RESURRECTION

A LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST

TWELVE PAINTINGS BY CARL LAZZARI A HANDBOOK

RESURRECTION: A LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST

TWELVE PAINTINGS BY CARL LAZZARI

THE HANDBOOK

German National Library Bibliographical Information This publication is registered as German National Biography in the German National Library; detailed bibliographical information is available on the internet under http://dnb.ddb.de ISBN-10: 3-8306-9507-1 ISBN-13: 978-3-8306-9507-3 4

FOREWORD by Archabbot Jeremias Schroeder OSB

Carl Lazzari paints the Gospel of St. Ottilien When I recently got a chance to read Carls account of his first contacts with St. Ottilien, going back to 1994, old memories stirred: memories of those enthusiastic volunteers from Oxford who set out across Europe in two battered old Ford buses in order to spread light and joy to the Balkans, of that elderly gentleman in their midst Carl who seemed to share that youthful zeal but combined it with a mature wisdom which made his dedicated envolvement all the more impressive, and of the first conversations about his projects and ideas, in which my own role was much less significant than is now being made out. Carl Lazzari set out to paint a life of Jesus at St. Ottilien. He conceived a cycle of 12 pictures, and he conceived them afresh, without going back to old masters. Carl wrestled with the life of Jesus and was unable to leave off. Nine of the twelve scenes are set in St. Ottilien. This is perhaps the greatest challenge for us who live in St. Ottilien. As monks we deal daily with Jesus: we pray with his words, encounter him in many ways, both symbolic and sacramental. Our monasterys walls are decorated with Jesus images spanning several centuries. Carls Life of Christ, however, confronts us with a Jesus who is thoroughly modern. He is meeting our contemporary community. Carl teaches us the reality of that saying in the gospels: Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in their midst. In his rule St Benedict urges his monks to sharpen their vision. They are encouraged to look beyond the superficial and to discover Christ where he is easily overlooked,

among the guests, the old, the infirm. Carl helps us to do this. He has discovered Christ here in St. Ottilien, and in places which surprise and even embarrass us On the island in our pond the Lord appears even more lonely than he once did in Gethsemane. Throughout all of this we feel that our place, too, is Holy Land, a place where Jesus can be encountered. We wish St. Ottilien to be nothing else, and thats why I am deeply grateful for this Gospel of St. Ottilien which we have been given.

INTRODUCTION by Carl Lazzari

Before giving detailed information about each individual picture in sequence, it is necessary, as a non-Deutschespeaking painter from England, to recount and explain my curiously eccentric personal involvement with this great Benedictine monastery of Saint Ottilien in Bavaria. In May 1994 I was invited to conduct a short residency at Oxford Universitys Magdalen College. I gave two lectures - one in the Ashmolean Museum, the other in the Colleges Oscar Wilde Room, and, in addition, tutored several drawing sessions in Magdalens splendidly floral gardens. Unanticipated, I also painted an oil portrait of a distinguished American Rhodes Scholar, Sabina Alkire, whom Id not met before. During our portrait sessions I discovered that she was organizing an imminent humanitarian expedition by road across Europe into a Jugoslavia being ravaged by the murderous Bosnian War. The prime aim of this expedition was to visit dispossessed refugees in their makeshift and often grim camps... and especially to work with the ever-increasing numbers of orphaned children. By strange coincidence, I was currently artist-in-residence at Saint Albans Roman Catholic Primary 5

School in Newcastle upon Tyne, in northeastern England. As Visiting Fellow to the Music Department of that citys elder university, I was also assisting a second year Japanese student, Orii Ishizuka, in music therapy to severely handicapped youngsters in Bleach Green Special School. Having an awareness of being inexorably gripped by Fate, and somewhat fearfully, I offered my services to Alkires venture as an artist possessing extensive experience of working with children. Due to my involvement, as both Director and one of its performers, in a public concert at The Gulbenkian Theatre, I was unable to start the trans-Europe journey from Oxford. Instead, the morning after the concert I flew directly from Newcastle to Zagreb, where, at an airport crowded with enormous UN transport and military planes, I was safely collected by the Reverend Jonathan Sedgewick, chaplain to Magdalen College, who drove us into Croatias noble capital to be united with our comrades-in-aid. And so began the summer which changed my life... On our physically-weary, emotionally-exhausted, return trip to Oxford, Sabina Alkire, who had twice previously been into war-torn Bosnia, had thoughtfully arranged a brief holiday for us: we stayed for two recuperative nights in the monastery of Saint Ottilien. (Needing to report our experiences, as I recall, to the UN in Geneva, Sabina had been obliged to leave our group at Trieste.) But now recovering at Saint Ottilien, my younger colleagues wished to spend their free day in Munich, which none had previously visited. When they asked me to join them, and feeling a little guilty - because as a team we had indeed shared so much in sorrows adversity - I demurred, observing that I already knew Munich, a fine city, but had never before actually been in a monastery. At breakfast Pater Jeremias Schroeder came to ascertain and if necessary enable our needs for the day. My comrades indicated Munich as their 6

destination via S-Bahn from Geltendorf. When I communicated my interest in the monastery, Jeremias promptly closed his office and most generously gave me a threehour walking guided tour of the entire monastic complex. It was the beginning of an uncommon friendship now lasting twelve years. During that summer afternoon I made some ink drawings and a couple of watercolours of Saint Ottiliens environs. Next morning after breakfast and as we were preparing to recommence our long trek to England, at his polite request I showed my modest artworks to Jeremias who immediately asked if he could make copies for monastic publications. I was honoured and delighted to comply. Thereafter, in 1997 I was invited to be Saint Ottiliens artist-in-residence for the autumn of that year. This period saw the production of two oil paintings - one a portrait of the then-Archabbot Notker Wolf OSB, the other of an evening interior in the archabbey church. I completed a small suite of watercolours, a substantial collection of coloured drawings on A3 black paper, and many, many characteristic A4 ink drawings. In 1998 Jeremias Schroeder was Socius, or assistant Novice Master, with a group of about twelve monks ready to embark on a circa-100 kilometre Italian pilgrimage in the steps of Saint Benedict from Subiaco to Montecassino. He wrote me in England enquiring whether I was interested in, and able in time to join the pilgrimage as its visually recording artist. I was, and I did. We were away for about ten days. It was a sublime experience for me... and not without humour. As our minibus began the final ascent of Montecassino on which Benedicts imposing abbey is eagle-perched, without warning, an enormous thunderstorm suddently exploded atop the mountain. It was a cataclysm of Wagnerian proportions... verily a Gotterdammerung! Jeremias, driving, called over his shoulder,

Its you Carl - Gods just realized that youre not a Benedictine! Much laughter in our packed vehicle! When we eventually returned home to Saint Ottilien - and yes, indeed, it felt like that for me too - Jeremias and I shared a quiet coffee the evening before I was due to fly to England. Our conversation went something like this: he, Will you come back to us?; me, Just give me an excuse.; he, What about painting some big pictures for us?; me, What sort of pictures?; he, A Life of Christ.; me, Id love to, but you know that I...; he, interrupting, Yes, youre going to say youre an atheist, which I think matters not at all. Your strict Roman Catholic education by nuns and Jesuits might appear to have a purpose after all. Perhaps God really does have a plan for you.; me, OK, let me think about it. How many pictures?; he, You decide.; me, Twelve for the months of the year here at Saint Ottilien... its such a wonderful, seasonal place. But how big?; he, You decide.; me, Each canvas six feet square (180cm x 180cm) similar to a group Ive been working on in England... OK... yes, Jesus Christ at the Benedictine monastery of Saint Ottilien. Ill send you a detailed proposal from England. Thank you, Jeremias.; he, Good. And thank you too, Carl. (These words are not exactly verbatim, but, as Im sure Jeremias would agree, they are true in their contextual spirit.) And that was eight years ago. For eight years these pictures laboriously gestated, patiently shaping themselves in my mind. Ghosts have become paint. There have been unforeseen problems. Not everything has gone according to plan. Mais, cest la vie! I arrived here in December 2002 to commence this odyssey, the beginning of which required the making of twelve stretcher frames - crafted impeccably by carpenter Roland on a special jig in the monastic woodworkshop. Meanwhile, I purchased good quality Belgian raw linen canvas which I measured and cut by myself on the floor of my bare studio before stretching it on Rolands frames. Each canvas received four or five

