What I've been up to lately, and a little Catholic art trivia for you.

I have been working on one of my pictures in wood again.  I have revisited St Michael driving out Satan again, only this time it is larger and with a little more background.  As was my first attempt, here,



I am basing it off of a stained glass window, in this case a window from St Patrick's Basilica in Montreal (below).

With the inclusion of more background, I am noticing things that I left out the first time, but probably shouldn't.  For example, Michael has one foot firmly on Satan's head.  The other foot is standing on a stone.

No big deal, right? He has to put his foot somewhere.

Except no.  This is Catholic iconography.  Everything means something.  The creator of the this window, and the original painting which preceded it, probably had in mind the plethora of stones and rocks that appear throughout the Bible.  There is, for example, Psalm 18:2: The Lord is My Rock and my Fortress."  The image appears again in Psalm 31: 3 "For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name's sake lead me, and guide me." Stones appear throughout the Bible as an image of the Lord: He is a rock, steadfast and true, the stone the builders rejected but which became the cornerstone.  Michael stands firm on the rock which is the Lord.  Satan, on the other hand, crawls on his belly, eating the dust, as he was cursed to do.

The stone does not appear merely here.  I have seen several Stations of the Cross, for example, where, say the Lord has fallen to the ground, his hand resting on a stone as he tried to break his fall, or perhaps push himself up again.  The stones do not just happen to be there.  The composition would work perfectly well without them.  The artists put them there for a reason.  

Just a little thought for the evening.