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27-05-2008
Joy Lasts: On the Spiritual in Art
by Wendy Beckett
Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2006
60 pp, hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-89236-843-3
About this Book
The author, Sister Wendy, is one of the best-known art historians in the world today. In this work she explores her reactions to a painting that she finds uniquely compelling: the haunting Christ on the Cross by El Greco. As she candidly admits, ‘I have always had a difficulty in talking about religious art.' This surprising admission leads her to examine the very nature of religious and spiritual art, which, Sister Wendy argues, are not at all the same things. In the course of her discussion she takes a careful look at fourteen works by artists ranging from anonymous medieval masters to Paul Cézanne, in whose still lifes she finds the expression of a deep spirituality. The art of Correggio, Rubens, Millet, and others helps the author arrive at a new understanding of just why it is that this particular El Greco painting speaks to her so profoundly.
About the Author Sister Wendy Beckett is internationally known for her books and televised art series. Born in South Africa, she taught there for many years after studying at St. Anne's College, Oxford. Since 1970 she has lived as a contemplative nun at a Carmelite monastery in England.
http://www.getty.edu/bookstore/titles/joy.html |
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