separate undercoats of acrylic-gesso priming. In total, these preparations lasted several weeks. Then, of a sudden, the twin rooms of my humble studio were filled by a dozen, enormous, flawless, white canvases beseeching their first daubs of colour. The first brushmark was applied in March 2003. Now, this day in May 2006, they are all finished. Its worth commenting that my residence at St. Ottilien has not been continuous. Usually at three-month intervals Ive needed to return for progressively diminishing periods to what remains of my existing career in England - those initial absences of two to three months whittling down more recently to two weeks. Included in the finished paintings are 135 portraits of living individuals from at least eighteen different countries: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, the Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, South Korea, the Phillipines, Serbia, Spain, Tanzania, the United States of America, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe - monks and nuns and ministers, lay adults, Gymnasium students, and children. There is a carefully chosen white chicken, a favoured exotic parrot, a purring cat called Moritz, and Brother Franzs amiable Astra, the only dog in the monastery - all actually painted in my studio. And without exception, amazingly well-behaved they were! (I have used above the phrase, ... of living individuals.... Let me explain that in The Raising of Lazarus, from their black and white photographs precisely as displayed in the monasterys fascinating Museum, I have portrayed twenty-five, now long-deceased, Benedictines from Saint Ottilien and sister convent Tutzing who were trapped by the Korean War. Imprisoned in North Korean concentration camps, they were treated abominably. Indeed, several were beheaded in savage martyrdoms. In total, therefore, my RESURRECTIONs twelve pictures include 160 individual portraits - some in remembrance of the living and the 7

dead in Korea and Bosnia.) To conclude this Introduction, a few of the strategic decisions I made in England. The principal portraits in the immediate foreground of every picture may seem rather strange. One of my lifetimes favourite paintings, of which Ive extensively lectured, is the Louvres Pieta DAvignon by an anonymous master. As was often a Fifteenth-Century European fashion, in the lower left foreground is a highly detailed individual portrait of a man in profile - odd, considering the iconic almost Byzantine rendering of the sorrowing Mary with the body of her son sprawled across her lap, and two saints attending her lamantation. The portrait, of course, is the donor of the picture, the wealthy man who paid for the painting. Hes doing a sort of blackmailing job, pleading possibly via prayer, Merciful God, Ive spent my good money on this picture for You, please keep me a place in Heaven. And the reason hes painted in such microscopic detail is to ensure absolutely no confusion with the identity of any other rich man! After all, a personally accredited place in Heaven is at stake! Fifty years ago as an undergraduate art student on my first visit to Paris, I relished the incongruity of the images - in truth, the man is not an actual part of the Pieta which is simply, so to speak, his devotional passport. By definition, the painting is his. In England preparing this Saint Ottilien project, I decided that each of my canvases would contain such a possessing principal portrait, but in a modern currency and evenly balanced between male and female. In a sense, I have made each picture for that person portrayed as its principal. Further concerning these principal portraits, with one exception they look either in threequarter profile to the left forwards into the story as it were - or are full-face and confrontational as with Catherine Stewart and Sabina Alkire. 8

These are decisions a painter makes in the interests both of subject matter and the expressive portrayal of an individual personality. The exception mentioned above is that of Jeremias Schroeder who, in the final picture, is presented looking right as if perusing the entire story back to its beginning- a story commencing with an important senior Benedictine woman and concluding with an important senior Benedictine man. Generally, the principal portraits each required a week of sittings interspersed with periods for my critical reflection - painting is as much in the evaluative mind as in the dextrous hand. The principal portraits are approximately life-size. All portraits, large and small, were commenced with brush and paint directly onto the canvas, and without preliminary drawings of any kind. My public will make its own judgement. But I am less interested in making a measured impersonal inventory of someones face than I am in extolling their actual living presence. Portraiture is a sharing experience. Less than a couple of metres apart, painter and sitter spend time in each others company. That is my valued reality. Photographs were taken at intervals only to be studied back in England; always at the finish as documentation; and also to insure against accidental damage to the picture - one could hardly expect Ephraim Satuku to return all the way from Zimbabwe simply to have his forehead repaired! Aside from those who were acting a theatrical role - Sabine Riedelsberger as Mary; Pater Rochus as Christ; Brother Bernward as John the Baptist; Pater Rudolf as Lazarus - and allowing for my painters decision concerning the direction of the head, (full-face, threequarter left or threequarter right), the sitters for all portraits, principals and others, posed as they pleased, in their varying positions of comfort. How a person sits affects the poise and angle of their head and expressively betokens their character. This is my profession. I determined to include direct and indirect references

to the Bosnian War because it so severely redirected my personal and professional life, had caused my first visit to Saint Ottilien as narrated above, and thereafter furthered our progressive, purposeful relationship. In the context of that war, people here portrayed represent physical, mental, and spiritual healing. But also associated, are the creative arts of music, literature - both prose and poetry, theatre performance, film and photography, and, not least, drawing and painting. Oxfords Magdalen College, where this story began, is personified by Sabina Alkire, Anand Madhvani, Catherine Stewart, Christiania Whitehead, and, in a lesser periphyral context, myself. Bosnia is actively defined by Sabina Alkire, Ivo and Margharita Bakula, the Humphries family - of St Albans R.C. Primary School, Orii Ishizuka, Munelera Krdzic - forgive my reversal of her accustomed Muslim personal and family names, Anand Madhvani, Catherine Stewart, and myself. In relation to the Bosnian War, the monastery of Saint Ottilien clearly features its humanitarian self by the persons of Ivo and Margharita Bakula. The settings. Excepting The Annunciations darkness, and The Resurrections NASA-originated cosmic space, all other pictures are set in actual local places. One, The Baptism, looks across Starnburger See from the Benedictine sisterconvent at Tutzing. The remaining nine are in Saint Ottiliens various interiors and exteriors. My proposition is: Jesus Christ - not haloed in flowing garments, but in dark blue cotton jeans and blood-red top - if so dressed he came here today... how would we be? On this Bavarian afternoon how might you and I react? I was unconcerned to repeatedly paint Christ himself. Deliberately planned, only in The Baptism is his face clearly if enigmatically presented as both messianic Son of God and somewhat anxious mortal man. Further, apart from two close-up back views, Christ hardly exists except as a small distant figure. We have mostly to discover his presence in the faces, ex-

pressions, and gestures of others around him... how do we feel and react to his visitation? The interior and exterior environments, their characters, colours and lighting also express something about that particular event. Our everyday surroundings, our immediate landscapes, are embraced by Christs aeonic life. And finally: the monastery of Saint Ottilien is a dedicated Christian community with a caringly benign missionary role in our dual worlds of body and spirit. My pictures are statements about Jesus Christs daily presence here and now. Overall, they are also an accumulated familytype factual record of many people who are this invaluable Benedictine community, which, with Bosnia, has changed forever my own ageing span. One decision, initiated with Esther Joas when I was painting her, was to invite all the principal portraits and several others to write their own words for this book. Words perhaps about being painted into that particular event in Christs life. The seed of this idea was dormant in my mind before Esthers portrait sessions. But, during our lively discussions, her intelligent, articulate enthusiasm confirmed it. I guaranteed no selfishly-prejudiced editing by myself whatever the opinions expressed. Also, it was never my intention that I should become a subject - but for some, I am, and am duly chastened by what is said. I have no doubt that these wonderfully direct, profound, essentially truthful writings are the diversely glittering jewels of this book. I thank you all, especially Esther who helped trigger the idea, whose poetic, even psychological, offering of insight was the very first. Written in English too. I hope these paintings ask beguiling questions of you. I possess not the Benedictine belief, Benedictine wisdom, and Benedictine scholarship, nor indeed an ordinary human temerity to propose answers... I paint pictures. Its what I do. 9

The winters long path from Geltendorf...

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... to the Benedictine Monastery of Saint Ottilien

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Brother Damians cobblers shop: my studio - in winter...

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... and at midsummer

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My studios exterior door - with chalked announcement that it has been visited and blessed by Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazzar - the Magi, the Three Kings. (But no - it was actually a becoped and beaming Pater Gallus with his two white-surpliced and candle-bearing acolytes!) 14

Once upon a time there was a bare twin-roomed painting studio with twelve large unmarked canvases!

