“Glorify His All-Loving Heart”: Winners of the Sacred Heart Art Competition
“Our Lord Jesus Christ,” St. Margaret Mary Alacoque tell us, “desires that we should, for sanctifying ourselves, glorify His all-loving Heart; for it was His Heart that suffered the most in His Sacred Humanity.”
Just under a year ago, Dappled Things challenged Catholic artists to help us do just that by creating new depictions of the Sacred Heart that, with God’s favor, might honor and strengthen this beloved devotion. As we explained in the original call for submissions, we found that many popular portrayals of the Sacred Heart often left much to be desired, and as a result we were looking for images that were conducive to devotional practice and brought “the Church's artistic treasures to the service of Jesus' Sacred Heart.” Our intention from the start has been to promote this devotion, so for the benefit of those who are moved to bring the Sacred Heart into their homes, we have provided links below (when possible) to sites where prints of the work may be purchased.
Dappled Things and the Benedict XVI Institute are now pleased to announce the winners of our Sacred Heart Art Competition. After extensive review of the numerous entries that were submitted, the judges have selected three prize winners and several honorable mentions. All display considerable talent, technical proficiency, and imaginative but reverent approaches to the subject matter, but more importantly, they also manifest an understanding that devotional art must be both high in excellence and become a worthy aid to prayer. The works selected all take different stylistic approaches to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but depict the same invisible reality. Here are what drew us to each of the prize-winning works:
First Prize: Matthew Conner
Matthew Conner’s image draws deeply and organically from the well of the final flowering of medieval art, with its mixture of stylization and realism. It is solemn, but not heavy, having that sense of uplifting Gothic attenuation one finds in the Flemish masters. The colors are rich, set against a flat gilded background worked with an incised halo and a simple geometric border, contrasting the appearance of three-dimensionality in the figure with a timeless heavenly gold backdrop, Christ both God and Man; further imagination is shown by rendering the heart itself as an actual sculpted relief.
Second Prize: Joseph Jude Macklin
Joseph Macklin’s catalogue of work is of extraordinary quality and shows considerable stylistic variation and a refreshing confidence in being willing to experiment, quite successfully, within the bounds of sacred art. This work succeeds in being both closely inspired by the work of the Sienese school while successfully depicting an iconographic type that would have been unknown to them, and giving to the luminous chalice and floating heart an arresting weightlessness that contrasts with the solid Italian Gothic face and figure of Christ; the effect is mesmerizing.
Third Prize: Bernadette Carstensen
Bernadette Carstensen’s Christ takes the components of conventional modern depictions of the Sacred Heart and re-imbues them with a truly necessary sense of iconographic reverence without going to the opposite extreme and reducing the result to a diagram. Our Lord’s gaze transfixes the viewer, and the graceful gestures of His hands beautifully frame His heart.
Honorable Mentions:
Gwyneth Thomson-Briggs: An unusual but worthy and fittingly devotional depiction of the fiery furnace of the Sacred Heart, there is something arresting about this image that rewards those who return to it again and again; it catches the eye through its striking appearance at first but still retains its power after the initial glance, a critically important aspect of art used in prayer.
Ioana Belcea: Treating the Sacred Heart in an Eastern iconographic context can be a challenge, and the rules and canons of Byzantine iconography are somewhat different in their priorities from Western devotional art, even if they share much in common. Among several icons submitted, Belcea’s image of the Sacred Heart stands out, with the divine face having a gentleness of expression that does not detract from the majesty of the subject matter and style.
Hildegard Mohr and Aumi K. Perry: While both submissions, one a jewel-like manuscript illumination in both the spirit and the letter of early medieval art and the other an atmospheric image of St. Getrude meditating on the Sacred Heart with the feel of a classic book illustration, did not quite meet the brief of devotional art, they were both so skillfully executed and showing an imaginative if unconventional approach to the subject matter, they have undoubtedly found a fitting place here. The intricate iconography and bright palette of the one and the solitude and chiaroscuro of the other remain imprinted on the viewer’s mind long after moving on.
Judges:
Matthew Alderman (Project Designer, Cram & Ferguson Architects; Founder, Matthew Alderman Studios)
Bernardo Aparicio García (Founder / Publisher / Visual Art Editor, Dappled Things)
