Book Review: Sister Wendy's Nativity and Life of Christ by Sister Wendy Beckett

Sister Wendy's Nativity and Life of Christ by Sister Wendy Beckett

Art lover and BBC present Sister Wendy Beckett was given access to many medieval manuscripts from the Vatican and Italian State Libraries. They are psalters and prayer books that have hardly been seen by the public. She curated dozens of images and arranged them as a chronology of Jesus's life, death, and resurrection. Each image has a page of commentary, reflecting both on the artistic style and merits as well as on the theological message she sees the artist displaying. As with any collection of art works by various creators, some are better than others (and she does call them out sometimes, in her gentle way). The book is an interesting and quick read, though it is fun to linger on some of the images.

Recommended.

Sample image:

Click to enlarge

Sample text about the image:

All around the margin of the picture are hosts and chalices, interspersed with grieving angels who bear lilies and lighted candles. The symbolism is dense, and this may be apt in its heaviness. These Holy Thursday events are too weighty to be analyzed easily. The only genuine response is to pray, to unite with the suffering Jesus and to affirm our faith in his life and death. [p. 60]

Book Review: Sister Wendy's Book of Meditations by Sister Wendy Beckett

Sister Wendy's Book of Meditations by Sister Wendy Beckett

Sister Wendy Beckett became a television sensation in the 1990s as an art historian and commentator. She had several documentary series on BBC and PBS. As a Roman Catholic nun, her perspective always had a spiritual and moral dimension to it. In this book, she meditates on four topics: silence, peace, love, and joy. Each topic has eighteen or nineteen subtopics or exemplars. She gives a short, one page meditation that is paired with a painting (or occasionally a sculpture) from any period in art history in any style from any part of the globe. She tends to use mostly European art (what she's most familiar with) though there's Asian and American art too.

She's very expressive and is able to find meaning and relevance even in works that leave me dubious about their artistic merit. The book is full of great nuggets of wisdom, such as "Those who are genuinely good always doubt their goodness." [p. 68] This line comes with the painting Amedee-David, Marquis de Pastoret, 1826 by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. The Marquis clearly believes in his own worthiness and is a wonderful counterpoint to the Sister Wendy's reflection on peace.

If anyone thinks he's good, here's the man

I read this as part of my Lenten focus on more spiritual reading and found this quite rewarding. It is a short book (160 pages) and goes by far too quickly. I want to read some more of Sister Wendy's work!

Highly recommended.