Blog

Great Reservoir, Masada (2015)

Reflections
Great Reservoir, Masada (2015)
“It is the errant brother who sees what is not seen, sees what cannot be seen but feels the contours of the shadows.”
Don Michael Hudson, PhD
“It is the errant brother who sees what is not seen, sees what cannot be seen but feels the contours of the shadows.”
Link to essay here:

Compassion, Phyllis Trible, and the Madonna

Reflections
The Madonna of Zbraslava
Prague 1310-1320
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

In a post earlier this week, I referred to Phyllis Trible and her book, “God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality.” I forget how insightful she is with the biblical text, and I had forgotten what a beautiful writer she is in this work. In my opinion, anyone interested in the Jewish-Christian Scriptures must read her writings. If we listen to Trible execute new readings of old texts, she will alter our worldviews–radically.

 
Here is a passage I read last night on her interpretation of the Hebrew word for compassion. She is speaking of the two-fold function of metaphor and uses this Hebrew word rehem–“womb” and then its plural rahamim which means “compassion.” Simply put, in the singular rehem means womb; in the plural rahamim, we translate as compassion. Stay with me now:
 
“Accordingly, our metaphor lies in the semantic movement from a physical organ of the female body to a psychic mode of being. It journeys from the concrete to the abstract. “Womb” is the vehicle; “compassion” is the tenor. To the responsive imagination, this metaphor suggests the meaning of love as selfless participation in life. The womb protects and nourishes but does not possess and control. It yields its treasure in order that wellness and whole-being my happen. Truly, it is the way of compassion.” (33)
 
“to the responsive imagination”
 
The Madonna of Zbraslav (Prague 1310-1320)
St. Agnes Convent Museum Bohemian and Religious Art
 
Prague (June 21)
 
5D M3

Sunset Over Cook Inlet, Anchorage, AK (Aug 21)

Reflections
Sunset Over Cook Inlet, Anchorage, AK (Aug 21)
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

I remain quite ambivalent toward sunsets. They’re too easy to photograph and get a “Wow.” Doesn’t take much work at all really. But one must be quick. The sun is the speed of light, no? I know. But in sunsets, the sun is speedy, and the dark overwhelms quickly. I also hold sunsets at a distance with great skepticism because, as a boy growing up in the South, how many “missionary” sunsets did I view on Sunday and Wednesday church services? That “sunset’ slide was always the last slide to almost every missionary slideshow. I forget the sermon-guilt point of the last slide, but it doesn’t matter now, does it? And sunsets are gorgeously sad. But morning waits ready.

Foundations of Christian Thought and Practice Fall 21 Groups

P and R Advert
Going on our 11th year now for Foundations of Christian Thought and Practice. We still have a ways to go, but we’ve come a long way too.
 
Many thanks to the incomparable Sydney Bailey and our hard-working teaching assistants:
Students teaching students.
 
Foundations of Christian Thought and Practice Fall 21 Groups
Don Michael Hudson, PhD
Foundations of Christian Thought and Practice Fall 21 Groups
Don Michael Hudson, PhD
Foundations of Christian Thought and Practice Fall 21 Groups
Don Michael Hudson, PhD
Foundations of Christian Thought and Practice Fall 21 Groups
Don Michael Hudson, PhD
Foundations of Christian Thought and Practice Fall 21 Groups
Don Michael Hudson, PhD
Foundations of Christian Thought and Practice Fall 21 Groups
Don Michael Hudson, PhD
Foundations of Christian Thought and Practice Fall 21 Groups
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Sept 20)

Essays
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Sept 20)
Don Michael Hudson, PhD
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Sept 20)
5D M3
Frances Jane Roberts Kramer
29 June 1937-1 September 2021
(I love you)
“You blink, and you’re blue.”
Wilco

Cathedral of Our Lady, Antwerp, Belgium

Photos
Cathedral of Our Lady, Antwerp
Don Michael Hudson, PhD
Antwerp, Belgium (July 21)
1D M2
“Remove the observer, and the world becomes devoid of these sonorous, visual, olfactory, etc., qualities, just as the flame becomes devoid of pain once the finger is removed.”
Alain Badiou

“The Man Who Bears the Cross” Jan Fabre

Reflections
“The Man Who Bears the Cross” Jan Fabre
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

 

Antwerp, Belgium (July 21)
1D M2
“The Man Who Bears the Cross”
Jan Fabre
“With ‘The man who bears the cross,’ Fabre is formulating an ‘enlightening’ answer to any form of radicalism or extremism that wishes to establish solidarity by excluding the ‘other.'”

