise to serve God, albeit in a mix of innocence and naīveté. There was a blessing and benison in my ignorance of the many trials that would lie ahead, for had I “loved to choose and see my path,” I would have hesitated. One cannot pretend that the path to Rome was more difficult than what one frequently found once having arrived. If there are more years allowed me in the course ahead, I may write a lengthier story of my experiences, though in some quarters it might be a precipitate of agitation. Suffice it to say that Saint John Henry Newman was an agent in my conversion. Once, standing in his pulpit in the University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, I felt something like a bolt of lightning. At the moment, I did not understand it. Now I do. Newman said that as a Protestant “I felt my religion dreary, but not my life—but as a Catholic, my life dreary, not my religion.” Lacking his depth of soul, I never knew dreariness in any quarter. But if wistfulness is a pastiche of agony, I at least have known that no human journey is without interruptions of happiness.

As Beckett writes of Newman in her review:

For years, Newman’s life as a Catholic was hard. He had lost the sympathy of his family and most of his friends, as well as a comfortable and highly respected career—not to mention the architecture, language, music and intellectual company of Oxford Anglicanism. Instead he had to cope with ugly new churches and the suspicion directed toward him by English Catholics. Some of these were ill-educated because of longstanding Catholic exclusion from the best schools and from Oxford and Cambridge. Others were rabid philistine converts.

Today, the Fourth Sunday of Advent, another clergyman from the Anglican Communion becomes a Catholic, Gavin Ashenden. He recounts his reasons for becoming a Catholic for The Catholic Herald here. On EWTN's The World Over, he told Raymond Arroyo (via the National Catholic Register):

What does it mean to come to Catholicism the year of St. John Henry Newman’s canonization, a man whom I know had a huge influence on you, this decision, and your decision to convert to Catholicism?

Well it’s embarrassing because I identify with him very strongly. He was a giant and I’m a pygmy. But our journeys have been really similar in terms of the narrative. So for me, he’s charted the journey and I think back 30 years ago, I knew I’d have to take this journey sometime. I’m very grateful to him for making clear to me and to others what the issues are. For trailblazing a root back to Rome where we belong—the one true Church—where the fullness of faith is celebrated and the power of Christ is truly revealed.

The Catholic News Agency also adds this Newman connection, from the bishop who will receive Ashenden today into full communion with the Catholic Church, Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury:

Bishop Davies commented that “it is very humbling to be able to receive a bishop of the Anglican tradition into full communion in the year of canonisation of St John Henry Newman.”

“I am conscious of the witness which Gavin Ashenden has given in the public square to the historic faith and values on which our society has been built. I pray that this witness will continue to be an encouragement to many,” he added.

I don't know what role, ordained or not, Mr. Ashenden will play in the Catholic Church in England after his reception today. He may find as many difficulties as St. John Henry Newman and Father George Rutler. As the late, great (to Mark and me) Monsignor William Carr always said, when you join the Catholic Church--or stay with her--you can't expect the Barque of Peter to be a gleaming, luxurious, well-provisioned ocean liner. It's a leaky boat, steered by sinners and saints. There will be rough seas ahead for sure! They come with the voyage.

But one note I find most fascinating is that his wife, Helen, became a Catholic two years ago! It would be interesting to learn more about her journey to Catholicism and why she crossed the Tiber before him.

Poetry for Autumn from Hopkins and Keats

Spring and Fall
to a young child

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By & by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
--Gerard Manley Hopkins

Christopher J. Scalia offered a reflection on John Keats' poem to Autumn in The Wall Street Journal last week:

. . . Every September I read John Keats’s “To Autumn.” That tradition has special significance this season, the ode’s 200th anniversary.

I’ve loved “To Autumn” since I first read it in college. I was entranced then, as now, by the way in which the poem captures this season’s fleeting beauty. From its famous opening line (“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”) to the quiet music of its final image (“gathering swallows twitter in the skies”), it evokes the delicate abundance of these weeks. Keats’s writing affects me the way the season itself does: I wish the poem would last longer even as I know its power lies in its brevity.

He compares the poem's brevity to the brevity not only of Keats's life, but of his creative period in 1819 when he wrote "To Autumn" and other great odes:

But 1819 would be his last year of writing poetry. The following February, Keats coughed up some blood. He knew what that meant. He wrote to a friend, “That drop of blood is my death-warrant;—I must die.” Keats moved to Rome in the hope that the climate would mitigate his tuberculosis. He died there in February 1821.

Keats had asked to have his headstone inscribed, “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” An epitaph full of beauty—but, as 200 years have shown, not truth. The seasons turn, yet Keats reminds me still that fleeting splendor has a captivating power of its own.

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,–

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Mark and I took these pictures during our November 2015 trip to the Ozarks. He loved the beauty of fall colors. Today is the anniversary of his birth in 1956. Like John Keats, last year he knew that he must die; he said he would not live to see this birthday anniversary. He felt "the soft-dying day". 

St. Margaret Roper?

William McGurn writes in The Wall Street Journal (it's been made available from behind the pay wall on his Facebook page) that St. Thomas More's daughter should be considered for a cause for canonization:

In his biography “A Daughter’s Love,” historian John Guy writes that “without Margaret talking and praying with him as often as she could in that cold, bleak cell, it is far from certain that he would have been able to do what he did.” More knew himself well enough to know this too.

In the end, More embraced the chopping block as liberation from earthly suffering and entry into a better world. But is there no spiritual merit in the suffering of the loved ones left behind? More’s reliance on his daughter does not in the slightest diminish his virtue, his courage, his faithfulness. Should having a famous martyr for a father diminish Margaret’s?

And what of heroic virtue, the defining characteristic of saints?

