Tea at Trianon: News from Daniel Mitsui

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, December 1, 2011

News from Daniel Mitsui

Some amazing art which is taking liturgical circles by storm. Daniel says:

Earlier this year, I was contacted by the Executive Secretary of the Vox Clara Committee, a Vatican committee of senior bishops from episcopal conferences throughout the English-speaking world that advises the Holy See on English-language liturgy. The Committee will publish in 2012 an interim edition of the Roman Pontifical, including new translations of certain texts drawn from the revised Roman Missal.

I was commissioned to create a series of five color illustrations for this Pontifical, depicting the Crucifixion, the Last Supper, the Presentation in the Temple, the Descent of the Holy Ghost and Christ the High Priest. The central images are surrounded by appropriate symbols and Old Testament prefigurements, and the corner scenes depict liturgical rites contained in the Pontifical.

The drawings were realized in colored inks on Bristol board, in a style heavily influenced by 15th century panel paintings, tapestries, manuscripts and incunabula. Black and white versions of two of these illustrations were also produced. (Read entire newsletter.)