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In December 1993 I held a major exhibition of paintings, drawings, and computer prints, in the Hatton Gallery of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. The centrepiece of this exhibition was a group of thirteen square oil paintings on canvas metrically similar in size to these of this Resurrection series. At the heart of these big pictures were six depicting the burning seacoast and river castles of ancient Northumbria - Dunstanburgh, Tynemouth, Warkworth, Bamburgh, Newcastle, and Lindisfarne. Lindisfarne... ah, Lindisfarne... in the context of these Saint Ottilien paintings how prophetic it now seems! Desecrated and looted by Viking invaders, the Holy Island of Lindisfarne was the site of an enduring Benedictine monastery once described as the only Christian candle burning in an otherwise darkened Europe. Daily, within their strict Benedictine discipline of ritual and prayer, that monasterys monks produced the decoratively illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels - generally acknowledged as one of the consummate artistic and Christian testaments. Atheist now I may be, but, I cannot suppress a sense of regional pride, maybe of unmerited self-esteem, which, of a warm Bavarian summer day, connects me from my native Northumbria directly with this Benedictine monastery of Saint Ottilien. But, as too often Im prone, I digress. For the catalogue of the Hatton exhibition, my long-time friend, post-graduate Slade School painter, Courtauld Institute Art Historian with many major publications to his name, the distinguished international scholar, curator, and lecturer, Professor Kenneth McConkey penned the following foreword. I quote his words complete because they are a professionally objective and succintly clear evaluation of the painter I was and more or less still am the artist who has produced these RESURRECTION pictures. Kenneths reference to Stephanie Celino also has an apt currency. Stephanie, then aged eight, was a pupil at Saint Albans Roman Catholic Primary School in Walker, New16

castle upon Tyne - school of the Baptisms Humphries. Positioned bottom right corner of this large square canvas Stephanie was its only portrait because the entire painting The Young Poet Stephanie Celino was an accumulative portrait solely of her. Compositionally speaking, therefore, Stephanie was the forerunner of these principal portraits. Further, and with a measure of pride, I add that Stephanie, now a university graduate in Arts Administration, remains a friend-in-contact at her familys home on a lovely green hill high above the River Tyne, where I painted a small oil portrait of her only two summers ago.

FOREWORD by Kenneth McConkey

A favourite, much-quoted phrase, used by Duchamp to disparage painting, was bte comme un paintre. In this phrase he hoped to convey all of those sensory, emotional and accidental attributes which removed painting from the realm of pure thought. Painting should be at the service of the mind. Since Duchamps time there have been endless exemplifications of this attitude which led critics like Peter Fuller to comment upon the arid conceptual cleverness of much contemporary art making. For a time, following his extraordinarily productive residency at the then Newcastle Polytechnic, Fuller waged a campaign for the return to painterly values. Of course it was much more complicated than this in the eighties, but the idea that painting might reclaim the territory it had lost in the period of heroic modernism was an important one. There remained artists for whom lived experience and the volatile mixture of memory and desire were the essential sources for image making. Carl Lazzari is one of these. His series of large canvases based upon the castles of the Northumbrian coast, could, in their scale at least - they are all six feet square - be derived from

the earlier years of minimalist abstraction. More accurately, however, these Salon machines, contain a personalized mythology. In each case an ancient monument is surrounded with strands of autobiography and romance, and by indeterminate paint-marks drawn from a reservoir of instinct and emotion. To some extent Lazzari discovers what he is painting in the process of painting. It seems extraordinary therefore that such an implicitely romantic painter should submit to the discipline and legibility contained in the conventions of portraiture. Suddenly friends and colleagues pose in front of his pictures, or are, in the case of Stephanie Celino tied into the conceptualization. Life upstages the vainglorious parade. Ambition is transformed in the day-to-day experience in the School of Music, Newcastle University, the primary school at Walker, and the gardens of friends. There is no single resolution of these strands, just the challenging thought that painting can, and should be about them all.

Apropos these references to her, two lovely verses, unsolicited by me, written by that youthfully talented Stephanie, both of which, with others by her, were displayed beside the Celino portrait in the Hatton Gallerys Exhibition of 1993:

Stephanie Celino - aged eight

Carl Lazzaris good at art. Somes by thoughts and somes by heart; Some of his art is put on high And some of his art can catch the eye. All of his art is lovely to see Its an absolute delight, Im sure youll agree? Some of his art is sad and makes you cry. Some of it is like an Autumn sky. Some of his art comes to life on the wall... You see the artists feelings if youre big or youre small All of the art was there one night When the sky was black but the stars shone bright. Stephanie, thank you yet again.

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THE ANNUNCIATION month: May

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Principal Portrait: Mother Irene Dabalus OSB

Initially evolving the series in England, this is one subject I wished not to paint. I could perceive no contemporary relevance in the traditional image of that heavenly angel informing a passively subjugated Mary that she was soon to be the mother of the Son of God. Also, there was no obvious method of booking the Angel Gabriel into my studio for portrait sessions! For so many years my close friends Professor Kenneth McConkey and his wife Annette have been consistant patrons, staunch advocates, and constructive critics to my work, to my art. In earnest and repeated discussions regarding my Saint Ottilien pictorial plans, amongst other additional considerations, they reconvinced me of the Annunciations importance. Gratitude. My Amen to both! Light - in its presence, and its absence - is a recurring theme throughout these pictures. In Perceptions of Angels in History, Clarendon Press 1998, Oxford Universitys Regius Professor in Ecclesiastical History, Henry Mayr-Harting, has observed our progressive, ever-needing and always-changing definition of angels and their function throughout the centuries. It seems that all I have done is to substitute an evangelic beam of intense celestial light for that traditional winged messenger. I realized that such a beam would have to come from the top right corner of this initial canvas: Gods Right - truly, God IS Right. Also, I am right-handed; and left is sinister and therefore, in English at least, utterly inapproriate. This is the reason why my pictures read from right to left, from The Annunciations beginning to The Resurrections conclusion. In late January 2005 the instantly helpful and, at times of crisis, creatively-solving Pater Cyrill kindly drove me, my paints, and this flawless white canvas to Rome. There, in her priory north of the Vatican, I made this principal portrait of Phillipino Mother Irene on an otherwise undeveloped picture. I am grateful, therefore, for Mother Irenes joyous personal trust, as

well as her communitys hospitality... hmn, those really great lunches with local wine! Sabine Riedelsberger was a Year 10 student at St. Ottiliens Rhabanus Maurus Gymnasium when later in that same year I painted her in 2006 - carefully chosen as a most un-Palestinian Mary. Sabine was extremely helpful, as together in my studio, she and I created this pose for a modern Christian Mary trapped in Gods incandescent ultimation... but as an educated, independent, thoughtful Mary for our time. A little story I was told by... ssh! When the sisters in Mother Irenes immediate community heard that an English artist was coming all the way from the Bavarian monastery of Saint Ottilien to paint her portrait, they were thrilled. They enthused their leader to have a mirror placed in her room so that for this important portrait she could practise smiling! As in a stern monastic room I write these words, indeed I smile to myself. You see, in my long life, except for a little English girl called Rachel Adams, Ive never met anyone who so infectiously smiles more than Mother Irene Dabalus. Moreover - I suppose that when people hear of a portrait they presume a modestly normal and domestic size for that picture. So imagine: it is a sunny day in Rome. Atop the steps of the Benedettine Missionarie Di Tutzing, Casa Generalizia, there is assembled an impromptu welcoming group of Benedictine nuns. Pater Cyrill and I have just arrived from Germany. Introductions and handshakes ensue. Then Cyrill and I open the rear doors of our capacious vehicle. Carefully, steadily, we bring forth a huge, shimmeringly white canvas, and proceed to carry it towards their steps... O the widening eyes, and, in my affectionate memory, at least one Benedictine mouth opening agape in astonishment! Ah, such simple everyday joys in this our speeding life briefly shared. 21

In Rome, in her modern Priory north of the Vatican, Mother Irene sits for my Annunciations portrait of her

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SR. IRENE DABALUS OSB The Annunciation Begins With A Fascination