Margaret may not have died for her faith, but she managed to outwit Thomas Cromwell, Henry’s chief minister and her father’s chief nemesis, gaining access to More’s prison cell on the pretext that she would try to persuade him to take the oath—even as her visits stiffened her father’s resolve. She defiantly took his severed head down from its pike on London Bridge after his death. Still later she would let the king’s men know that their threats would not deter her from seeing her father’s writings published, so the world might know the man Thomas More really was.

Why not canonize her? On the one hand, Margaret took the oath her father refused. Still, this is unlikely to be an immovable obstacle, not least because she added the caveat “as far as will stand with the law of God.” Perhaps the more prosaic reason this gentlewoman is not a saint is that the process is time-consuming and costly, and lay men and women generally do not have the benefit of a religious order pushing their cases.

In Rome the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints confirms there is no movement to have this good woman join her father on the calendar of saints. Manifestly, a pronunciamento from the pages of The Wall Street Journal is not the conventional starting point for a journey to canonization. But if that’s what it takes, so be it.

Please read the rest there.

Happy Memorial Day: Remember

Peggy Noonan cites David McCullough's new book on why it is so important that we study and understand the past in her Wall Street Journal column this weekend, concluding with several bullet points:

Here, gleaned from the book, are some of Mr. McCullough’s observations on history.

• It is a story. “Tell stories,” said the historian Barbara Tuchman. And what is a story? Mr. McCullough, paraphrasing E.M. Forster, observes: “If I say to you the king died and then the queen died, that’s a sequence of events. If I say the king died and the queen died of grief, that’s a story.”

• What’s past to us was the present to them. “Adams, Jefferson, George Washington, they didn’t walk about saying, ‘Isn’t this fascinating, living in the past?’ It was the present, their present.” They were acting in real time and didn’t know how things would turn out. . . .

• Nothing had to happen the way it happened. “History could have gone off in any number of different directions in any number of different ways at almost any point, just as your own life can.” “One thing leads to another. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Actions have consequences.” These things sound obvious, he says, but are not to those who are just starting out and trying to understand life. . . .

• History is an antidote to the hubris of the present. We think everything we have, do and think is the ultimate, the best. “We should never look down on those of the past and say they should have known better. What do you think they will be saving about us in the future? They’re going to be saying we should have known better.”

She posted her column on Facebook, so perhaps it's still available without paying for access!

I particularly liked the comments "What's past to us was the present to them" and "Nothing had to happen the way it happened." It seems to me that those two comments vitiate the entire "Whig interpretation" of history that sees the events of the past as necessary for the progress of the future. 

Happy Memorial Day!

Our Lady's Lutheran Church

Julia M. Klein writes in The Wall Street Journal about the re-building of Dresden's "Church of Our Lady", the famous Lutheran church built on the site of a Catholic Romanesque church which had been built in the 12th century. I am interested in the article because Klein emphasizes that the church embraces history instead of trying to deny it; it was not rebuilt exactly as it was before World War II:

The architecture of contemporary German cities can inspire a trompe-l’oeil confusion of the old and the new. Leveled by Allied bombs during World War II, many picturesque town centers have since been meticulously rebuilt, with only their perfection signaling their inauthenticity. Dresden’s restored Frauenkirche, which on Oct. 30 marks the 10th anniversary of its consecration, has avoided this trap—by embracing rather than erasing history.

The Baroque, octagonal “Church of Our Lady,” where Johann Sebastian Bach once played the organ, has always been central to the city’s image. Designed by George Bähr and completed in 1743, the Lutheran church retained the name of the Gothic Catholic one it replaced. Its outstanding feature—a soaring, pillared dome nicknamed the “Stone Bell”—dominated the city’s skyline and symbolized its artistic splendor.

On Feb. 13, 1945, Dresden was firebombed by the Allies, and two days later the Frauenkirche collapsed. The destruction of Dresden became central to German postwar victimology and was memorialized by Kurt Vonnegut in his 1969 novel, “Slaughterhouse-Five.”

The church was rebuilt ten years ago and has a mission of providing, as the church's website notes, both warning and encouragement:

In the light of the injuries received during the war, largely still visible for all to see, the reconstructed Church of our Lady in Dresden issues a warning, but at the same time also announces the power of a new beginning and of peace. The aspects of remembering, reconciliation and peace create the backdrop and atmosphere for the daily life within the Church of our Lady. As part of the Church of the Cross community, the Church of our Lady feels a strong obligation to tend the special relationship to Coventry Cathedral and its reconciliation, as well as to cooperate with the other Church of the Cross communities both at home and abroad.

Klein provides some details about the "aspects of remembering, reconciliation and peace" built into the new church:

Meticulous as the reconstruction has been—the altar was almost entirely pieced together from shards of the original—there are deliberate reminders that this is not the prewar church. On the altar is a newly forged Cross of Nails, a link to a similar cross at the rebuilt cathedral in Coventry, England, destroyed by German bombers in 1940. The pillars alongside the altar, displaying wartime damage, are missing the angel-head carvings visible elsewhere.

The church’s old pinnacle cross, charred and twisted, sits in the south nave, where visitors may light a memorial candle and inscribe their thoughts. The gilded cross—an exact replica—that now crowns the bell tower was a gift from Britain, fashioned by Alan Smith, the son of one of the bombers of Dresden.

I was disappointed however to see this inaccuracy on the church's website when discussing the name Frauenkirche:

The name "Frauenkirche", which literally translates as "(Our) Lady's church", is by no means unusual: You will find a Frauenkirche or Liebfrauenkirche in around 100 cities throughout Germany, including Meißen, Munich, Nuremberg and Bremen.

They can also be found in other European countries such as Belgium or France, where they are called "Notre Dame", or "Our Lady", and refer to Mary, the mother of Jesus.

