Tea at Trianon: Visual Odes to Joy

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

Wednesday, August 20, 2025

Visual Odes to Joy

From The Way of Beauty:

From around the 4th century AD, when public Christian sacred art became possible in the Roman Empire, the image of Christ as a bearded man emerged as the dominant prototype (along with the first distinctive Christian style of art, the iconographic tradition). This was not an arbitrary choice but a deliberate one, rooted in the need to portray Christ’s humanity in a way that the faithful could recognise. (It is interesting that this has remained the dominant prototype to this day and also corresponds to images coming from other sources, such as the Shroud of Turin.) A painting of Christ must reflect what we know of Him as a man, including his physical attributes. Yet, this portrayal ought never be merely naturalistic. The artist’s task is to transcend the material, to suggest the spiritual soul that animates the human person.
As described above, there is a focus on conveying the inner life through facial expressions and gestures. The eyes, often referred to as the “windows of the soul,” are frequently depicted with meticulous care, conveying thought, feeling, and presence. A subtle gesture, a carefully rendered expression—these draw us into the mystery of the person. Even in the restrained iconographic style, where emotional extravagance is avoided, the viewer senses a living, breathing soul behind the image.
Aside from the expression and gesture, this is also achieved through what I call ‘partial abstraction’—a deliberate departure from strict realism to evoke the inner life of the subject. Whether in the serene stillness of an icon, the emotive intensity of a gothic crucifix, or the dramatic naturalism of a baroque painting, artists employ conventions of partial abstraction - some obvious and some far more subtly applied - that characterise their tradition and lend to it a symbolic, otherworldly quality.
For those who wish to explore this further, my book *The Way of Beauty* delves into how these artistic conventions developed to communicate spiritual truths through visual form. (Read more.)