https://www.danielmitsui.com/current.html
DEAR FRIENDS, PATRONS & BENEFACTORS:
Although it is not my usual habit to make rough drafts of my drawings, I have over the years accumulated many small preparatory sketches, particularly of ornamental motifs and patterns. My new special sale is on signed copies of my debut poetry collection, The Wretch on the Gallows Tree. From now until the end of September, I will include one of the aforementioned sketches as a bookmark in every copy of the book that is ordered through my website.
(My eye is fine now; I had a small surgery the morning of the day that I took these pictures.)
I was saddened to learn of the recent death of Wolfgang Smith, the mathematician and traditionalist thinker. I did not know him well, but we exchanged a few letters over the years and spoke over the telephone. He wrote mostly on the subjects of quantum mechanics, metaphysics, and the philosophy of science — which I do not understand well at all — but some of his essays helped me to understand certain patristic and medieval concepts in ways that influenced my artwork for the better.
One idea that he advanced particularly well is that eternity and infinity are properly understood as divine attributes, the ideal forms of presence, rather than as endless durations or distances. I was fortunate to have read his essay Lost Horizons at about the same time as Erwin Panofsky’s Perspective as Symbolic Form; together, these helped me to articulate my reasons for rejecting the system of linear perspective that has been taught to artists since the Renaissance. I explain this at length in my lecture Heavenly Outlook.
Another important idea that I first encountered in Smith’s writings is that time, space, and materiality were profoundly affected by the Fall of Man; they were experienced differently in a prelapsarian world, as they will be experienced in glory. This agrees with what I later read in the writings of St. Hildegard of Bingen and Hugh of St. Victor, two thinkers whose æsthetic theology is expressed in my artwork.
In my encounters with Wolfgang Smith, I found him to be kind and encouraging. I pray that he rest in peace.
***
Benefits for my supporters on Patreon and the patrons of the Summula Pictoria can be accessed here.
Yours faithfully,
Daniel Mitsui
August 2024
NEW DRAWING: DECOLLATION of ST. JOHN the BAPTIST
This drawing of the Decollation (Beheading) of John the Baptist illustrates the incident described in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. I chose to include Herodias and Salome in the picture.
The executioner wields a sword with the words head, tail, palm, reed inscribed on its blade. This is a reference to Isaiah 9: Therefore the Lord will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day. An old literary tradition that asserts that Mog Ruith, the evil sorcerer of Irish myth, was John the Baptist’s executioner. This isn’t something I think to be actually true, but I couldn’t help giving the headsman a rather Druidic appearance in reference to this.
The inscription on Salome’s silver platter is: The Lord hath hewn asunder the necks of sinners, from Psalm 129. Both inscriptions are intended ironically, as the sword here is being wielded on behalf of unrighteousness and injustice.
The Baptist’s clothing is of course the raiment of camel’s hair and leathern girdle mentioned in the Gospels. I have chosen to connect it to another tradition, an ancient Jewish legend that traces the garments of skin made by God for Adam through subsequent centuries, passing into the possession of Seth, Noah, Ham, Cush, Nimrod, Esau, and Jacob — and eventually the prophet Elijah. While I don’t consider this tradition deserving of literal belief, I like its symbolism and the way that it connects these figures. Since John the Baptist is a successor and New Testament counterpart to Elijah, I have chosen to make his garment identical.
John’s halo is both gold and silver, solar and lunar, to indicate his unique position between the Old and New Testaments.
This drawing was made on private commission, as part of my Summula Pictoria project. Prints of it are available here.
INTERVIEW with LET GO the GOAT PODCAST
I was recently interviewed about my poetry by Mike Rippy of the Let Go the Goat podcast. We discussed religious and humorous verse, my influences as a poet, and my new collection. Here are a couple of excerpts:
Both of my parents were very big Tolkien fans. The riddles and the songs that are embedded within The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings: those were probably the first poems that I really loved. And the second poet that I encountered and really loved was probably Lewis Carroll. I am thinking of the various poems that occur throughout Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.
Looking back on it, at those two poets, there are a few things that really strike me about their verse; if you take those characteristics — rhythmically musical, very confidently rhyming, interested in wordplay and archaic language in particular, and drawing on popular sources — that’s a short description of what poetry I really like to this day, both in terms of what I like to read and what I like to write.
…
You talk about looking at Whitman and Frost, and I want to say that I am not as well read in the canonical poets as many of the people you’ve interviewed here. When it comes to poetry, there’s a certain amount of … I guess the term they use is gatekeeping, right? You’ll encounter people who will say, don’t even think about writing poetry until you’ve read _____. And that’s the name of somebody very famous. Or somebody will say, you can’t write your own poetry until you’ve read a lot of what’s being written nowadays, because otherwise how do you know it’s not being written by somebody else?
Now I do think that somebody who wants to write poetry should read an awful lot of it. But being a poet has different requirements from being a teacher or from being a critic … If you’re a teacher, then yes, you are professionally obligated to know the canonical poets well enough to teach them. And if you’re a critic, then yes, you are professionally required to keep up with what’s being done in the present day, its various trends.
But just to write poetry, I think … what I do is read what particularly interests and inspires me. I don’t really feel the need to come across as intelligent by being able to discuss every name that is widely recognized. I will readily admit that I can’t do that.
You can listen to the podcast here, or read a transcript here.
NEW ORIGINAL DRAWINGS: REGINA CÆLI and REX GLORIÆ
Click on the images here to read full descriptions of these drawings, or to purchase the original artwork. More of the original drawings that I have available for sale can be seen here.
NEW PRINTS: ST. BARBARA, ST. ALOYSIUS GONZAGA, ST. SYLVESTER, SS. THOMAS AQUINAS and THOMAS MORE, ANNUNCIATION to the SHEPHERDS, and FIVE HOLY WOUNDS
Click on the images above to read full descriptions of these, or to purchase prints.
ARTWORK for UPCOMING SAINTS’ DAYS
St. Æthelwold (8/1); St. Cajetan (8/7); St. Edith Stein (8/9); Nicholas Black Elk (8/19); St. Fiacre (8/30); Decollation of St. John the Baptist (8/29); Nativity of the Virgin Mary (9/8); Martyrs of Georgia (9/14-17); Our Lady of Sorrows (9/15); St. Cyprian of Carthage (9/16); St. Hildegard of Bingen (9/17); St. Theodore of Canterbury (9/19); St. Matthew the Apostle (9/21); Our Lady of Walsingham (9/24); Our Lady Undoer of Knots (9/28)
You can find more color prints here, and more black & white poster prints here.