The original name of the Dresden Frauenkirche was ‘Unserer Lieben Frauen’, which dates back to the time the church was founded in the Middle Ages. The name was shortened over time to ‘Frauenkirche’ and even retained after the Reformation despite the fact that the Protestant Church knows no adoration of the Virgin Mary.

Thus, a "Frauenkirche" is a church that has been or is consecrated in honour of the Virgin Mary.

It is intriguing that they didn't change the name when they replaced the old Catholic Church, but I think the choice of the word "adoration" is unfortunate. Catholics don't adore the Virgin Mary, and Martin Luther certainly honored the Virgin Mary as the Mother of God and he upheld the doctrine of her Perpetual Virginity, but of course, he rejected any theology of her as a mediatrix of grace. This article provides some careful explanation. 

Image credit: licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license in Wikipedia commons.

Silencing Ovid

Peggy Noonan, in The Wall Street Journal, has some questions and comments for students who are upset by certain aspects of the Western literary canon (Ovid's Metamorphoses in this case) and want works like the Metamorphoses silenced:

Well, here are some questions and a few thoughts for all those who have been declaring at all the universities, and on social media, that their feelings have been hurt in the world and that the world had just better straighten up.

Why are you so fixated on the idea of personal safety, by which you apparently mean not having uncomfortable or unhappy thoughts and feelings? Is there any chance this preoccupation is unworthy of you? Please say yes.

There is no such thing as safety. That is asking too much of life. You can’t expect those around you to constantly accommodate your need for safety. That is asking too much of people.

Life gives you potentials for freedom, creativity, achievement, love, all sorts of beautiful things, but none of us are “safe.” And you are especially not safe in an atmosphere of true freedom. People will say and do things that are wrong, stupid, unkind, meant to injure. They’ll bring up subjects you find upsetting. It’s uncomfortable. But isn’t that the price we pay for freedom of speech?

You can ask for courtesy, sensitivity and dignity. You can show others those things, too, as a way of encouraging them. But if you constantly feel anxious and frightened by what you encounter in life, are we sure that means the world must reorder itself? Might it mean you need a lot of therapy?

Masterpieces, by their nature, pierce. They jar and unsettle. If something in a literary masterpiece upsets you, should the masterpiece really be banished? What will you be left with when all of them are gone?

What in your upbringing told you that safety is the highest of values? What told you it is a realistic expectation? Who taught you that you are entitled to it every day? Was your life full of . . . unchecked privilege? Discuss.

Do you think Shakespeare, Frieda Kahlo, Virginia Woolf, Langston Hughes and Steve Jobs woke up every morning thinking, “My focus today is on looking for slights and telling people they’re scaring me”? Or were their energies and commitments perhaps focused on other areas?

Read the rest of her column there. If those students offended by Ovid travel to Rome, they had better avoid the Borghese Palace and Bernini's great sculptures of "The Rape of Persephone" and "Apollo and Daphne", both depicting episodes from the Metamorphoses and the latter featured on the cover of the Penguin edition of Ovid's masterpiece. This wikipedia article demonstrates how influential Ovid has been in Western art and literature--removing him from the canon would leave a huge gap in our knowledge of Greek and Roman mythology.

"Planets, Priests, and a Persistent Myth"

The Wall Street Journals' Friday "Houses of Worship" column tries to remind readers again that history should not be thought of in little soundbites like "the Catholic Church has always been against science". For instance, I used to watch Rick Steves' videos about Europe on PBS (and we even bought a few): he would take every opportunity he could to point out how anti-science the Catholic Church was. He talked about how the Church was opposed to professors at universities conducting autopsies but left out that it was because the bodies used were obtained by grave-robbing (people who believed in the resurrection of the body weren't donating their bodies to science at that time); he emphasized that Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for teaching that the earth revolves around the sun, neglecting again to note that Bruno was no scientist, offered no scientific proof for his statements, and also was found guilty of serious heresy: denying THE essential Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity. When I remonstrated with Steves' company, I received the response that Steves did not consider himself a historian--but he was teaching history, deceptive history that at least seemed to have an objective: demonstrate that the Catholic Church is against science.

The authors of this editorial commented on some recent videos of the dwarf planet Ceres, which was discovered and analyzed by the Theatine priest Giuseppe Piazzi from 1801 to 1803, including what could have been a dangerous trip to England:

Piazzi’s entry into history began on January 1, 1801, when he noticed a faint “star” not contained in any catalog. Tracking it over the following nights, he found that it moved across the background stars the same way planets do. After more than 40 nights, however, it moved too close to the sun to be seen. Would it ever be found again, once it emerged from the sun’s glare?

That would require the difficult feat of computing its orbit precisely from the positions Piazzi had measured. This was accomplished by the great mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, and Piazzi’s object was located again by a German observatory exactly a year after its original discovery. In 1802, Piazzi named it Ceres after the patron goddess of Sicily. . . 

Most news accounts don’t mention that Piazzi was a Catholic priest. In fact, the remarkable story of the Catholic clergy’s contributions to science is one of the best-kept secrets of scientific history. The exception is Gregor Mendel; it is widely known that the science of genetics began with the experiments of the Austrian monk.

But it is the rare person who knows that the big-bang theory, the central pillar of modern cosmology, was the brainchild of the Belgian Catholic priest and physicist Georges Lemaître. In the 1920s, Lemaître showed that Albert Einstein’s equations of gravity allow space itself to expand and, connecting this to observations that distant galaxies were flying apart, he formulated his famous theory of how the universe began.

Et cetera, et cetera, and so forth; you'll need a subscription to read the entire editorial. Do yourself a favor and don't read the comments!