Oskar Kokoschka “Hands” Detail

Reflections
MSK Gent
Oskar Kokoschka
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

MSK Ghent, Belgium (Jun 21)

 
1D M2
 
Oskar Kokoschka
 
Your Hands
 
“Their smoothness came
winging through time,
over the sea and the smoke,
over the Spring,
and when you laid
your hands on my chest
I knew those wings
of the gold doves,
I knew that clay,
and that colour of grain.
The years of my life
have been roadways of searching,
a climbing of stairs,
a crossing of reefs.”
 
Neruda

“The Misery of Job” by Ossip Zadkine, 1914

Reflections

Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent, Belgium

“The Misery of Job” by Ossip Zadkine, 1914
Don Michael Hudson, Phd
Q2 Mono
“For this work Zadkine drew inspiration from the Book of Job in the Old Testament. God and Satan put Job’s godliness to the test by subjecting him to all kinds of disasters. Zadkine chose the passage in which Eliphaz, Bildad, and Sofaz visit their friend Job to support him.”
I have never seen this piece nor read about it. The sculpture hit me hard when I walked into the room, and I spent at least 15 minutes and even then could barely pull myself away. Zadkine’s interpretation is brilliant and emotionally gripping.
We cannot see their faces. God has overwhelmed Job with disasters. Job in his grief of losing everything is completely joined to the earth, the dirt, the dust. Only the two friends touch one another. No one looks at one another–they can only look into themselves and their own unspeakable and lonely grievings. Notice Job’s wife–her hands. I think this is the most important detail of Zadkine’s interpretation. We see them clearly and prominently. Job’s wife uses her hands to shield her face from the ferocity of heaven, the calamities of God raining down upon an innocent, righteous couple. They seem to shout, “I can take no more. Go away and leave us be.”
Have you ever lost it all, lost everything? I am defining “everything” broadly here. We can still have everything and lose “everything.” There are many everythings…

The Misery of Job by Ossip Zadkine

Reflections
The Misery of Job by Ossip Zadkine
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent, Belgium

“The Misery of Job” by Ossip Zadkine, 1914
Q2 Mono
“For this work Zadkine drew inspiration from the Book of Job in the Old Testament. God and Satan put Job’s godliness to the test by subjecting him to all kinds of disasters. Zadkine chose the passage in which Eliphaz, Bildad, and Sofaz visit their friend Job to support him.”
I have never seen this piece nor read about it. The sculpture hit me hard when I walked into the room, and I spent at least 15 minutes and even then could barely pull myself away. Zadkine’s interpretation is brilliant and emotionally gripping.
We cannot see their faces. God has overwhelmed Job with disasters. Job in his grief of losing everything is completely joined to the earth, the dirt, the dust. Only the two friends touch one another. No one looks at one another–they can only look into themselves and their own unspeakable and lonely grievings. Notice Job’s wife–her hands. I think this is the most important detail of Zadkine’s interpretation. We see them clearly and prominently. Job’s wife uses her hands to shield her face from the ferocity of heaven, the calamities of God raining down upon an innocent, righteous couple. They seem to shout, “I can take no more. Go away and leave us be.”
Have you ever lost it all, lost everything? I am defining “everything” broadly here. We can still have everything and lose “everything.” There are many everythings…

St. Margaret, Altarpiece from Hyrov, Southern Bohemia (1430-1440)

Reflections
St. Margaret, Altarpiece from Hyrov, Southern Bohemia (1430-1440)
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

National Gallery Prague, Convent of St. Agnes of Bohemia, Medieval Art in Bohemia and Central Europe 1200-1550

 
Prague (Jun 21)
 
5D M3
 
St. Margaret, Altarpiece from Hyrov, Southern Bohemia (1430-1440)
 
Perhaps, not known, but most likely, St. Margaret of Antioch. “She is the patron saint of the falsely accused, hoboes, homeless, insane, orphaned, mentally ill, midwives, penitents, single mothers, reformed prostitutes, stepchildren, and tramps.”
 
