An Artist, a choral anthem, and an improvisation.

I have posted two more items on YouTube. First, our anthem from last Sunday:

Whom have I (Jane Marshall)

Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is nothing in the earth that I desire besides thee. My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. (Psalm 73:25, 26)

Artwork: St. Simeon with the infant Jesus (Rembrandt, 1669)

I chose the painting because in this, old Simeon found his heaven on earth. He may well have thought of this verse from the Psalms as he beheld the Child.

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Second, my improvisation from September 11, when we had the Gospel about the lost sheep, and Him who went after it:

What wondrous love is this
It is a set of variations, with an excursion to the tune St. Columba (The King of love my shepherd is), which was part of the service that day.

Artwork: Jesus with the crown of thorns (Ilya Repin, 1913)

Ilya Repin (1844-1930) was a revolutionary artist in his youth. Born in Ukraine, his studies and much of his career were in St. Petersburg, and his sympathies with the “Rebellion of the fourteen,” who left the Imperial Academy, calling themselves the “itinerants,” or Peredvizhniki. Much of his work was with portraits and groups of all kinds of people from peasants to aristocrats, including some who remain famous, such as the composer Modest Mussorgsky, a philosopher and two composers Odoevsky, Balakirev, and Glinka, and ten paintings of his friend, the author Leo Tolstoy. Here is one of Tolstoy at work in his study.

The painting on the YouTube clip (“Jesus with the crown of thorns”), in the challenging medium of oil paint on concrete, shows his interest in impressionism, awakened when he visited France and Italy. As with many impressionist works, it is better viewed at a distance – on my computer, it becomes strong when seen from across the room, but not so much up close. Most of his work is in the “realist” style that was revolutionary when Repin was young – but by the time of his death, hailed by the Soviets as the model for Socialist Realism.

Repin lived in his latter years a few miles from St. Petersburg across what was then the border with Finland, in a house he designed and built (since 1948, the town has been part of the USSR and now Russia).

Here is a good site to view his paintings.

From the biography on the Repin site: “His realistic works often expressed great psychological depth and showed the tensions within the existing social order.” It is a reminder that he lived in a challenging time and place, doing his best to make strong and honest art. May all artists, musicians, and writers do the same.