St. Augustine and His Dog in Venice

Willard Spiegelman, the editor-in-chief of the Southwest Review at SMU in Dallas,writes about Vittore Carpacio's Cycle for the Scuola de San Giorgio Degli Schiavoni in Venice for The Wall Street Journal's Masterpiece column. I thoroughly appreciate and agree with his first paragraph:

After a first visit, every tourist to a famous place begins to turn from the hot spots, the three-star must-sees and the crowds—to yearn for intimacy, something out of the way. Nowhere is this quest more natural or essential than in Venice. Forget St. Mark’s Square, the Doge’s Palace and the Rialto. Forget Murano and its glass. Look for the big rewards that come from small packages.

Between the Bellini family, which came before him, and Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese, who followed, the most important Venetian artist was Vittore Carpaccio (1465-1525). He bridged the turn to the new century. His large cycle depicting the legend of St. Ursula is one of the prizes of the Accademia. (These rooms were closed on the days I visited the museum, owing to “weather,” whatever that meant.) But for sheer intensity, variety, elegance and charm, nothing can beat his nine paintings that hang above eye level, beneath a coffered ceiling on the ground floor—they were on the second story until a mid-16th-century rearrangement—of the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, the Dalmatian Confraternity. This lovely spot is both a (long) stone’s throw and a world away from bustling Piazza San Marco.

"After a first visit" assumes that the tourist or traveler goes back to the same city again to see it beyond the tourist's highlights--something about the city or location is so attractive that we want to go back and explore further.

St. Augustine in his study receives a vision of St. Jerome as the latter dies. He stops writing, looks out the window--and his little dog looks up at him, wondering what's outside. As Spiegelman concludes:

We are not in north Africa in the fifth century. We are in Venice, at the turn of the 16th. La Serenissima is the queen of the Adriatic, the point of contact between the riches of the Orient and the western Mediterranean. The Renaissance has begun.

Books ARE Glorious!

A Clerk of Oxford translates an ode to books from an Old English poem:

'Books are glorious. They abundantly proclaim
the appointed purpose to anyone who thinks at all.
They strengthen and made stable the steadfast thought,
gladden the heart of every man
amid the pressing miseries of this life.
Saturn says:
Bold is he who tastes the skill of books;
he will ever be the wiser who has command of them.
Solomon says:
Victory they send to each of the true-hearted,
the haven of healing for those who love them.'

Further comment:

The value to be found in books, and in learning and wisdom generally, is a common theme in Anglo-Saxon poetry - although the most famous bookworm in Old English gets nothing by the books he devours! TheSolomon and Saturn example is particularly nice because it doesn't just talk about the value but the pleasure of books: they amyrgað 'make merry, gladden' the heart in the midst of the troubles of the world. Don't they, indeed?

Today, of course, books are so readily available--in earlier eras they have been rare, expensive, and of limited range. Terry Teachout points out in a recent column in The Wall Street Journal that for all their availability, the way we shop for books has actually limited their range--if we don't shop in real bookstores, used or new, and only search on line for the books we think we need, we don't find the book(s) we really might need. He offers an excerpt from the column (behind The WSJ paywall) on his blog;

On a recent trip to Chicago, I spent an hour wandering through the Seminary Co-Op, the University of Chicago’s much-loved independent bookstore, which claims to have more than 100,000 titles in stock at any given moment. I bought three books during my visit. . . .

He explains that two of the books he bought, on subjects he is interested in, he had never heard of:

What’s the point of this anecdote? Just this: It was solely because I visited the Seminary Co-Op that I bought those two books. Yet it had been at least two years, if not more, since I’d set foot in a large brick-and-mortar bookstore. Nor can I remember the last time that I went into a record store of any size. Like a fast-growing number of Americans, I now do virtually all of my book and record buying online. It’s cheaper and infinitely more convenient to click a few keys and be done with it.

That’s the good part. Here’s the bad part: Nowadays I buy a book or record onlybecause I’m specifically looking for it. But when I went to the Seminary Co-Op, I browsed purely for the sake of browsing, and in so doing made two happy discoveries. Had I not stumbled across “Music Makes Me” and “Benny Goodman’s Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert” purely by chance, I doubt I would ever have learned of their existence, much less bought and read them.

In 2006 I noted in this space that online stores like Amazon were “seeking to replace the personal touch…with ‘preference engines’ that automatically generate computerized lists of ‘other items you might enjoy’ each time you make a purchase.” Eight years later, I can report that these marketing tools haven’t made the slightest bit of difference in my own life. So far as I can recall, I’ve never bought an “other item you might enjoy” from Amazon, not even once.

For me, then, preference engines have not replaced browsing. But neither has anything else. As a result, I no longer browse. What’s more, I suspect that my experience is widely shared. Browsing, it appears, will soon be as dead as dial phones. That constitutes a huge cultural shift, one whose unintended consequences are not yet clear. Still, I’m sure that they’re going to be significant, and if I had to guess, I’d say they’ll be harmful….

I agree with Teachout. Long live Eighth Day Books, which just celebrated its 26th anniversary--with a sale, at which I browsed, and found two books to buy!

Unfree Speech at Berkeley

Sol Stern remembers how it was supposed to be in contrast to how it is now, in The Wall Street Journal:

This fall the University of California at Berkeley is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement, a student-led protest against campus restrictions on political activities that made headlines and inspired imitators around the country. I played a small part in the Free Speech Movement, and some of those returning for the reunion were once my friends, but I won't be joining them. 

Though the movement promised greater intellectual and political freedom on campus, the result has been the opposite. The great irony is that while Berkeley now honors the memory of the Free Speech Movement, it exercises more thought control over students than the hated institution that we rose up against half a century ago. . . .

"Tenured radicals," in New Criterion editor Roger Kimball's phrase, now dominate most professional organizations in the humanities and social studies. Unlike our old liberal professors, who dealt respectfully with the ideas advanced by my generation of New Left students, today's radical professors insist on ideological conformity and don't take kindly to dissent by conservative students. Visits by speakers who might not toe the liberal line—recently including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Islamism critic Aayan Hirsi Ali —spark protests and letter-writing campaigns by students in tandem with their professors until the speaker withdraws or the invitation is canceled.