Sorry, but I don’t buy into the magical hoodoo of saints and demons, but Margaret has great meaning for me.
 
I am homeless, mentally ill; a tramp and a constant penitent; falsely accused and rightly accused.
 
This is the first painting I have seen of her, and she appears in a triptych facing John the Baptist. Magnificent.
 
And she tramples the dragon(s).

The Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord, Prague. Detail: Holy Water Font designed by Jože Plečnik

Photos
The Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord, Prague
Detail: Holy Water Font designed by Jože Plečnik
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

Prague, (Jun 21)

 
5D M3
 
The Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord, Prague
 
Detail: Holy Water Font designed by Jože Plečnik
 
“The Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord is a Roman Catholic church at Jiřího z Poděbrad Square in Prague’s Vinohrady district. It was built between 1929 and 1932 and designed by the Slovene architect Jože Plečnik. Plečnik found the inspiration for this construction in old Christian and ancient patterns.”
 
“All architecture begins in stone.” Jože Plečnik

The Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord, Prague

Photos
The Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord, Prague
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

Prague, (Jun 21)

 
5D M3
 
The Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord, Prague
 
“The Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord is a Roman Catholic church at Jiřího z Poděbrad Square in Prague’s Vinohrady district. It was built between 1929 and 1932 and designed by the Slovene architect Jože Plečnik. Plečnik found the inspiration for this construction in old Christian and ancient patterns.”

The Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord, Prague

Reflections
The Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord, Prague
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

Prague, (Jun 21)

 
5D M3
 
The Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord, Prague
 
“The Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord is a Roman Catholic church at Jiřího z Poděbrad Square in Prague’s Vinohrady district. It was built between 1929 and 1932 and designed by the Slovene architect Jože Plečnik. Plečnik found the inspiration for this construction in old Christian and ancient patterns.”
 
I finally made it here after 20 years of trying and 3 trips to Prague.

“Crucifixion” from the Franciscan Monastery in Kadan ca. 1516-1520

Photos
“Crucifixion” from the Franciscan Monastery in Kadan
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

National Gallery Prague, Convent of St. Agnes of Bohemia, Medieval Art in Bohemia and Central Europe 1200-1550

 
Prague (Jun 21)
 
Q2 Mono
 
“Crucifixion” from the Franciscan Monastery in Kadan. On loan from the Bohemian-Moravian Province of St. Wenceslas of the Friars Minor (Franciscan Order) OFM

“Crucifixion”: Northwestern Bohemia (Kadan?), ca. 1516-1520

Photos
“Crucifixion”: Northwestern Bohemia (Kadan?), ca. 1516-1520
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

National Gallery Prague, Convent of St. Agnes of Bohemia, Medieval Art in Bohemia and Central Europe 1200-1550

 
Prague (Jun 21)
 
Q2 Mono
 
 
From the Franciscan Monastery in Kadan acquired in 1950.

Kotor, Montenegro (Jun 21)

Reflections
Kotor, Montenegro (Jun 21)
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

Kotor, Montenegro (Jun 21)

 
Q2 Mono
 
I’ve been meditating on Bob Dylan’s “Murder Most Foul.”
How does one put words to unspeakable things? I don’t know; wish I did.
 
“Take me back to Tulsa to the scene of the crime
Play another one and, “Another One Bites the Dust”
Play, “The Old Rugged Cross” and, “In God We Trust”
Ride the pink horse down that long, lonesome road.”
 
As far as I know, this is one of the few icons rendering Joseph, the father of Jesus at Station XIV.

