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| (Source: The Catholic Missourian) |
Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs, a painter we have featured on LAJ before, will already be someone who is familiar to a number of our readers, and a recent article about her ongoing work for the baptistery of St. Joseph's Cathedral in Jefferson City, Missouri put to mind that it might be an idea to check in and see what she has been up to since we last took a look at her work The following images are taken from the gallery of her website and give you a small sampling of her work, ranging from portrayals of martyrs and saints to portraits of prelates. Some of her works have a contemporary-realist feel to them while others, in particular her studies, take their cues from the older techniques of the great masters. Let's take a quick peak.
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| St. Lawrence, 2021 |
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| Study of the Immaculate Conception, 2021 |
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| St. Edmund Campion, 2021 |
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| Portrait of Franc Cardinal Rode, 2017 |
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| Madonna, 2020 |
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| Study of Perino del Vaga's Holy Family with St. John the Baptist, 2018 |
The lesson to my mind in all of this is simply this: sacred art continues to exist -- or at least it can. So very often today we seem to find people starting off with the assumption that this or that is not possible anymore. The reality is that whatever was possible 'then' is also possible in the here and now if you only spend a bit of time looking for it. But perhaps more important than this is the understanding that we cannot bring a modern consumerist mentality to this; we live in a culture of the 'now' and we expect everything done quickly and inexpensively and then we find ourselves lamenting quality. Quality, however, is an enterprise that requires both an investment of time as well as resources.