On Oct. 1 at Berkeley, by contrast, one of the honored speakers at the Free Speech Movement anniversary rally on Sproul Plaza will be Bettina Aptheker, who is now a feminist-studies professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Writing in the Berkeley alumni magazine about the anniversary, Ms. Aptheker noted that the First Amendment was "written by white, propertied men in the 18th century, who never likely imagined that it might apply to women, and/or people of color, and/or all those who were not propertied, and even, perhaps, not citizens, and/or undocumented immigrants. . . . In other words, freedom of speech is a Constitutional guarantee, but who gets to exercise it without the chilling restraints of censure depends very much on one's location in the political and social cartography. We [Free Speech Movement] veterans were too young and inexperienced in 1964 to know this, but we do now, and we speak with a new awareness, a new consciousness, and a new urgency that the wisdom of a true freedom is inexorably tied to who exercises power and for what ends."

Read it and weep—for the Free Speech Movement anniversary, for the ideal of an intellectually open university, and for America. 

In other words, Bettina Aptheker is now the one who gets to decide which speech is free and which is not free. FYI: Sol Stern "is a contributing editor of City Journal and a Manhattan Institute senior fellow. He writes passionately on education reform, and his writings on that topic have helped shape the terms of the current debate in New York City."

Reading Slowly; Reading Out Loud

I think that I am a skillful and attentive reader: I was taught how to read and study texts carefully throughout my education. Perhaps one reason is that I read slowly. I also write about what I read (even as I'm reading), read one book at a time, and I even sometimes read aloud. There are times when the text requires reading aloud: poetry should be read by ear to hear the music (if there isn't any verbal music, it isn't poetry, no matter how wide the margins are on the page); works that were prepared to be spoken should be read aloud--I once belonged to a "Lovers of Newman" group and we met to read Blessed John Henry Newman's sermons aloud. That way we got the impact of his skillful rhetoric; the way he built his argument, used his examples, delivered his call.

Jeanne Whalen writes in The Wall Street Journal about the benefits of reading books and articles slowly and silently, getting away from social media, and concentrating on one thing: the text:

Slow reading advocates seek a return to the focused reading habits of years gone by, before Google, smartphones and social media started fracturing our time and attention spans. Many of its advocates say they embraced the concept after realizing they couldn't make it through a book anymore.

"I wasn't reading fiction the way I used to," said Meg Williams, a 31-year-old marketing manager for an annual arts festival who started the club. "I was really sad I'd lost the thing I used to really, really enjoy."

Slow readers list numerous benefits to a regular reading habit, saying it improves their ability to concentrate, reduces stress levels and deepens their ability to think, listen and empathize. The movement echoes a resurgence in other old-fashioned, time-consuming pursuits that offset the ever-faster pace of life, such as cooking the "slow-food" way or knitting by hand.

Whalen also provides insight into the way we read on a screen and how that has changed the way we read a text. We certainly can't appreciate a great work of art by scanning it--and think how scanning The Holy Bible would change the impact of reading God's sacred word!

Read the rest here: slowly.

Portrait of St. Thomas More's Meg, in Miniature

In The Wall Street Journal, Barrymore Laurence Scherer (I love that name!) writes about an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on miniatures, and comments on Hans Holbein's portraits of William and Margaret Roper:

Two of the show's finest miniatures are also its earliest ones: a pair by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98–1543) depicting the wealthy lawyer and parliamentarian William Roper and his wife, Margaret. Holbein, celebrated for his Tudor court portraits in oils, had studied this diminutive art with England's first miniaturist, Lucas Horenbout, and during the last decade of his life produced a series of circular miniatures that set a standard for his successors.

As in Holbein's full-size portraits, these two are persuasively lifelike in their sobriety, with details that add to our understanding of each sitter's character. There is no sense that Holbein attempted to idealize Roper's heavy-lidded eyes and protruding lower lip or Margaret's long nose and gaunt features. Both portraits are inscribed with the respective sitter's age in Latin—Roper looks his 42 years, but Margaret looks rather elderly for 30 until you realize that this eldest daughter of Sir Thomas More had seen her father made Lord Chancellor of England by Henry VIII only to be persecuted and finally executed when he opposed Henry's schism with the Roman Catholic Church and repudiation of papal supremacy.

Not to mention rescuing her father's head from Tower Bridge!

Unlike most of the bust-length portraits in this show, these two include the sitters' hands. Roper clasps the edges of his fur-lined cloak with both hands, showing off his large ring while suggesting that he is about to address a jury. Margaret, wearing a magnificently embroidered English hood, holds a finely bound book with gold clasps. Her left thumb marks her place, pointedly suggesting actual reading. This is a significant gesture because—unusual for the period—More gave all his daughters the same Classical education that he gave his son. Margaret herself was noted for her learning.

She even corrected Erasmus.

An Obscure Masterpiece

Willard Spiegelman, Hughes Professor of English at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, describes Caravaggio's masterpiece, "The Taking of Christ" for The Wall Street Journal:

Seven figures, one barely noticeable, are tightly bound within the confines of a small space. On the left, John the Evangelist turns his back on the others, his hands lifted in shock, surprise or exclamation. Next to him, Christ is dressed in red and blue garments. His eyes, hooded to the point of invisibility, look down, and he clasps his hands in resignation. Judas, having just kissed the Savior, grips Jesus with his left hand. Both men—typical of Caravaggio—have dirty nails. Their brows are furrowed. John, Jesus and Judas look like parts of one person, their three heads all in a line, with John's seemingly joined Siamese-fashion to Christ's, and Judas's mouth having just separated from the man he has sold to the enemy.