Gacka, Croatia (May 21)

Reflections
Gacka, Croatia (May 21)
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

Gacka, Croatia (May 21)

Q2 Mono

Sometimes you’re driving down a little country road in a place far, far away and bam…

“You are a king. Live alone. Take a free road
And follow where your free mind leads you,
Bring to perfection the fruits of well-loved thoughts
Ask no reward for noble deeds accomplished.
Rewards are within you. Your supreme judge is yourself.
None will ever judge your work more sternly.
Discriminating artist, does it please you?”

Pushkin

Church of the Mother of God on the Lake, Bled, Slovenia

Reflections
Church of the Mother of God on the Lake
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

Church of the Mother of God on the Lake, Bled, Slovenia (May 21)

5D M3
“It’s so easy to drown in the dream.
Oh, and everything is not what it seems
This life is but a dream,
Shattered illusions that hold your spirit down.
Open up your heart and you’ll find love all around.
Breathing and moving are healing
And soothing away
All the pain in life holding you down.”
Sturgill Simpson, “Breakers Roar”

Church of the Mother of God on the Lake, Bled, Slovenia

Reflections
Church of the Mother of God on the Lake, Bled, Slovenia (May 21)
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

Church of the Mother of God on the Lake, Bled, Slovenia (May 21)

5D M3
Statue of Mary Magdalene
“Then Jesus turned toward the woman while he was speaking to Simon, ‘Don’t you see this woman? When I came into your house, you did not even give me water for my feet, but she has washed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You did not kiss me when I entered your home, but she has been kissing my feet since I came in. You did not anoint my head, but she poured perfume on my feet. Listen to me, Simon; her innumerable sins are forgiven, so she pours out great love. But the person who is forgiven just a little will love only a little.’”
Gospel of Luke 7: 44-47 (translation mine)
The Scriptures do not name this woman so we don’t know if she is Magdalene or not. “Tradition” named this woman as St. Mary from Magdala.

Jože Plečnik’s house/museum

Reflections
Jože Plečnik’s house/museum
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

Second time back to see Jože Plečnik’s house/museum. Died 1957 at the age of 84. It is strange to say that an architect has heavily influenced my thinking, but there it is, he has and does. He was an artist-poet-architect as Heidegger was a philosopher-poet. I am grateful to both men. A woman-friend asked Plečnik to marry her written in a letter. He replied, “I am already married to my architecture.”

Stara Fuzina, Slovenia (May 21)

Photos
Stara Fuzina, Slovenia (May 21)
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

Stara Fuzina, Slovenia (May 21)

 
5D M3
 
“As a Scot and a Presbyterian, my father believed that man by nature was a mess and had fallen from an original state of grace. Somehow, I early developed the notion that he had done this by falling from a tree. As for my father, I never knew whether he believed God was a mathematician but he certainly believed God could count and that only by picking up God’s rhythms were we able to regain power and beauty. Unlike many Presbyterians, he often used the word ‘beautiful.'”
 
Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

Stiftskirche, Stuttgart, DE (May 21)

Photos
Stiftskirche Church, Stuttgart, DE (May 21)
Don Michael Hudson, PhD
Stiftskirche, Stuttgart, DE (May 21)
5D M3
“Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth.”
Umberto Eco

Messkirch Cemetery, “Heidegger’s” Cemetery, Messkirch, DE (May 21) Q2 Mono

Photos
Messkirch Cemetery, “Heidegger’s” Cemetery, Messkirch, DE (May 21)
Q2 Mono
Don Michael Hudson, Phd
Messkirch Cemetery, “Heidegger’s” Cemetery, Messkirch, DE (May 21)
Q2 Mono
Don Michael Hudson, PhD
Messkirch Cemetery, “Heidegger’s” Cemetery, Messkirch, DE (May 21)
Q2 Mono
Don Michael Hudson, Phd
Messkirch Cemetery, “Heidegger’s” Cemetery, Messkirch, DE (May 21)
Q2 Mono
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

Messkirch Cemetery, “Heidegger’s” Cemetery, Messkirch, DE (May 21)

