Welcome, all nice new people! We do this thing every Friday called the “Goodie bag” that’s just fun, cool and interesting stuff jammed together in no particular order. The first section, “above the fold” is for all subscribers, free and paid, and the “below the fold” section is special extra stuff for paid subscribers. But none of it is very serious, just a collection of little quizzes, photos maybe a video clip or two from around about, eye-candy and inspiring moments…

Quiz: Romanesque or Byzantine… Or maybe something else?

Today we’re getting another quiz about some different kinds of sacred art you might not have heard of: can you tell these styles at a glance? Googling to cheat on the quizzes is encouraged. As is reading up on old posts, here, here and here.

We’ve covered all the forms and styles below, except one… Can you spot the new thing? This one will be a bit more challenging; but you guys are totally up for it.

~~~

~~~

~~~

~~~

Some updates: I’m going on an adventure!

I’m not going to be around next week:

All about our trip to Liguria and Siena!

Today below the fold, the section for paid members, we will have a little featurette of a very special team of mosaic makers from Romania. There’s a massive flourishing of Christian sacred art happening in Romania right now, and we’ll talk about that.

The Orthodox monastery of All Celtic Saints on the Isle of Mull has received some mosaics they commissioned and they are absolutely eye-blowingly gorgeous. The monastery has loaded a pair of videos showing them being unpacked on arrival in Scotland and prepared for display. Unfortunately, they’ve only posted them to Facebook which makes sure their videos can’t be shared off their platform.

I commented on the monastery’s FB page, “I'm not huge into mosaics, but these are exceptionally beautiful. Those colours!”

This is what modern mosaics and contemporary Christian sacred art could be.

Speaking of which…

Latest from Fr. Seraphim.

“What happened to all the monasteries” ebook coming soon!

A couple of weeks ago I teased our first ebook, “Where did all the monasteries go?” with a chapter converted into a pdf made available as a free download to paid members of our club here. I’m happy to say it’s almost finished, with the help of a professional editor. It will be made available to purchase as a downloadable PDF from my shop at my studio blog, Hilary White; Sacred Art.

The free chapter went over really well, so I’m looking forward to making the whole story available to everyone. It’s tragic but fascinating, touches on aspects of recent European history that hardly ever get a mention… (It’s “Englightening” … geddit?)

Now, I’m working on the next one, a proper mini-course as I discussed some time ago. There are getting to be some good art history home school courses these days, and that’s a great thing. The secular academic approach to Christian sacred art is massively flawed, and academia, already blinded by its biases is diving deep into Wokist absurdity and irrelevance.

And that goes double for online sources. Though I will keep using their basic “just the facts” material until that becomes problematic, Smarthistory is starting to get pretty overrun with “The Message”.

So, it’s certainly starting to be clear that there’s going to be an increasing “market demand,” let’s say, for non-woke, un-captured art history material. Which is good for us, hey? Bright side… silver lining and whatnot.

So, here’s a little taste of the Wilton Diptych mini-course that’s in the works, and then a poll.

… Or maybe something else entirely…

I hope if you’ve enjoyed the free material you’ve found here, and that if you think you might enjoy more in-depth and uplifting stuff, including the podcasts that are coming, you’ll consider taking out a paid subscription. Four months ago, I scrinched up my courage, closed my eyes and held my breath, and took the risk of diving head first and full time into this project and just hoped it would work. And I’m kind of amazed by what a good gamble that was. There’s lots of plans afoot going forward, and the only way to do any of it is with your support:

The Sacred Images Project is a reader-supported publication where we talk about Christian sacred art, the first 1200 years. It’s my full time job, but it’s still not bringing a full time income, so I can’t yet provide all the things I want to and am planning. You can subscribe for free to get one and a half posts a week.

For $9/month you get a weekly paywalled in-depth article on this great sacred patrimony, plus extras like downloadable exclusive images, ebooks, mini-courses, photos, videos and podcasts (in the works).

If you’d like to choose the amount you contribute, you can set up a monthly patronage or make a one-off donation at my studio blog, Hilary White; Sacred Art here:

Hilary White; Sacred Art

Subscribe to join us!