The writings of Caryll Houselander, a mid-century British artist, poet and spiritual writer, remain for many a treasure trove of honest reflections on faith.
Art
Laboring for Beauty: The Tradition of Catholic Worker Art
Since the first Catholic Worker artists filled the pages of its newspaper with woodblock prints, art has been an important dimension of the organization’s vision of the reconstruction of the social order.
Gaudí’s masterworks beyond Barcelona and La Sagrada Familia
Gaudí is deeply connected with his Catalonia homeland, but his journey to holiness started in Astorga, 500 miles west of Barcelona.
In ‘Raphael: Sublime Poetry,’ art points to a deeper reality
A blockbuster exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York offers a spiritual way of seeing.
Catholic Movie Club: ‘The Mill and the Cross’ and making art in dark times
“The Mill and the Cross” tells the story of the painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder and the creation of his famous work “The Procession to Calvary.”
A history of British converts to Catholicism
In her new book, Melanie McDonagh gives us a rollicking account of a group of highly talented writers and artists as they make their way across the Tiber.
The Sagrada Familia makes room for us all
The Sagrada Familia, to be sure, is not a humble building. But it is not an inhuman building, either. It is a space where one can feel loved.
Finding a Lenten vulnerability in Rilke’s ‘Letters to a Young Poet’
I inherited many books from my older brothers—esoteric books from the 1970s on running and weightlifting, and Pietro di Donato’s classic novel Christ in Concrete, about an Italian immigrant family of laborers shattered by the death of their patriarch. But my favorite is Letters to a Young Poet, by Rainer Maria Rilke. It is a […]
Michelangelo’s ‘Last Judgment’ gets cleanup as tide of visitors to Sistine Chapel grows
A thin, white film caused by decades of rising visitor numbers has dulled the dramatic contrasts of Michelangelo’s ‘Last Judgment’ in the Sistine Chapel.
Frank Gehry’s religious imagination—and a little Los Angeles chapel
Frank Gehry’s creations have charmed and sometimes puzzled the world—but what would a cathedral designed by him look like?