Photos
Messkirch Cemetery, “Heidegger’s” Cemetery, Messkirch, DE (May 21)
Q2 Mono
Don MIchael Hudson PhD
Messkirch Cemetery, “Heidegger’s Cemetery,” Messkirch, DE (May 21) Q2 Mono
Messkirch Cemetery, “Heidegger’s Cemetery,” Messkirch, DE (May 21) Q2 Mono

St. John’s Church, Feuchtwangen, DE (May 21)

Photos
St. John’s Church, Feuchtwangen, DE (May 21)
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

 

St. John’s, Feuchtwangen, DE (May 21)
 
5D M3
 
“Coherence, I don’t want it anymore. Coherence is mutilation. I want disorder. I can only guess at it through a vehement incoherence. To mediate, I took myself out of me first and I feel the void. It is in the void that one passes the time. She who adored a nice day at the beach, with sun, sand and sun. Man is abandoned, has lost contact with the earth, with the sky. He no longer lives, he exists.”
Clarice Lispector, “The Departure of the Train”

Church of the Coronation of Mary, Stuppach, DE (May 21)

Reflections
Church of the Coronation of Mary, Stuppach, DE (May 21)
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

 

Church of the Coronation of Mary, Stuppach, DE (May 21)
Q2 Mono
“The Descent,” William Carlos Williams
The descent
made up of despair
and without accomplishment
realizes a new awakening:
which is a reversal
of despair.
For what we cannot accomplish, what
is denied to love,
what we have lost in the anticipation-
a descent follows,
endless and indestructible.

St. John’s Church, Feuchtwangen, DE (May 21)

Photos
St. John’s Church, Feuchtwangen, DE

 

St. John’s Church, Feuchtwangen, DE (May 21)
 
5D M3
 
“The strange paths. She sealed her fate with a single sin to which she surrendered entirely, and behold her on the threshold of being saved. Every humble path is a path: crude sin is a path, ignorance of the commandments is a path, lust is a path. The only thing not a path was my premature joy at taking, as a guide and so easily, the sacred path. The only thing not a path was my presumption of being saved halfway through. Lord, grant me the grace to sin.”
Clarice Lispector, “The Burned Sinner and the Harmonious Angels”

WW1 Memorial and Wall in Wurzburg, Germany

Reflections
Würzburg, DE (Apr 21)
5D M3
This last weekend, I finally began the route in Germany called the “Romantic Road” which runs from Würzburg to Neuschwanstein for 354 kilometers. Pre-COVID travelers would take 3-4 days and stay in beautiful little Guesthouses (small hotels with food and drink). I decided to take the route in sections until I complete it because right now we are not allowed to stay overnight in any lodging.
Friday I began in Würzburg, which I have been to a few times. But I had never been to the famous Residenz there. As usual, I stumbled upon something else–a multi-layered German memorial to those who fell in WW1 and WW2. The whole experience was strange to me. Trust me, I am glad we gave the Germans then good ass-whuppuns in WW1 and especially WW2. Hitler and his goons needed to be exterminated with extreme prejudice–no argument there.
However, if you have been to Germany, there are almost no “memorials” to those wars or the “boys” who fought in those wars. The Germans have rightly erased symbols and signifiers to Nazism, fascism–Hitler.
Here, though, was a memorial still standing. I think, “think,” that it is left standing because this is a memorial to the “sons” of Würzburg and includes WW1. You can see the “signs” below. The memorial–the main sculpture–moved me emotionally. I don’t know why–maybe you can tell me. I felt embarrassed that a war “memorial,” a war memorial of our mortal enemies, moved me–but it did. This part of the large sculpture is a memorial to those Germans who fell in WW1. Their names are inscribed on the wall behind. The sculpture also strangely reminded me of the innumerable renderings of Station 13–taking Christ’s body down from the cross.
Why do we do this? As humans? Why do we inscribe murder, death, erasure, hatred, senseless killing, out into the open(ing)? Why do we make killing other human beings grand and baroque? Six soldiers, old and young, carry their fallen comrade with sorrow, symmetry, and gallantry. The fallen comrade still sidles his rifle as if all this were nobility, bravery, loyalty.
You will see that, of course, this memorial reminded me of the Vietnam war wall in Wash DC. Names, names, and more names. Boys, boys, and more boys. Women too, but we have left them out until the Vietnam memorial. I lived the Vietnam war through a lens, every night, listening to the dead count. How many Americans died today? How many VC? I remember as a young boy, feeling proud and hopeful when more VC died than American men and women. But I also remember viewing that image of Americans leaving Saigon and the Vietnamese making a human chain holding onto that helicopter out of desperation.
Some of my dear friends didn’t live that war through a lens; they lived and died the war. I know–I have no right to say anything about this part of it so I won’t except this: thank you for your service. I still disagree mightily with the Vietnam war. History will probably tell us that this was the beginning of the end of America. And then George W and Cheney sealed our fated direction. Where is the wall of names for the more than 600,000 Iraqi’s we murdered since 2003? How long would that wall be?
But the names. The boys. The women. All the “sons” of Würzburg around the world and throughout history. The names of real humans. Their faces. They were not, are not anonymous. I still don’t know what to do with this memorial. Were they, are we, victims or perpetrators? Or both?
And for what? For God’s sake, for what?
I know, this was my beginning of the “Romantic Road.” Welcome to Hudson’s world.