I sense a three-fold Annunciation in this painting. The first is not depicted here but is surely Marys annunciation in Lukes gospel which is the painters own primary inspiration. Since he intended to create an image in sync with the present age, one need not expect the classical portrayal of a Jewish girl at prayer and of a winged messenger from above. We of course know the account of their encounter from the evangalists pen - how the moments of tension and apprehension, the binary contradiction of no and yes, and finally of light, grace and assent to God flowed into the heart of the one woman invited to cooperate with the amazing work of Gods incarnation in her. The second is the central image on the painting, the inner annunciation drawn by the painters eye and hand. At the centre of the canvas is a blonde girl with an enigmatic pose, as she is caught by a flood of light, fascinans et tremens, which she cannot quite elude. With a half-turned shoulder away from the light, she gazes uncomprehending, almost with a frown, as Mary must have done in her

time. I feel the fascination that the image evokes. It is like an invitation to launch on an inner journey whose risks and turns one cannot quite grasp but must needs take. The third is my own portrait at the lower right hand corner which betrays surely another inner annunciation. I was sitting for a portrait whose totality was then hidden from me. The painter envisioned my portrait within that of a modern annunciation setting which would still evolve. As I then gazed with my inner eye into the emptiness of a formless space, I thought of how God created me in his image and likeness and how a human painter would draw my image as he saw me. Looking at me thus, I thought, would he be able to catch an identity, a direction, an outlook in me, borne of the shades and hues of many divine annunciations in my life as a Christian disciple of Marys Son Incarnate? Yes, the Annunciation does begin with a fascination, with a relationship to which one brings all of ones identities, ones everything, before this moment, in order to set out on a quest whose terrain is uncharted and whose frontiers are unmarked. Rome, Italy May 2006

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Painting Sabine Riedelsberger in my Saint Ottilien studio. A fine photograph taken by her mother

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SABINE RIEDELSBERGER
Its like the beginning of a novel. When Carl Lazzari asked me in art class whether I would model for one of his oil paintings, I was willing yet surprised. Surprised that he would ask me specically. Without an accurate idea of what would happen to me, I went seven days later to his studio near the school. That is, I fought my way there through a small snow storm which had settled over St. Ottilien. Covered with snow and excitedly curious about what awaited me, I was greeted at the wooden door of Carls studio. It is like the beginning of a novel, he said to me. Yes, that was exactly right. How many stories begin with a snowstorm or a thunderstorm? I didnt know, but I was very curious about what would happen in this story. After he had shown me his studio, he explained to me how he imagined the painting I was to model for and showed me the other paintings in their various stages of completion. So began my little story. I visited Carl about eight times, and it was fascinating to see the painting in its original state; it also felt odd to know that this gure was both Mary and me. Slowly but surely the face took on ever more the form of Mary. When it was nally nished, I was a little sad to go for the last time to the studio. However, in hindsight, it is a lovely story and a wonderful experience. The End

Rhabanus Maurus Gymnasium, Bavaria

May 2005

Following her brilliant clown-and dog act in the amazing Circus St. Ottilien - Sabine Riedelsberger! The two kids are looking at her baggy red and white striped clowns trousers and big boots. Here Sabine looks a rather unlikely Mother of the Son of God. But every other day, she is such a bonny and winning Mary for our time. 27

NINE OF MY DRAWINGS OF ROME MADE WHILE PAINTING MOTHER IRENE

Via Santa Sabina outside the Benedictine College of SantAnselmo 28

Benedictine Sister Maria at the age of ninetynine 29

In a Roman mornings distance across Anselmos gardens - St Peters handsome dome by Michelangelo 30

Piazza Navona: Berninis Fountain of the Four Rivers - with a disconsolate stall-seller, his dog, and pigeons! 31

Chiesa SantAnselmo before Vespers 32

Tall palm near the Benedictine College of SantAnselmo 33

Monumento a Vittorio Emmanuele - the Wedding Cake! 34

The apse of Chiesa SantAnselmo 35

Monumento Mazzini - situated at the beginning of Via di Santa Sabina which leads up a long and wearying hill to the Benedictine College of SantAnselmo

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THE NATIVITY month: June

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Principal Portraits: Eleanor, Richard, and Robert Humphries

In Europe, indeed in the entire world, all those thousands of paintings of the baby Jesus in his manger-crib. No, no! Surely not another! One dark English night, working alone at my computer, I thought, But what would the baby see? Jesus born at Saint Ottilien - what would he see?. Additionally, if the folk of Saint Ottilien heard that Jesus had been born there and then, what would they do? Yes, theyd flock to the place, calling, Welcome, Jesus, Hello, Jesus, and, Happy Birthday, Jesus. Some would bring gifts. The Three Kings might be Benedictines bringing presents (individually chosen by themselves): Japanese Brother Ephraim - the World; German Brother Andreas The Candle of Life; Tanzanian Brother Gregory - the fruits of his country. Anno might be wearing his fire chiefs helmet, Clemens and Konrad still in their bakers white. Albert and Otto playing their violins. Wolfgang sings to his guitar. Up on the balcony of the farm building housing cattle (yes, nearly a stable!), the gable end of which sports a pair of agricultural murals, Wilfried periodically booming his alphorn. On Ludwigs shoulder a well-behaved parrot from Ottiliens aviary. Daniel with his specially selected only the best for baby Jesus - white chicken which sat in his arms happily cluck, cluck, clucking, as I painted it in the otherwise silent studio. The principal portraits are the three younger members of the Humphries family associated with St Albans Roman Catholic Primary School where I had been artist-in-residence for many years. I wished to commemorate this school which, via its children, parents and teachers, did much to assist refugee youngsters during the Bosnian War. Hence it was my honour to depict Eleanor, Richard, and Robert, whose written thoughts, along with their parents, follow in a moment. To offer thanks to these fifty-one individuals who willingly 40

gave their endless hours to my studio portrait sessions, I have somehow, perhaps laboriously, to name them all. The trios of English Humpries and solemnly attending Magi are already identified. So, pressing on - from left to right along the balcony: Lukas from Argentina, Angelika from Serbia, Frau Polke from the station cottage - her summer plantings of flowers are absolutely spectacular! Rudolf - ever-friendly vehicle mechanic (who skis too often), Brother Wilfried and his sonorous alphorn, Xaver Bea, and Gabor, from Hungary and from Emminger Hofs monastic restaurant, who kindly gave me a bottle of Tokay wine one New Years Eve - when then wed hardly met! On the ground: back row, left to right: Brothers Ferdinand, Gottfried, and Robert. Pater Gallus holds a gift of colourful flowers from his monastic glasshouses. Brothers Isador, Tobias, Clemens and Konrad in their bakers whites - their fresh bread is delicious! Brothers Xaver, and Irwin. Pater Gregor - born in nearby Eresing... so, literally, the monasterys local boy. Brother Karl, and recently ordained Pater Tassilo - I was present at his imposing church ceremony. Brothers Stephan - helped bring the Satukus from Zimbabwe, Laurenz - skilled painter/restorer, Johannes - always of gentle and saintly ambience, and Bruder Gunther who manages the retail farm shop replete with the monasterys excellent cheeses, meats, sausages, and wines. Above the head of Brother Daniel who holds the Babes white chicken, is Pater Sales who invited me to his birthday party, and right from Sales are: Pater Herbert - based in South Korea where perhaps Ill be a painter; calmly-sensible Veronika Dietzel who bravely volunteered to work in a hospice for black HIV/Aids victims in South Africas Zululand, and daughter to Gymnasium teacher Renate in The Wedding At Cana. Brothers Augustinus, Hubert - forty-one extraordinary years in Tanzania - his thick picture books of personal, even historic memories are absorbing,