Dead center in the picture is the arresting officer, of whose face we can see only a nose and the outline of an upper lip. Otherwise, he is a study in metal. His left arm clasps Christ and his hand extends from the shiny, steel-colored armor of his arm and breastplate. His helmet completes the image. He is all exoskeleton, barely a man at all. The painter has offered an allegory of the way the State—hard, metallic and unyielding—comes to overwhelm compliant, beleaguered, passive humanity. Beside the main officer another, older, soldier reveals more flesh—nose and moustache—but in neither of these figures can we see eyes. In the rear we can make out only the outline of yet one more soldier.

This leaves us with the most mysterious figure of all, neither Roman nor Jew. Dark-headed, handsome, with eyes fully revealed and looking intently at the scene in front of him, this man holds in his right hand a lantern, which offers illumination from behind and to the right of Jesus and Judas. Who is he? The consensus among the experts is that Caravaggio has produced a self-portrait.

This is one of "Ireland's Favorite Paintings" at the National Gallery of Ireland, which displays it on indefinite loan from the Irish Jesuits.

Image Credit: Public Domain.

World War I on the Big Screen (and Little)

In July, Turner Classic Movies dedicated Friday nights to World War I movies:

In observance of the centenary of World War I, which lasted from July 1914 to November 1918, TCM devotes its popular Friday Night Spotlight franchise to films about this conflict. . . .

The movies in our Spotlight reflect views of the First World War as seen by filmmakers through the decades. King Vidor's The Big Parade (1925), released only seven years after the war's end, takes an unflinching look at the horrors of war as experienced by an American soldier (John Gilbert). Lewis Milestone's All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) makes a powerful anti-war statement in another story about the travails of a young soldier--this one a German (Lew Ayres). In Howard Hawks' Sergeant York (1941), Gary Cooper plays Alvin York, a former pacifist from Tennessee who became the most decorated soldier of WWI.

Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957) tells the powerful story of a French colonel (Kirk Douglas) who goes against his better judgment in following orders to lead his men in a suicide mission against the Germans. David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962) follows the colorful real-life exploits of T.E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole), the flamboyant British officer who fought alongside Arabs in their revolt against the Turks during WWI. Peter Weir's Gallipoli (1981) tells of two idealistic young friends (one of them played by Mel Gibson) who join the Australian Army during the war and fight in Turkey in the ill-fated Battle of Gallipoli. 

TCM showed many of the films highlighted in this article from The Wall Street Journal, "Unquiet on the Western Front: A look at World War I in film":

Several outstanding war pictures of the 1920s centered on aerial combat, particularly William Wellman's "Wings" (1927), winner of the first best picture Oscar; "Hell's Angels" (1930), produced by Howard Hughes and featuring Jean Harlow in her first major role; and Howard Hawks's "The Dawn Patrol" (1930), starring Richard Barthelmess and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Like "The Big Parade," "Wings" and "Hell's Angels" incorporated romance into their storylines of airborne heroics. Not so the all-male "Dawn Patrol," which won an Oscar for best story and plumbs issues of personal responsibility in wartime. Though the film celebrates the derring-do of its British fliers, it also takes a nuanced look at the men who, duty-bound, send their comrades to virtually certain death and then must deal with the guilt such actions provoke. The film was remade in 1938 in response to the Anschluss, under Edmund Goulding's direction and starring Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone and David Niven. And what this later version loses through its distance from the Great War, it more than makes up for in slicker production values and a dashing cast.

The near decade between the two versions of "The Dawn Patrol" saw the perfection of a different type of war movie, one unequivocally pacifist in nature. The most internationally celebrated and sophisticated of these is Jean Renoir's classic "La Grande Illusion" (1937), whose title says it all. With its multinational cast and a worldview more universal than any similar picture, its hold on the public imagination remains strong after nearly 80 years, and rightly so. Something similar can be said of Lewis Milestone's "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930), based on Erich Maria Remarque's novel, whose mass appeal—despite its ostensibly narrow focus on German troops—has been even greater than Renoir's film, at least in the U.S. Far less famous, though no less potent, is Raymond Bernard's "Les Croix de Bois" (1932), or "Wooden Crosses." Its cast composed entirely of veterans, the film charts the gradual disillusionment of a French soldier (the excellent Pierre Blanchar) as his regiment thins and the war drags on. In addition to a tense episode in which the enemy Germans lay mines beneath a French trench, the movie features an extraordinary battle sequence that runs an unremitting 15 minutes and stands among the screen's most harrowing.

Read the rest here.

Literary Criticism: Plato vs. Aristotle

From The Wall Street Journal, Barton Swaim reviews James Seaton's Literary Criticism from Plato to Postmodernism:

James Seaton, in his short but deeply perceptive book "Literary Criticism From Plato to Postmodernism," contends that the theorists who dominate literature departments can trace their intellectual heritage to a surprising source: Plato. This is surprising because literary theorists usually consider Plato the father of "logocentrism"—supposedly a "Western" tendency to see words as fixed to unchanging ideals rather than as arbitrary symbols. Yet Mr. Seaton argues that the academics who dominate literature departments today—disciples of a dizzying array of "postmodernist" philosophies, from New Historicism to feminist theory—are Platonists to the core. Plato sought to align human life and government strictly to the ideals of reason and justice; postmodern theorists, writes Mr. Seaton, "seek a society in which theoretical reason will rule, unconstrained by the customs or 'prejudices' of the past conveyed so seductively by novels, plays, and poems."