Via Crucis: Stuppach, Germany

Reflections
Via Crucis in Stuppacher, Germany
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

 

Stuppach, DE (May 21)
5D M3
“St. Joseph cut the umbilical cord. And the mother was smiling. The aunt was weeping.
No one knows whether that child had to walk the Via Crucis. Everyone does.”
“Via Crucis,” Clarice Lispector

Via Crucis in Stuppacher, Germany-Stuppacher Madonna

Photos
Stuppacher Madonna
Mathias Grünewald
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

I spent my college and graduate years studying ancient languages, hermeneutics, biblical studies, theology, Syro-Palestinian archaeology, and, of course, the history of “religious” art. Some pieces in particular captured my attention and imagination, and one of them is Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece. It is in Colmar, France, and one of my goals is to see this work before I leave for the summer.

But Matthias Grünewald created other masterpieces, and this one in particular I have wanted to see for 40 years. The “Stuppacher Madonna” resides in the smallest churches in one of the smallest villages in Europe. I couldn’t get close to it though–maybe 10 feet–because it is surrounded by glass. But I finally got to see this masterpiece. The “Isenheim” is majestic and full of beauty and grandeur. The “Stuppacher” is like no other Madonna and child. Though painted in 1519 (2 years after Luther’s public protest), I see this as one of those paintings/pieces waving goodbye to the Middle Ages and heralding the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.
Notice how “human” and unstylized Mary and baby are. And Jesus with golden curly hair laughing, and Mary smiling, and a sun shining where the halo “should” be? How did he paint this in such a time? How did he get away with this? This revolutionary masterpiece rests in a small church of “no” consequence. In my mind, here we have one of the first humanist Madonna and Child. Realism rejects stylized; real life refuses religious pretension; effusive joy overflows and lights the ubiquitous dark world; mother plays tenderly with her child with no hint of what is to come.
And notice the white lilies in the foreground–they force us to view them, and they take our breath away. This is mother and child as intended. This is mother and child playing together in the lush and light garden of Eden. The innocence is hopeful and heart-breaking in the same moment. We know the end of the story–Station 13 weighs heavily in our minds. But Grünewald gives us this moment in time unseen up to his day; Grünewald’s rendition reminds of the light and love and downright joy of mother and child no matter who they be. There are billions of Marys; innumerable Christ-childs.
Mostly, never in my life did I think I would get to see this in real time.
Thank you, thank you.
“The Madonna was painted by the creator of the Isenheim Altarpiece , the master painter Mathis at the court of Cardinal Albrechts zu Aschaffenburg, also known as Mathis Gothart Nithart or Matthias Grünewald .
The Maria Snow Chapel in the Aschaffenburg collegiate church is said to be the original home of the image of Mary. From 1519 it was the center piece of the three-winged altarpiece and came around 1532 as a gift from Cardinal Albrecht to the Teutonic Order of Mergentheim. It has been repeatedly restored and initially attributed to Rubens.
After the abolition of the Teutonic Order (1809), the Maria-Schnee-Tafel found a new home in the parish church of Stuppach in 1812. After a Tübingen scientist finally awarded the “Stuppacher Madonna” to Matthias Grünewald in 1908, the picture was thoroughly restored from 1926-1931. It was then placed in a specially built chapel, which was attached to the late Gothic parish church of the Coronation of Mary (1607).”
Anton Friedrich gave this brief description of the world-famous Stuppach Madonna in his “History of a Village”.