Dominikus, Norbert - also English-speaking ex-Africa and we get-on fine, Richard, and Ludwig with, on his shoulder, a favoured parrot which, from time to time, affectionately nibbled his ear as I painted. Pater Wolfgang sings to his guitar, as he does during the vital Youth Vespers held first Friday of every month when, even in the thick-snowed depths of winters January, the abbeychurch is packed with people and filled with song. Claudia - sister to Sigi of the coffee shop - (both speak fine English... thank my heavens!) Ninety-two-year-old Pater Albert is playing his violin - Im told that earlier in his life he performed the Tchaikowsky Violin Concerto in symphony concerts. Between King Ephraim and King Andreas is intensely handsome Winnie Satuku from Zimbabwe. Between King Andreas and King Gregory is financial expert Frau Helga Bauer - an important woman with an office in the central monastery. Between King Gregory and English principal portait Eleanor Humphries is little Julia - younger daughter of Claudia. Now we move back across the canvas to Daniel who is indeed responsible for thousands of chickens on the monastery farm. To Daniels left is the always smiling and popular horn-playing postmaster Brother Adalbert, then, Brother Otto fiddling West Virginian country music (and, it seems, everywhere elses too!) - his words follow soon. Fire Chief Brother Anno is easily identified in his protective helmet. In fact the monasterys fire brigade, manned exclusively by monks, has a major regional responsibility in this part of Bavaria which includes an arterial autobahn. When I first came here, I couldnt believe that a Benedictine monastery would possess a fully equipped fire station! To conclude: below Anno is Sigrid - Sigi - sister to Claudia. Not only is Sigis Coffee Shop a popular social meeting place, but for uncountable early afternoons it provided me not only with, ein grosse kaffee und toste mit mozzarella und tomate, bitte, but also a quiet table

where for an hour or so I could plan, review, write, and edit. And no, Ive not forgotten you, dear Nina. Below Ottos fiddle scroll is Claudias older daughter, sister to Julia and neice to Sigi. Nina and Julia each drew and gave me a picture. Both are included here together with Ninas poetic words written especially to me on a picture postcard from sunny Italy. Thank you, girls. The Nativity is essentially about the advent of family. Those years ago, in England, I desired this somehow to be a family picture as well as one of closely supporting community. Eleanor, Richard and Robert, Winnie, Veronika, Sigi and Claudia, and Nina and Julia - you have all achieved that for me. Im very, very grateful. A painter may be able to control his picture, but not the external world he wishes to portray in that picture.

CHRIS AND PATRICIA HUMPHRIES

Dear Carl, We hope your visit to Rome went well and you managed to transport the paintings back intact. We should imagine that there was quite a lot of pressure to get things right during the week so it was probably a relief to return to the tranquillity of the monastery. Well, now were back to normal. It seems ages since we were in those peaceful surroundings, but our memories are certainly fond and we have had much to think about over these past two weeks. Robert has made a slideshow of the pictures we took of the monastery and of you painting the children, and will show them to his classmates next week so they can see how world-famous the school is now. Richard and Eleanor have returned to their hectic teenage lives, but they are quietly proud of their involvement in the project and Im sure they will be eager 41

to come back for the opening. We are persuading them to put their thoughts to paper about their experiences over Christmas and youll get these as soon as possible. As for Tricia and I, we were surprised that our childrens portraits should be included with such brave and dedicated people in the scheme especially as they occupy such a prominent place in the Nativity scene. The results however are wonderful and we look forward to seeing the finished painting. Finally, but just for now, we wanted to express our gratitude for inviting us to share for a while what is obvious-

ly a very special place for you. The atmosphere of the monastery, the message of your paintings, and the kindness and friendliness of the monks and staff there has given us occasion to reflect on our own lives and perhaps we will be more pro-active and altruistic in the future. Whatever happens we have had a marvellous experience, and St Ottilien will forever be part of us. With our very best wishes and hopes for the future. Newcastle upon Tyne, England January 2005

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ELEANOR HUMPHRIES - aged 15

Before we went to get painted I wasnt looking forward to it - nothing personal, it was just my parents are evil and taking me away from Newcastle at Christmas was like a criminal offence. Ill admit this once however that being stuck with my family for two weeks didnt scar me mentally... not too much anyway. I really liked Germany; it reminded me of the fairy tales I heard in school when I was younger. It has the Hansel and Gretal houses, the snowy landscapes, and when you went for a walk outside of the monastery it was so still and peaceful - apart from the sounds of me and my brothers arguing over music of course! Theres one thing that really surprised me about Carl: hes nearly as old as my grandparents. I dont mean it offensively; Id known him when I was younger and it never occurred to me that he and my grandma were from the same era. Hes been to so many places too, done so much. He had millions of stories to tell and maybe I learnt a few

things. The studio we were in was in this tiny stone house with a thick wooden door; inside the walls were covered in canvases and sketches. It wasnt at all how I had imagined it, but I liked to sit there and have my portrait painted as I looked around at the faces of those that had been before me.

My parents loved the monastery; I think they just wanted the quiet for a change. Munich wasnt quiet. The only way I can describe it in winter time is its like one of those cities you watch on the Christmas movies, with the wooden market stalls and the clock in the square that had little soldiers marching in a circle when it chimed. The people were really friendly... well as far as I know as I cant speak German. I cant wait to go back and see the finished paintings when we get the chance, or to return to Germany. I wouldnt mind living there one day. Maybe.

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RICHARD HUMPHRIES - aged 12

At Christmas you want it to be snowy and picturesque and all you get in Newcastle is rain and maybe some hail, so going to Germany in the middle of winter wasnt a disappointment at all. It was hard to believe though that I would be going to a Benedictine monastery by the Alps to be painted in a big picture about Jesus. Its hard to believe even now. Its like you go into art galleries and, standing in front of the pictures, you look at the people posing and think how sad they must have been to sit for hours on end being painted but now Im starting to think 46

like them - not sad though. I must admit that it was quite exciting being painted watching the painting coming together and progressively looking more and more like you. Then you think more and more, Thats me, and Im sitting next to a Benedictine monk - I never thought Id say that! The monastery was beautiful and a lot bigger than I had thought, but Carls studio was a lot smaller with a strong smell of turpentine. The best part though in my opinion was Munich; I have to say its the coolest place Ive ever been to. But even better was travelling back to the monastery thinking of what delicious food I would be getting that night!

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ROBERT HUMPHRIES aged 11

When I heard we were going to a monastery to have our portraits painted I felt ecstatic because we had never been to stay in a monastary before, and, when the Christmas holidays came I felt strange because I had never been away at Christmas. Eventually it was the day of departure and I became even more excited. When Carl and Pater Cyrill met us at the airport it was amazing because it was so white with snow and its never like that at home in Newcastle. When we arrived at the monastery it had started to get dark and I noticed it was much bigger than I had imagined. I was going to share a room with Mum and my sister Eleanor and once we had settled in, we had the first of our lovely teas with Carl, where we had homemade bread and German food. It was strange at first, but as time went by I got used to it, and we were able to borrow bikes and play games in the monastery grounds, which was great fun. We also went to Munich on the train, where we saw the Olympic Stadium. Back at St Ottilien we had some Heaven Cake at Sigis Coffee Shop; it was delicious. 48

At Christmas the monastery was packed and we went to Midnight Mass, which was very tiring and I fell asleep. I was the last to be painted but it was worth the wait because I am looking around one of the monks in the centre; I have a cheeky grin on my face so you notice me even though Im smaller than my brother and sister. It was great to be painted because I felt really special but also part of something very important. Im really looking forward to going back to see the finished paintings one day. all three youngest Humphries: Newcastle upon Tyne, England

January 2005

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The Humphries family complete: Mum Patricia, son Richard, daughter Eleanor, son Robert, and Dad Christopher

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Gregory and his portrait

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BROTHER GREGORY A Case of Fate and Self-Examination

If you ask me if I believe in fate or destiny - I might just answer that I believe in destiny - but, on the other hand, quickly add that I also witness the working of fate. What I mean is that things happen in a way that seems to fit exactly, or, said in another way, in a way that seems to portray that all was previously planned and arranged although in reality it was never the case. For the last two occasions I have played the part of the African king in the Feast of the Epiphany in the abbey church in Munsterschwartzach. I have done this with pleasure and relish. I liked and enjoyed it because I felt really powerful as a king and in control. Yes, one gets to taste the majesty of being a king. During the course of rehearsals however, we were instructed how we (the kings) should bow down and worship the King of Kings.. I must say it was not an easy task, not the bowing and worshipping, but that I was worshipping a little baby. Why would a powerful king like me bow and worship a baby who is only a few days old? - Thoughts of an African king!! In the middle of this scenario comes the invitation from Carl to be painted, not as any other person, but as the African king who came to pay Jesus homage. At first I did not take it very seriously and thought - it is something passing by, perhaps a whim. But when I sat down in the studio and saw myself taking shape and becoming part of this scene, the reality came to bear. I was no longer play-

ing king, but had actually become one. Fate had played its game again. Fate had taken play and turned it into reality. I was no longer a proud king but a humbled one. A king before the King of Kings. Then comes the question from Carl - What are you going to present to the baby Jesus? It hit me again - this is real. I was not carrying myrrh in a church play but was to give Jesus something of myself, something real to me, something that would portray who I am and what I feel, something that would portray my African identity. I asked Carl if hed give me time to think (pray) over it. What would I present Jesus? What would be worthy? First I thought of very complicated items - perhaps this, perhaps that, what!! What!! It did not take long before I chose to present Jesus a basket filled with African fruits. Exactly that is. We have in Africa fruits in abundance and this would have been exactly the untold story of what the African king gave to the childss mother. Fruit of the earth - Fruit from Africa. That was not the end. I look at my painting. Yes, that is me alright, but there seems to be more than me, something I cannot understand. I look deeply, I look into my own eyes - what am I thinking? Imagine, I am trying to tell from my own painting what I am thinking about. I myself cannot tell what I am thinking about. The eyes look straight back at me, a certain seriousness, a mystery perhaps - I leave it to you. Wurzburg, Germany April 2005

