CHRISTIAN ICONOGRAPHY

So as you can see from my website, I have a little interest in christianity. in particular christian icongraphy n art

Its not a recent obsession, ive always had a thing for crosses n churches except when I was small a kid (churches are scary as shit also jesus on a cross is scary imagery tbh) but I quickly got over it (obvi)

I come from a catholic household, my parents were raised catholic and I was too (to an extent), but it was never forced upon me (thx mom n dad).

But on my mom's side, it's very catholic. Everytime I went to see my grandmother I was always exposed to hundreds of pieces of iconography. Crucifixes, bibles, rosaries, paintings, statues, books, flyers, fckn fridge magnets EVERYTHING. One time I got bored and I counted around 117 pieces of iconography (not including books bibles, rosaries)

Obviously this influenced me alot, and now I incorporate this iconography in my art, my clothing, n stuff I collect. I got a bunch of crosses (I should take pictures now that im thinkin of it).

History

I've always loved classical art. Theres something so impressive and beautiful about seeing a monumental oil painting, so much detail and time put into it. It's breathtaking about seeing a giant Rubens, or the Sistine chapel. This "classical art" or "Renaissance art" is usually associated with this technical mastery. I hear alot of people say things like "Why did we stop making beautiful art like this? We used to paint magnificent portraits and historical scenes. Now all we get is modern art thats just squares n shit." I personally love me some modern abstract art, I understand why people would think this. Why is it that we made "objectively better" art in the 17 hundreds than nowadays?

But there’s something important to consider. "Back in the day" most art was comissioned. And the people that commissoned this art were part of the wealthy. And who had the money to commission art? The rich nobles, powerful merchants, and the Church. who wanted portraits of themselves, or big paintings of historical events or mythological scenes to fill the big walls of their big houses (the bigger the painting the bigger the wall, the bigger the wall the richer you are!).

The Church, too, had a lot more money and influence at the time. Big dramatic paintings of Jesus and other religious themes to decorate cathedrals, these monumentous paintings showed the clergy's power. Especially during the counter-reform.

Art at the time was necessary, it was a tool. It didnt have the same social context as nowadays. And as times changed, we didnt need art for the same things. We didnt need portraits, or paintings of historical events, we had photography. The bourgois class emerged, and with their "new money" they also wanted big paintings to decorate their walls, these oils werent for the noble elite anymore. It started to feel less exclusive, maybe even a bit overdone. That’s when the term art pompier popped up—academic art that was super polished and grand but started to be seen as shallow or outdated.

Well that was long (and boring) but its ok, ok? now let me tell you about some artists I like!

Art

Jan Toorop

Probably one of my fav artists, I first saw his work on a school trip. "the organ" was the first painting I saw from him. I felt so intrigued, it was so dreamy and it was kinda hard to tell what it was at first. hjklydershjhkljgfdsqhgjhkhgfdresrtyuhgfesrtycuhvgfds