Yesterday Mark Boyle, who formerly sang tenor in the Lutheran Church of Honolulu, tagged me in this photo of an altarpiece by Matthias Grunenwald:
In Mark’s post, he wrote:
The basic idea is to take over Facebook with art, in order to disrupt, for a moment, negative news. Anyone who likes this post will be assigned an artist and will put one of their works on their wall with this small text.
He further explained that he had been tagged by someone before him:
“I’m guessing he did this on purpose because of my obsession with the Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Grünewald’s most famous painting is here—the Isenheim Altarpiece. A detail of this painting graces the poster Katherine Crosier designed for the 2000 performance of BWV 244. It’s also the cover of Leonhardt’s momentous 1989 recording of the St. Matthew Passion —which was one of Carl Crosier’s favorite recordings and the first one I bought at his recommendation. Also on this recording is my friend, Joe Pettit.” [Ed. Note: Joe Pettit sang the part of the Evangelist in LCH’s performances of the St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passion]
So when I “Liked” Mark’s post, he assigned me William-Adolphe Bougereau, and I found this painting called “The Lemon” (1899).
I have to confess that my world experience up to this point did not inform me about William Adolphe Bougereau, but found out through Wikipedia that he was a French painter who “used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female human body.” I picked this painting “The Lemon,” because I thought of the quote” … when life hands you lemons, make lemonade!” (referring to the coronavirus crisis as being handed lemons).
Except I made this!
Here’s a bit of humor for church musicians who are involved in streaming their services.
A few days ago I wrote about my former student, Joey Fala, being named one of the coronavirus’ unlikely heroes in the present coronavirus crisis. Here’s a tour he gave of the Duke University carillon (via Zoom) to the children of his church, the Chapel of the Cross, where he is the Organ Scholar.