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BROTHER OTTO OSB Formed by the Master

My experience with painter Carl Lazzaris series The Life of Christ at Saint Ottilien has not been limited to being painted. I do appear in The Nativity wearing the partial habit of a postulant because I was still in initial formation when he was painting the third row of magi, shepherds, neighbors, well-wishers, and the curious. At that time I, like the picture, was near the beginning of a process. The paintings procession from a roll of linen, boards and nails, tubes of paint, and a bottle of neutral varnish has ended. According to the plan of the master painter, all the ingredients have been worked together with saw and hammer, grips and stretchers, sticks and brushes into the nowfinished Nativity. In that exact same period of time I have completed the postulancy; received the habit and a new name and a year-long monastic formation of a Benedictine novice; and am now a professed monk. Unlike the procession of Carls painting, my procession from American layman to German Benedictine has not ended. According to the plan of a novice master, the canvas and tubes of my life have been worked over. Although Father Rhabanus has not yet used a hammer on me, he has plied the tools of encouragement, warning, good counsel, enquiry, and the discipline of the Rule. He has guided my daily life into a balance of prayer, sacred reading, and work. The novitiate courses in monastic history, St. Benedicts Rule, liturgy, canon law, scripture, mission, and chant have left their marks on me. Besides a full habit and a new name, I now sport a different outlook on the world. I am not like I was in Carls Nativity; and unlike Carls Nativity, I am not yet finished. Father Willibrord, who teaches some of the novitiate classes, was asked, When does one become a monk: upon becoming a postulant,

or a novice, or only after profession of vows? He laughed and said, Never! The monk is an ideal which we never fully reach. We can only try. Carls Nativity will always remind me of that. There I was a postulant. Was I a monk? Am I a monk? Will I ever be a monk? Carl was both the subject and the object, audience and performer, of art during these paintings. In my case, he listened and painted while I fiddled. Such was also the case with our oldest monk violinist, Father Albert; with singing guitarist Father Wolfgang; and with Brother Wilfried blowing the alp horn. At The Entry into Jerusalem Carl painted the two St. Ottilien Gymnasium students with camera who have been filming him throughout this painting series. He sipped a glass of wine with the guests at The Wedding Feast at Cana. He has been eating the monastery bread baked by Brothers Clemens and Konrad who appear in their whites at the Nativity. Such subjection and objection, give and take, ebb and flow have marked the painting of this series. There were planned subjects who could not come to be painted for numerous reasons, and Carl fretted, fussed, worried, and resigned himself to the disappointment each time. Unexpected substitutes always fell into place, and Carl fussed, figured, debated, and delighted in the solution each time. The ability to speak both English and German got me a front row seat for this project. I was assigned Carls assistant to help him schedule non-English speaking monks whose faces were still to be included, to help him with the gallery exhibit, and to gather writings of some of the subjects (this one by me, for example) for the book. I hope the paintings will have as positive an influence on other lives as they are having on mine. Benedictine Monastery of Saint Ottilien, Bavaria

May 2006 55

NINA
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NINA
Hallo Carl Bis bald Nina Auf die Erde fllt Regen wie Sonne. Auf der Erde ist Schatten wie Licht. Italy June 2006 Hello Carl See you soon. Nina. Into the earth rain falls like sun. On the earth is shadow like light.

Nina, its really, really lovely. You composed it during your family holiday in Italy then sent it to me Postaprioritaria. With my love and best wishes for your future, I thank you.

Her present to me: ten year old Ninas galloping, flying horse - and a lovely picture it is. Thank you, Nina

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JULIA

Eight year old Julias unexpected present to me - a lovely and friendly butterfly. Thank you, Julia. 59

CHRIST IN HIS FATHERS WORKSHOP

month: July
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Principal Portrait: Roland Ward

One of the easiest compositions to decide. Joseph was a carpenter and Jesus worked in his workshop. At the Bavarian monastery of Saint Ottilien, the Benedictine dictum Ora et Labora is religiously sustained. Together with farming, finance, and publishing, the various workshops concerned with wood, metal, stone, water, and electricity, are pivots around which daily activity revolves. As already mentioned, it was in the woodworkshop that Roland produced his twelve excellent stretcher frames for these canvases. As my personal thank you, Roland is here portrayed with one wooden frame. Behind him is Brother Paulus, the dignified monastic electrician carrying a torch, and Brother Damian holding a black shoe. Damian is the cobbler on the ground floor of whose Eighteenth-Century house my painting studio is located. Centre foreground is Brother Armin who is both carpenter and skilled stonemason. The workshop is in two adjacent rooms. I chose this particular room because it is the more spacious, and because of its staircase which ascends mysteriously to an upper door... leading to... a tradesmans entrance into Heaven? Old pianos are almost entirely of wood. For repairs they would go to a woodworkshop. This is a portrait of an individual piano in the retreat house. But why brought here? For two reasons. One later mentioned apropos The Entry into Jerusalem refers to Orii Ishizuka in Bosnia. The other is to this pictures principal portrait of Roland Ward who for years has been a teacher of music and also rpetiteur to major dance and ballet companies in London. Roland and I have enjoyed a friendship, unbelievably, of some

forty-five years. In 1960/61, as an ex-postgraduate from the Painting School of The Royal College of Art in London, one of the first oil paintings I sold, a Kew Gardens winter landscape, was indeed purchased by Roland. O such affirmative support in days of insecure penury! A final comment - on Rolands shirt. Ah, Rolands shirt! As was my intention with all the pictures, this one was generally roughed-in and basically developed before its principal portrait arrived. As with all twelve pictures, I wished the finished principal portrait to influence directly the development and conclusion of its painting, and not be, as it were, a large postage stamp affixed to the completed composition. The general colour scheme was established from two sources: the actual wood workshop itself and my wish that it should exhude an ambience of pastoral calm. This latter consideration was conditioned by the fact of wood being from trees - from forests of greens and browns, leaves and bark and ochred earth. The first session with Roland went OK. When my near-lifelong friend appeared for our second session, I exclaimed, Roland, your changed shirt!. And whats wrong with my shirt? he parried. Nothing at all, I replied, Its just... it is exactly the identical colours of this painting which were fashioned before you came. And so...? he quizzically replied. Ah, dear Roland, these lifetimes diminishing months later, I question, I wonder - of Fate and, perhaps, of Philosophy? I think: therefore I am? I hope: therefore I believe? I am whoever: therefore I am that whoever forever?

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The Workshops rudimentary beginning

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Carl Lazzari finishing his portrait of Roland Ward

photograph by Pater Siegfried

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ROLAND WARD
Carl Lazzari and I go back a long way- some 40+ years - when I was chief administrator in a well-known School of Art in Surrey, south of London, and Carl was a visiting lecturer there. I bought one of his paintings (my first purchase of a work by a living artist!) called Kew Gardens In The Snow, which fascinated me because, although basically an Impressionist picture, it has flashes of colour which I wouldnt have anticipated in an essentially grey and white painting. And this is something I still see in some of Carls work now. The beginning of our friendship was cemented when we discovered that we were both pianists. I was blessed with that gift which enabled me to become a teacher and to take part in any music-making where a pianist was needed. In later years, as rpetiteur, I have become associated with a number of major dancing schools in London. The odd thing about this friendship is that, although it is so long-standing, we have actually met only comparatively rarely, and when we do, time seems irrelevant. Is this how true friendship should be - or is! By the coincidence of my daughter moving to Newcastle upon Tyne, Carls home city, we were able to renew our friendship in more recent years. It was then, I think, when I heard for the first time of Carls Sankt Ottilien project. I little knew then that I would be involved with this: so when Carl approached me to ask if I would be in one of his paintings, I was very surprised, and also reluctant... especially when I became aware of the other candidates the majority of whom seemed to me to have had more interesting lives, and to have done so much more than I. But friendship prevailed, and arrangements were made for my visit and residence at the monastery.

