The Book of Kells is Ireland's greatest national art treasure. It is an illuminated manuscript that presents the Four Gospels in Latin accompanied by a dazzling array of decorative ornamentation, iconography and illustration. It was created by the monks of St. Columbkille's order and it is possible that St. Columbkille himself did some of the work.
Artist John Lajba suggested that one of the images from the Book of Kells be digitally painted onto brass for the chapel side door of our tabernacle.
That was not a simple task. You can't just scan a page from the Book of Kells. So first John had to acquire the best image he could get from Ireland. Then he oversaw the process of digitally enhancing the image to fully bring out the details of the image in the size we needed.
Before this was painted on brass, John did a test page of the same size for approval.
This "test sheet" has been framed and will be offered as an Auction Item at
Columb's Ceili on Saturday, March 2nd. It truly is a one of a kind piece.
I'm very curious on the various elements of the picture. Will there be more explanations coming? My biggest question: why does it look like Jesus is wearing a long blonde wig? And why the birds (peacocks maybe?) in the corners?
ReplyDeleteNatalya -- This qualifies as an extremely slow response, sorry about that. Fr. Damian has written a description of the doors and that is in the rack near the northeast/chapel entrance. It was believed that peacock meat did not rot and therefore it was a symbol of eternal life. Also, the minority of Christian art worldwide depicts Jesus as a middle eastern Jew. Those of us of European descent tend not to notice when Jesus looks more European than Middle Eastern. But as you travel about the world, you will often see Jesus depicted as a native; as "one of us." That has some goodness within it. That was especially true when there was very little art. Although the Irish would have seen some people like St Patrick who were of Roman descent, it's unlikely they had ever seen someone from the Middle East. So artists in St. Columbkille's time would depict Jesus as an Irish blonde.
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