“Be the Note”

Photos
“Be the Note”
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

“God picks up the reed-flute world and blows,
Each note is a need coming through one of us,
a passion, a longing-pain.
Remember the lips
where the wind-breath originated,
and let your note be clear.
Don’t try to end it.
Be your note.
I’ll show you how it’s enough.”

Jelaluddin Balkhi, “Rumi”

Time Flies: Faraway So Close

Photos
Time Flies: Faraway So Close
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

“Let me explain a couple of things. Time is short. That’s the first thing. For the weasel, Time is a weasel. For the hero, Time is heroic. If you’re gentle, your Time is gentle. If you’re in a hurry, Time flies. Time is a servant, if you are its master. Time is your god, if you are its dog. We are the creators of Time, the victims of Time, and the killers of Time. Time is timeless. That’s the second thing. You are the clock, Cassiel.” Emit Flesti, Wim Wenders, Faraway So Close

 
Berlin Dom, (Sept 2020)
Kodak Ekta 100

Abby of Hildegard Bingen, Detail “Burning Bush”

Photos
Abby of Hildegard Bingen, Detail “Burning Bush”
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

“And the messenger of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. Moses looked, and behold, the bush was burning, but it was not consumed.” Ex 3

We forget that the most important part of this passage is the strange reality that the fire did not consume the bush…

Portico Detail for the Museum MMK für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, DE (Mar 2021)

Reflections
Portico Detail for the Museum MMK für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, DE (Mar 2021)
Don Michael Hudson, PhD
 
Mono Q2
 
I really love this entrance, and even though it is a B and W Mono, the portico itself is B and W Mono. How does one capture this? I chose to keep the “industrial” on the left and the “celestial” on the right. But notice that these are “stairs”–upside down stairs? Is there such a thing as upside down stairs? And could we even tread them? We need them badly, longingly, but we can only observe them–their simplicity, elegance, symmetry, their almost invisible, ignored presence. Such a view–my view of this portico for the last few years–has made me think of Jacob and his ladder, Mohammad and his fleet-footed horse and his flight into the darkness, Duchamp and his complex and multi-dimensional nude, and even Zeppelin’s decadent Stairway to Heaven. Yeah.
 
Maybe that’s one of our human problems we need to remedy but can’t. We must use our stairs within the bounds of gravity–except, except, in art, in our imaginations, in our creative eyes, in our minds, in our yearning to go beyond ourselves to right the world. Have you noticed that there are few places in this life with no bounds, places where we can soar without limits? This is Design. Art. Lascivious, ridiculous, laughable creativity. Upside down stairs? “Insanity,” some say.

“Station 13” Frankfurt Dom

Photos, Reflections
“Station 13” Frankfurt Dom
Don Michael Hudson, PhD

 

“Station 13″
Frankfurt Dom, Frankfurt, DE (Mar 2021)
Mono Q2
 
“Oh Mary of silence
You pick my heart with a smile
Oh sweet Mary
Come inside for a while
Help me get a hold on you
Or I will
I thought of myself beside you
Take me into your skin
 
Oh, sweet Mary of silence
Oh, sweet Mary of silence
 
We have a steady confusion
You’re looking at fear
It doesn’t seem like the first time
You walked out in a hurry.”
Mazzy Star