I wasnt sure what to expect - certainly not what I found - an almost completely self-supporting community, the size of a large village! And it was strange to see, at one time, a cassocked monk in prayer, who, at other moments, was playing football, milking a cow, or using a computer! I am a disbeliever (as Jonathan Miller so aptly describes himself ), but I was very influenced by the extraordinary colour of the place - it breathed, for me, utter tranquillity, so that I was often perfectly content to do nothing... by myself. Doing nothing, at other times, was sitting for Carl while he worked on the portrait. I can only say that, to see ones face gradually appear by stages on the canvas, seemed to me a miracle, and certainly, a great privilege. My residence at Sankt Ottilien was a quite profound experience; but unique, and so precious that I dismissed the idea of another visit - lest, in some way, the experience would be spoiled. Happy memories though: particularly of my fellow residents; and the Four Star Hotel accommodation of the Guest House! And what can I say of Carl and his mammoth task? Some things - like music - cant be put into words. Let all of us who have been privileged to be his artistic guinea pigs, just say: Thank you.

Guildford, Surrey, England March 2004

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THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST month: August

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Principal Portrait: Dr Catherine Stewart

A painting in my own raptures blue. From the Benedictine convent at Tutzing, a view across Starnberger See looking south east towards the Alps. Given a latitude of artistic leeway - maybe at sunrise. In his characteristic blood-red top and jeans, Christ (Pater Rochus) stands knee-deep in the lake. It is the moment before his baptism. In truth, John the Baptist was very likely a long-haired, probably unwashed, scary messiah emerging from the deserts wilderness. As with Mary, I have deliberately chosen someone who, in a modern context, is precisely an opposite. Brother Bernward has short-cropped blonde hair, seems archetypally Saxon, and wears rimless spectacles. With water nervously cupped in his hands, he prays, Dear God, do You really wish this? Once it is done, everything will change... nothing will ever be the same again. And thus, for two thousand years, it has been so. My original intention was for John to be pouring water from a small container of some kind. But, in preparatory discussion with Bernward, it was he who politely dismissed that idea, pointing out that all he had to do was to collect the water in his hands, and thence to baptise. Wonderful - why didnt I think of that! In a sense, it was Bernward who therefore propositioned these pregnant seconds immediately before the Baptism - which I eagerly seized! Consequently, as this picture an-

ticipates the future - even if only by seconds, I have included two future gospelled miracles associated with water. One is the distant draught of fishes - those simple fishermen with their unending harvest. The other, nearer to us, is Christ walking on the water, which because he is also a man, he does somewhat nervously. After all, walking on water has never been done... certainly not before this particular Bavarian morning. The principal portrait is of Dr Catherine Stewart - a friend mutual to Jeremias Schroeder and myself. Catherine and I have shared gruelling and yet also spiritually uplifting long months in Bosnia, the Republic of South Africa, Zimbabwe... and likely, also perhaps in Manchesters Swinton. This last-named is a friendly joke from me to her - shared! Years past, in Manchester, she and I hosted her fund-raising church-based An African Weekend. This was a survey, and a summary, of our combined experiences in southern Africa for which I staged an exhibition of in situ drawings and gave two slide lectures. Ah, the life-or-death rigorous pressures of Manchesters Swinton! O Catherine! But seriously, as I write these words in friendships lasting affection, Catherine is one of the medical staff in a hospital in North West Province, South Africa... a vocation and location long-intended by her. This olCarl is very pleased for you, dearest Catherine.

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Catherine Stewart on location beside Starnberger See at the Benedictine convent at Tutzing

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The Baptism and Catherine Stewart - she and I both understandably anxious after our first portrait session early in 2003 when, with a brief warning, she arrived... from France! Catherines was the first portrait, principal or other, commenced and completed in the entire series. In retrospect, I think we were both extremely brave.

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The Baptism developing

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DR CATHERINE STEWART Part Time Priests

Oh no! The old man has caught up with me and is asking for my homework by text message, is there nowhere I can escape? Life is never peaceful when Carls around. He makes me just that little bit uncomfortable and I become all fidgety. Like when I was sitting being painted for these pix (as we call them in txt lingo). All that honesty doesnt make for an easy ride either. Carl came to visit me in southern Africa the last time I was working here. Didnt I tell him to keep schtum about this not-believing-in-God mullarky? Cos in these parts the existance of God is mostly accepted as an obvious fact. So, for the locals, Carl presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for evangelism. Now they are getting their own back for the less desirable aspects of missionary history, I thought, as I watched several enthusiastic African Christians getting their teeth into the unbeliever. Wasnt it just like Carl to engage the guard on the overnight train from Gabarone to Bulawayo on this very topic. Apart from the guard having to go and blow his whistle a few times the debate continued unabated until dawn. My only real argument with Carl also started on board a train in southern Africa. It concerns whether it is possible to be a part time priest. Carl says no. He is on the side of the total life-giving vocation which leaves no space for any other role. I say yes. Non-stipendiary ministry, for example, can be an aspect of a life which involves practising another profession, which may itself be vocational. We are still arguing, but Carl is winning at the moment. He is proving his point by going to live in a monastery. In fact, wherever Carl works, people will experience his

phenomenal commitment. Ive become accustomed to seeing his total engagement with those around him, be they primary school kids, refugees, mixed-up university students, Zimbabwean train guards, stick insects... I could go on. All this unashamed commitment is perhaps part of what discomfits me. Another part is the very strangeness of art. Getting down a tolerable likeness of something, I can understand. Even the fantastic weaving together of different stories and significances, but the mysterious bit where the paper or canvas seems to contain an expression of so many intangibles... well it is just that, a mystery. Another part of the pleasure of being discomfited by Carl has been the manner in which he opens my eyes, to look and find things of unexpected beauty in the scenes around me. When he visited me here, I lived near a dusty old bit of South African township perimeter. Whenever he had the chance, Carl would take a little fold-up chair out to where the plastic bags flap on the thorn scrub and look. As far as I know he looked at insects, he looked at the earth, and he looked at thunderstorms, until they got too close and threatened to wet his sketchpad. Even the onerous task of gravel road driving has been enlivened by journeys with Carl. There are so many colours! he exclaims, and my eyes open wider to take them all in. And how ridiculously overwhelming to be found sitting there in front of a scene, which I havent yet seen, depicting the Baptism of Christ. Christs commissioning, when he steps up to take the job his Father has prepared for him and begins his public ministry. An unconditional commitment. Is the juxtaposition another way in which Carl intends to win the argument? Once, on retreat with college friends on Caldey Island, our 77

director gave us a prayer but told us not to pray it... yet.. The language of the prayer spoke of total commitment to God, abandonment of self. She didnt want us to hurry into praying it, in case we hadnt considered all the implications. It was suggested that a long term goal might be, to become able to pray that prayer. Well, Ive still got that goal in view and Im glad that on the journey I ended up stumbling into one of Carls pix. Tuang District Hospital, South Africa

St Chads Day 2006

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BROTHER BERNWARD OSB Prepare a Way for the Lord

When Carl asked me to pose as a model for Saint John the Baptist, I was taken aback, because for a long time I hadnt been able to warm up to that camel-cloaked, grasshopper-eating ascetic whom the Bible portrays. But as I stood there with Carl painting me ever more into the image of Saint John baptizing Jesus in the Jordan (for whom Father Rochus was the model), I formulated some thoughts about the original scene. I kept recalling a statement from sacred scripture which I shall somewhat liberally quote and which is constantly encountered in the Advent liturgy: The voice of one calling in the desert: prepare a way for the Lord... There it was--a word I could identify with which linked me to John the Baptist. I realized that here was exactly why I have shaped my life the way it is: formed by prayer and work in imitation of Christ, I want to prepare for the Lord in our time a way to the people who encounter me. Often I dont succeed, I lose the ideal from view, I forget. Yet the call of John the Baptist is always there directing me to convert and do penance, for the Reign of God is at hand. The exegetes say that Jesus public ministry began with the Baptism in the Jordan; that he was anointed and strengthened by the Holy Spirit so he could begin his work of redemption and his difficult way up to Golgotha. John was, so to say, the instrument of this initiation. Today, too, Jesus needs instruments in order to begin anew his work of redemption for our time. That I got to pose as a model for Carl representing his John has been not only a great honour, but also a reminder to be true to my own calling, namely to prepare a way for the Lord and to be his instrument, in order that salva80

tion comes to all people. In the end, John even lost his head for that! Benedictine Monastery of Saint Ottilien, Bavaria