Plato actually expressed two contradictory views of imaginative writing, as Mr. Seaton explains. The Plato of "The Republic" distrusted poets because, of course, they lied. Homer said things happened that didn't happen. The Plato of the "Symposium," by contrast, allowed that poets can be and often are inspired by the gods. What else can explain their seemingly magical power to delight and inveigle? This idea was picked up by the Neoplatonists, particularly the third-century Greek philosopher Plotinus, and much later was employed by Philip Sidney (1554-1586) and other Renaissance writers to defend poetry on the grounds that it offered some form of metaphysical knowledge. In more indirect ways, the Romantic poets of the 19th century ( Wordsworth and Shelley especially) and the more strident proponents of literary modernism ( Pound, Joyce, Woolf ) embraced the notion that imaginative writing could get us closer to some higher or truer reality.

Aristotle to the rescue!--

The second half of Mr. Seaton's book deals with what he calls the "humanistic alternative" of Aristotle, who rejected Plato's thought on poetry. In the "Poetics," Aristotle formulated what proved to be immensely influential definitions of poetic devices, but "the significance of the 'Poetics' for the humanistic tradition," writes Mr. Seaton, "does not derive from the universal applicability of the 'rules' it supposedly establishes but rather in the approach to literature it exemplifies." That humanistic approach, he argues, "turns to works of literature for insight into human life, not for authoritative knowledge about ultimate reality."

The humanist critic, in other words, takes literature for what it is: neither divine revelation nor an intrinsically worthless "text" that merely expresses cultural biases or furthers oppressive social arrangements. The humanist critic begins with the literary work, not with political or philosophical views; he doesn't mistake art for life or aesthetic criteria for political ones; and he explains to literate, engaged people (not merely to specialists) how important works of literature illuminate moral and political questions. Mr. Seaton examines the criticism of (among others) Samuel Johnson, Alexander Pope, Henry James, Lionel Trilling, Edmund Wilson and Cleanth Brooks—in each case distinguishing what these great critics did with poems and books from what their academic successors do with them now.

More about the book, including a sample and the table of contents, from Cambridge University Press:

This book offers a history of literary criticism from Plato to the present, arguing that this history can best be seen as a dialogue among three traditions – the Platonic, Neoplatonic, and the humanistic, originated by Aristotle. There are many histories of literary criticism, but this is the first to clarify our understanding of the many seemingly incommensurable approaches employed over the centuries by reference to the three traditions. Making its case by careful analyses of individual critics, the book argues for the relevance of the humanistic tradition in the twenty-first century and beyond.

• Provides a brief, readable overview of the history of literary criticism in the West, with substantial sections on Plato, Neoplatonism, Aristotle, Neoclassicism, the Romantics, the New Critics, and postmodernism 
• Illustrates the continuing significance of critics often overlooked by the contemporary academy, including figures such as Edmund Wilson, Lionel Trilling, and Ralph Ellison 
• Argues the case for humanistic literary criticism in contrast to the cultural studies dominant today

Table of contents:

1. Plato and Neoplatonism
2. Romanticism and modernism
3. Theory and cultural studies
4. Aristotle and the humanistic tradition
5. Edmund Wilson and Lionel Trilling
6. Democracy, popular culture, and Ralph Ellison
7. Literary criticism, the humanities, and liberal education.

Looks fascinating; when I received my MA, fortunately for me, those gender, Marxist, imperialist etc, interpretative styles weren't "forced" upon us. We could read and interpret literature based upon language, structure, and authorial intent. Since the MA and the MFA students interacted so much, I think that had an effect on the way we read and responded to literature. I enjoyed explicating the meaning within the text, not imposing a meaning outside the text.

This a Job for an English Major!

When I majored in English Language and Literature and then went on to earn an M.A. in the same subject, the question often was--"What are you going to DO with those degrees?" or  "How are you going to get a job?" The common argument for the "usefulness" of the Liberal Arts was that I was going to know how to think, how to do research, how to write, how to express ideas--to teach, to persuade, etc. Now I find out that I--were I a recent graduate--could help airlines apologize, according to this article in The Wall Street Journal, as "Carriers Deploy Software, English Majors to Tell Angry Fliers They're Sorry for Mistakes in Flight":

United Airlines, which had the highest rate of complaints filed at the DOT among major airlines the past three years, has a team of about 450 customer-care agents handling general issues and refunds. Add to that 400 people handing (sic) frequent-flier program issues and about 100 answering baggage-related letters and emails.

Delta Air Lines employs 150 people in Atlanta and Minneapolis to email answers to angry—and complimentary—customers. Many get letter-writing training and are experienced airport agents used to dealing directly with customers.

Airlines say they try to make responses conversational and personal. They aim to apologize and acknowledge the problem, providing more information about the particular situation after research, then offering some compensation as a goodwill gesture, such as some frequent-flier miles. Letters are signed by an employee, though many use pseudonyms.

Complaints are sorted by complexity and by the value of the customer—top-tier frequent fliers and big spenders get priority. A low-level customer may get 3,000 frequent-flier miles for a canceled flight, while a high-value customer who complains is soothed with 10,000 miles.

Agents research incidents to verify and provide explanations. Complaints also are tracked so airlines can peg frequent complainers trawling for extra miles or discounts.

Customer feedback is compiled into reports for top executives, and individual letters—complaint or compliment—do get forwarded to supervisors and employees, airlines say.

American Airlines uses a library of responses built over the years that agents can search and then customize. That allows for consistency and accuracy in responses. "We've gone completely away from corporate-speak to personally showing empathy," said John Romantic, American's managing director of service recovery.

The print article contains additional detail about Southwest Airlines, which employs 200 agents just to respond to customer complaints and compliments. "It's an entry-level job for college graduates. Southwest also employs proofreaders, often English majors."

My first job out of the graduate school as as a proofreader at an advertising agency.

As I was pursuing those degrees, however, my ideal was Blessed John Henry Newman's--that a liberal education was a good in itself, as knowledge is a good in itself, without needing application or usefulness to prove its worth. I'm certainly not sorry about that.

