The Christian Art Tradition

“Schopenhauer observed that one should treat a work of art as one does a prince: let it speak first. This is something that Mary Elizabeth Podles does to great effect in A Thousand Words. This finely wrought and attentive book hearkens to the often elusive but always fetching spiritual overtones of the art she discusses. Her writing is as beautiful as the sumptuous images with which the book is filled. A Thousand Words is a book to be cherished as well as read.”

—Roger Kimball, Editor and Publisher, The New Criterion

“In A Thousand Words, Mary Elizabeth Podles gives us a work that is a wonder of unity, the unity of so many virtues any one of which would mark her out as a superior critic of art. We find careful respect for all the skills the artist must practice. We find the illumination of historical knowledge and the charm of personal lives. We find the very powders, oils, precious metals and stones, wood, lacquer, and pigments that were the artist's familiar friends and servants. Most of all we find insight—the light of one who loves the works of art she opens up to our attention, and whose heart beats warmly for the human and the sacred purposes and meanings they embody. I recommend it for everyone, the expert and the newcomer both; her book stands alongside the masterly work of Kenneth Clark and E. H. Gombrich.”

—Anthony Esolen, publisher of the online literary magazine Word & Song, translator of The Divine Comedy, poet, and author of over thirty books, including Nostalgia: Going Home in a Homeless World

“This delightfully written book gives an entree into sacred art that is deeply rooted in history and theology. Art is a visual language, but most of us do not know how to 'read' that language. Podles's richly detailed interpretations offer readers an insightful guide to Western religious art.”

—Nancy Pearcey, professor and scholar in residence at Houston Christian University, author of Total Truth and Saving Leonardo

“Mary Elizabeth Podles sets the stage for these reflections by declaring their purpose: to make visual images speak for themselves. From the Colossus of Constantine to the Matisse Chapel in Venice, they tell of both the Christian vision and man's reach for transcendence. Seeing comes before language, before words. This gathering of luminous essays offers a distinguished, often surprising, guide to the act of seeing. It serves as an eloquent lesson in informed discernment—an accomplishment needed in a culture saturated with indiscriminate spectacle. The commentary addresses a post-Christian culture's waning memory of the link between art and religion. Or more precisely, between art, the human mind's experience of the sacred, and civilization itself.

The text eludes classification. Though infused with an historical consciousness, this is not academic art history. Neither is this devotional reading, however much steeped in art's power to depict theological ideas. Rather, it is a lively, penetrating excursion through Christian culture from its roots in antiquity to the modern era. A Thousand Words keeps faith with Christian ideas that have lost their hold on popular imagination or faded from contemporary culture. Its handsomely illustrated, eloquent text is the envy of any serious writer on the visual arts.””

—Maureen Mullarkey, painter and art critic, senior contributor to The Federalist, and keeper of the weblog Studio Matters (studiomatters.com).