J. Gordon Anderson - Contemporary Art

Here is a painting I recently completed entitled "Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints." The saints are (left to right) Anthony of Padua, Louis of Toulouse, Francis of Assisi, John the Evangelist, Lawrence, and Peter Martyr. It is a conflation and contemporary interpretation of two Fra Angelico paintings. The medium is oil and the support is canvas. It measures 48" x 60" and is for sale for $2,500. Years ago I never would have done something like this because I'd have thought it unoriginal. But now that I am a little older and little wiser I can safely say that I no longer have any interest in being "original." I agree with C.S. Lewis that the more "original" one tries to be the less original he ends up being! My next large scale oil painting will be "The Coronation of the Virgin", which is a theme that has always fascinated me and that I've often wanted to try to execute.

While reading Peter Anson's biography, " A Roving Recluse ", I came across the name Eric Gill . Gill was an English artist-lay Roman Catholic theologian/thinker who was very prominent in the arts and crafts movement. He was a brilliant artist who attracted many apprentices to work under him. He completed numerous high profile commissions, including a series of Stations of the Cross found in Westminster Cathedral. In addition he developed many new fonts and typefaces that are still in use today. On the literary front he wrote learned essays on economics and religion. Anson was friends with Gill. They had much in common: both were converts to Roman Catholicism, both had a lot of interest in religious life, and both were artists. Anson spent a lot of time with him and his family, which lived like a quasi-religious community, with daily mass (they had a chaplain), and recitation of the Divine Office (in its Dominican form). Since he spoke so very highly of him in Roving Recl...