"100 Years; 100 Legacies': More on WWI from the WSJ

The Wall Street Journal continues to explore the legacy of World War I, with an on-line examination of one hundred legacies of the Great War to End All Wars, including music and literature. Fiona Matthias looks at the classical music inspired by conflicting impulses of patriotism and sorrow:

The emotional wounds of war as well as patriotism resonate through the music of many of the most influential composers of the early 20th century.

Edward Elgar’s work is infused with both sentiments, including “For the Fallen” (1915-17); “Carillon” (1914) and “Polonia” (1915), in honor of Belgium and Poland, respectively; and “The Fringes of the Fleet” (1917).

While Elgar, in his mid-50s when war broke out, was only able to respond in his music to the carnage taking place on the other side of the English Channel, there were others directly touched by it. . . .

The Great War, of course, claimed millions of lives, among them one of Britain’s most promising writers, George Butterworth, known for “The Banks of Green Willow,” which is now regarded by many as an anthem to unknown soldiers everywhere. A recipient of the Military Cross, Butterworth died at the age of 31 during the Battle of the Somme and his place of burial remains unknown.

The BBC Music Magazine has also been exploring the musical legacy of World War I, with its June issue dedicated to the composers of that era, including George Butterworth, and the July issue featuring a CD of Elgar's The Spirit of England.

The Merode Altarpiece: The Annunciation, with Donors and St. Joseph

Harry Rand, senior curator of cultural history at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, writes about Robert Campin's Masterpiece, the Merode Altarpiece, now displayed at The Cloisters in New York City, in The Wall Street Journal:

Sadly, relatively few of these works survived the iconoclastic frenzy that accompanied the Netherlands' subsequent embrace of Protestantism. Another problem that long barred the recognition and appreciation of their creators was the elevation of the Italian Renaissance as the universal criterion of artistic quality, an alien standard that automatically demoted these Flemish masters.

Among the obscured painters one of their geniuses languished, long known only as the Master of Flémalle—named for a town now in Belgium. Today we know him as Robert Campin (c.1375-1444), generally recognized as the teacher of the more famous Rogier (Roger) van de Weyden.

Now in the Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's upper-Manhattan outpost for Medieval art, Campin's Mérode Altarpiece (c.1427-32) can still startle with its revolutionary formal and technical innovations. A wooden triptych only 25½ inches tall, the work seems too diminutive for so important a painting. But its size derives from its intended use for private worship and meditation. It was probably commissioned by Peter Ingelbrecht, a wealthy merchant; Campin produced what seems, at first, an unremarkable "Annunciation with donors." Yet behind its calm appearance the work delivers a magnificently ambitious ensemble, staggering in visual sumptuousness and breathtaking in its symbolic message. 

The Mérode Altarpiece has never been surpassed in symbolic complexity. Campin saturates his scene with emblems designed to show Providence's unceasing hand shaping and guiding the world of Campin's faith.

Read the rest here. Image credit: detail of the center panel.

WWI in the WSJ

Margaret MacMillan, author of The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914, writes about World War I in The Wall Street Journal:

What is harder to pin down and assess are the war's long-term consequences—political, social and moral. The conflict changed all the countries that took part in it. Governments assumed greater control over society and have never entirely relinquished it. Old regimes collapsed, to be replaced by new political orders. In Russia, czarist autocracy was succeeded by a communist one, with huge consequences for the rest of the century.

The scale and destructiveness of the war also raised issues—many of which we still grapple with today—and spread new political ideas. President Wilson talked about national self-determination and making the world safe for democracy. He wanted a League of Nations as the basis for international cooperation. From Russia, Lenin and his Bolsheviks offered a stark alternative: a world without borders or classes. The competing visions helped fuel the Cold War, which ended just 25 years ago.

Before 1914, Russia was a backward autocracy but was changing fast. Its growth rate was as high as any of the Asian tigers in the 1960s and 1970s; it was Europe's major exporter of food grains and, as it industrialized, was importing machinery on a massive scale. Russia also was developing the institutions of civil society, including the rule of law and representative government. Without the war, it might have evolved into a modern democratic state; instead, it got the sudden collapse of the old order and a coup d'état by the Bolsheviks. Soviet communism exacted a dreadful toll on the Russian people and indeed the world—and its remnants are still painfully visible in the corrupt, authoritarian regime of Vladimir Putin.

The war also destroyed other options for Europe's political development. The old multinational empires had their faults, to be sure, but they enabled the diverse peoples within their boundaries to live in relative harmony. Both Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans were trying to work out ways of encompassing the demands of different groups for greater autonomy. Might they have succeeded if the war had not exhausted them to the point of collapse? We will never know, but since then, the world has suffered the violence and horrors of ethnic nationalism.

The armistice of 1918 ended one gigantic conflict, but it left the door open for a whole host of smaller ones—the "wars of the pygmies," as Winston Churchill once described them. Competing national groups tried to establish their own independence and to push their borders out at the expense of their neighbors. Poles fought Russians, Lithuanians and Czechs, while Romania invaded Hungary. And within their borders, Europeans fought each other. Thirty-seven thousand Finns (out of some 3 million) died in a civil war in the first months of 1918, while in Russia, as many as a million soldiers and many more civilians may have died by the time the Bolsheviks finally defeated their many opponents.

The war had brutalized European society, which had grown accustomed during the largely peaceful 19th century to think that peace was the normal state of affairs. After 1918, Europeans were increasingly willing to resort to other sorts of force, from political assassinations to street violence, and to seek radical solutions to their problems. The seeds of the political movements on the extremes of both the right and the left—of fascism and communism—were sown in the years before 1914, but it took World War I to fertilize them.

Read the rest here. The WSJ also has stories about women on the home front, the poets of WWI, how WWI led to the Great Depression, the end of the British Empire, and warfare--plus some book reviews.