Saturday, April 05, 2008

Sister Wendy Beckett: 'My real world is a world away from bustle"



My first experience with a nun occurred in the late 1950's at Little Flower Grammar School at 81st & Honore on the south side of Chicago. It was not a good one; similar experiences cascaded through my eight years at LFG.

My only ally, it seemed, - ( Hey, every one got clouted - except the snitches and they are now DNC Super Delegates) in my personal 'world's collide' with the Religious Sisters of Mercy was my County Kerry bog man Grandfather.

Unlike most, Hickeys, Old Lawrence understood. 'Pay them no mind, so, Páidín ( in Chicago phonetics, sounds like Pat-Sheen, translates to Paddy) , they're a shower of Hairy-faced Old Galway Bitches!'

Later in life, bumps, clouts, psychological warfare notwithstanding, I taught with some incredible women who 'took the veil.' The Sisters of Notre Dame - Helen Kavanaugh, Helen Larsen, Theresa Galvan, and the brilliant Madeline Lamarre. These girls could teach, filet a Kankakee River Channel Cat, work a beer glass like Bricklayer John McKenna and direct all of their actions to God.

I read a book about Sister Wendy Beckett, a South African born Sister of Notre Dame, Art critic, television star and contemplative. What struck me was Sister Wendy's attitude toward all things: 'everthing that happens in Life is a means to an end and I happen to believe that the end is God.' Sister then went on to compare the Rape of Lucretia by Tarquin to Cezanne's The Abduction - and wittily and smartly points to the nature of contempt for human beings intrinsic to the act of Rape.


Sister Wendy's life is spent in Caravan - in American, a trailer, a tornado target - at the bottom of a hill on which sits a Carmelite Contemplative Convent. As a contemplative, Sister Wendy has taken a vow of absolute silence and speaks only to the Superior of the Convent and rarely at that.

She talks a plenty - through her writing. Sister Wendy is a brilliant scholar and master of Art, who understands the nature of artistic expression and can explain the work of the World's Masters to this dumb as dirt know-it- all whose mouth goes like a duck's ass 24/7:


"Art is beauty and God is beauty. If you can get people to look at art; you are bringing them closer to Him, even if they don't know His name."

"My own definition of beauty is that which perpetually satisfies us. You look at it again and again and there is more of it to satisfy us. I would say that beauty is very much an attribute of God - He is essential beauty. But only those of us who have been fortunate enough to have faith know where beauty comes from. For the others, they are responding to beauty and responding to Him, though they mightn't be aware of that - they are responding to the pure, free, strong, loving spirit of God."
Sister Wendy

Got it in one take, Sister Wendy - and without a knuckle to the noggin. Thank You!

Click my post title for the TV series on Sister Wendy

Here is what Sister Wendy has been doing in the contemplative life -
Books

2001
Sister Wendy's Impressionist Masterpieces
Sister Wendy's American Masterpieces

2000
Sister Wendy's American Collection
In the Midst of Chaos, Peace (with Mary J. Dorcy and Dan Paulos)
Sister Wendy's Book of Muses (with Justin Pumfrey)

1999
Sister Wendy's 1,000 Masterpieces (with Patricia Wright)
My Favourite Things: 75 Works of Art from Around the World

1998
Sister Wendy's Nativity
Inner Life: A Fellow Traveler's Guide to Prayer (by David Torkington; foreword by Sister Wendy)
Sister Wendy's Odyssey: A Journey of Artistic Discovery
Sister Wendy's Book of Meditations
Sister Wendy's Book of Saints
The Mystery of Love: Saints in Art Through the Ages

1997
Sister Wendy's Story of Christmas: Adventures in Art
Sister Wendy in Conversation with Bill Moyers: The Complete Conversation (edited by Karen Johnson)
The Wisdom of the Apostles (compiled by Philip Law; introduction by Sister Wendy)
The Duke and the Peasant: Life in the Middle Ages (with Jean De Berry)
Max Beckmann and the Self

1996
Sister Wendy's Grand Tour: Discovering Europe's Great Art
Pains of Glass: The Story of the Passion from King's College Chapel, Cambridge (with George Pattison)

1995
Sister Wendy's Meditations: Meditations on Joy
Sister Wendy's Meditations: Meditations on Love
Sister Wendy's Meditations: Meditations on Peace
Sister Wendy's Meditations: Meditations on Silence
A Child's Book of Prayer in Art

1994
The Story of Painting
The Gaze of Love: Meditations on Art and Spiritual Transformation


Series

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2001
Sister Wendy's American Collection

1998
The Saints with Sister Wendy
The Much Loved Friend: Portrait of The National Gallery

1997
Sister Wendy in Conversation with Bill Moyers

1996
Sister Wendy's Grand Tour: Discovering Europe's Great Art
Sister Wendy: Pains of Glass
Sister Wendy's Story of Painting
Early Art
The Renaissance
Baroque to Romanticism
The Age of Revolution
Modernism

3 comments:

Editor said...

Thanks, Pat, for the wonderful tribute to a veritable original--Sister Wendy was a tower of knowledge, and fearless in her interpretations of art. She called 'em as she saw 'em, in her amusing and insightful way. Now, I'm going to find that book....

M-J de M.

Editor said...

Thanks, Pat, for the wonderful tribute to a veritable original--Sister Wendy was a tower of knowledge, and fearless in her interpretations of art. She called 'em as she saw 'em, in her amusing and insightful way. Now, I'm going to find that book....

M-J de M.

pathickey said...

MJ,

This the book that I read -

Sister Wendy's Grand Tour: Discovering Europe's Great Art

- Wendy's remarkable insight into human sexuality (from a Virginal Contemplative at that!) and her wonderful sense of humor is amazing.

If her boss would allow -I'd love to take her up to Keegan's Pub on Western Ave. here in Chicago and 'talk art' with the cops, firemen, artists and cartoonists over a couple of pints of Smithwicks.

'Hockney? Too geometric.'

'Yer, nuts, Flatfoot, his stduy of the nude is like no other since that Brandi broad yanked off the jersey in the soccer game. Go take some graft'

'Hey, look a$$hole, 9/11 is way past over for the 'heroes in suspenders and blue T-shirts.' You clowns do more eating and sleeping than reading. In between fires, try picking up something to read that does not have center-fold.'

'Watch yer language, the Penquin's still here. Hell sorry, Sister, these Coppers think every woman is like their wife. Your Old Lady still busting concrete for the State, Jimmy? When's her parole?'

'Hockney likes men - he might have been a Fireman!'

'That's it! . . .'