May 2006

THE WEDDING AT CANA month: September

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Lovers in the guilt-free Garden of Eden

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Principal Portrait: Dr Christiania Whitehead

In a verdant September, month of fruitfulness and harvest, one of the finest views of the monastery across its orchards. This painting is structured in three horizontal layers. The lower is of our communal human society, those who live and work here. The middle is the luxuriant fecundity of the Earth against which are bride Angela - Gymnasium teacher, her groom Bela, and their officiating priest, Pater Theophyl - also a Gymnasium teacher, who actually did marry Angela and Bela in Munich two years ago. This is therefore a real wedding! The upper layer represents Heaven with the lofty, Potala-like monastery and, in Bavarian white and blue , lazy clouds drifting easily upwards and out of the picture. The gathering of people is as a Zoffany conversation piece. Pater Rhabanus leans forwards perhaps all the better to hear, or maybe to comment upon Christs words. Others listen attentively and digest Christs quiet parables - for yes, the subject is teaching. Most individuals here portrayed are associated with the Rhabanus Maurus Gymnasium or with its related Tagesheim. From left to right: handsomely bearded Brother Franz who is, in fact, the monasterys plumber; Brother Josef is the Gymnasiums deputy headmaster; Renate Dietzel, a Gymnasium teacher whose daughter, Veronika, appears in The Nativity; Brother David - Tagesheim and the monasterys archivist; Sisters Christine and Claude from the Benedictine convents at Jouarre and Lyons in France - painted from my drawings made on their only visit to Saint Ottilien a year ago, and also from affectionate memory, and unusually for me, from a couple of Pater Cyrills supplementary photographs; Doc, Hans Schmid, retired Science teacher still very much associated with the Gymnasium, who is also the monasterys beekeeper responsible for the production of excellent commercially-retailed honey; Pater Vianney, head of the boarding school and Saint Ottiliens music director and teacher, 84

and a caring surrogate son to... Resi Nebel - and more of her anon. My trusty Gymnasium colleague-in-art, Kunst Meister Karlheinz Kappl raises his glass of red wine to define this particular miracle. Astra, the monasterys only dog, confronts us, defending, maybe warning us away from Christs unprotected back. Perhaps Astra knows more of future events than we do? Astra belongs to Brother Franz - or maybe Brother Franz belongs to Astra! I wished to depict Astra for the reasons given - hence Franzs presence also here. In my studio I first completed the portrait of Franz who agreed to return another day bringing Astra. I was a little anxious: large stillwet floor-standing oil paintings are not the best of environments for an amiably curious, large, long-haired dog. Jacobs Coat of Many Colours might easily become Franzs Dog of Many Hues! Also, I assure you, loveable Astra expertly opens all doors equipped with lever handles! But I need not have worried. Franz and Astra arrive. Franz says, Sit. Astra sits impeccably still... and I paint Astra. It is a hot day. Both studio windows are open. Save for the gentle sounds of a brush actively mixing, painting, and cleaning, it is quiet... Astra sitting, Franz watching, Carl painting. Suddenly, leaping clear through the far window, a cat arrives plonk on the studio floor. I behold this unexpected visitor. Rather foolishly, I exclaim to Franz, Its a cat! Franz looks at me. Its Moritz, he calmly replies. Dumfounded, somewhat stupidly I repeat, Moritz?My cat, he emphasises. Moritz... your cat? I reiterate, gazing down at this dark feline whose yellow orbs gaze up at me in evident protest at my presumed decision only to paint canine Astra. And as (and Ive painted two in these pictures!) all movie Americans are reported to say, I kid you not: that is actually how and why my portrait of Brother Franz includes... a very persuasive cat called Moritz!

And a lasting Benedictine memory: every other year Saint Ottilien extends a Sunday welcome to its sister Benedictines from the convent of Tutzing at Starnberger See. The intervening years permit the monks of Saint Ottilien to visit their sisters at Tutzing. Immensely honoured, I, the English interloper, have been allowed ultra-friendly participation in both events. When, (was it only last year... or perhaps the year before?) fifty Benedictine nuns came to Saint Ottilien, a visit to my atelier was a mutually-agreed item in their afternoons individually-chosen itinerary. The sisters laudatory interest was redeeming, but never in my life have I grovelled so much on hands and knees, in my confined studio attempting to prevent contact between long black sweeping Benedictine skirts and my multi-coloured still-wet and very large oil paintings! I think they all escaped in their purest black! Cest vraiment la vie de noir Benedictine! For me, the most endearing portrait amongst others is that of Resi Nebel - painted in her ninety-fourth year. Able still to walk with independent care, bright blue eyes filled with humour and always ready for a laugh, Resi especially enjoyed watching, on TV, Miss Marple, and football and basketball matches, during which she knitted non-stop with great gusto. Accompanied and chauffeured by sur-

rogate son and guardian Pater Vianney, Resi came to my studio for four short half-hour sittings all of which were recorded on DVD. She was a delight to know. Sadly, several days after her portrait was completed, she died - in peace and, with family around her. This portrait instantly became part of Resis memorial. I feel this picture is more than justified simply for the pleasure it gave her - she who had been a hospital nurse here at Saint Ottilien during WW2. Resi had tried to save the lives of Jewish concentration camp survivors and is finally buried here in the monastic cemetary. Resi was only a few years younger than the archabbey itself. Im so pleased that this painting commemorates her joyous living. When I look at Resis image I am not downhearted. Rather, I smile at my memory of her - would that we all might leave such an uplifting impression on our fellows! The principal portrait here is Christiania Whitehead who has been a gently enabling influence in my life since she was fifteen. Now university lecturer in Mediaeval studies, published writer and poet, international symphony orchestral violinist, local church organist, exhibiting painter, and mother to three-year-old Sophy - truly the Renaissance woman in whose caring friendship I remain.

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First day of The Wedding at Cana

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Mea culpa! I lost the computer file of my studio photographs of Christiania - hence this endearingly domestic picture of her playing and singing nursery songs with daughter Sophy in England

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DR CHRISTIANIA WHITEHEAD Thoughts on my time at Saint Ottilien

Well, its a long time ago now. The snows were just melting, I remember, and it was the first sustained sunshine of the year. Spring flowers were showing in the flower beds in front of the abbey church. I remember taking endless pleasure in the beauty and peacefulness of the place sloping off whenever I could to the wayside cross where the paths converge on the southern side of the monastery. Being painted in the foreground of these paintings was, for me, a calming and meditative kind of experience. I dont remember feeling any tension or anxiety about being scrutinized so closely. Rather, it was an additional chance to relax more closely into the productive peace of the place. I was happy that I was given the role of mediator into the painting of the Wedding at Cana. Many of the paintings involve difficult, poignant or tragic subject matters, but this must be one of the most joyous and trouble-free of the entire series. I remember the sunniness of the scene, and the colour and verdancy of the orchards in the middle ground. I was, I suppose, taking the role of mediator into a scene of pure celebration, a scene of miracles and revelations admittedly, but also a scene where human love is being honoured - is a cause for revelry. How grand and intimidating to be allocated as a channel into such things! I suppose all the foreground mediators struggle to do justice to the profundity of the scenes they are put before. But how challenging to be offered that position to occupy in the first place.

I remember the portrait of myself coming together very effortlessly. Perhaps this matched the optimism and fairweather aspect of the picture itself. While I was sitting there, most of the wedding guests had yet to materialise. But meanwhile, theyve crowded in, and the bridal couple with them. As such, theyve developed as much in relation to myself as to the rest of the picture. And I take pleasure in that relationship. This wedding is something Ive exercised some influence upon. Perhaps, some day, I may see it, in some way, as my own. Warwickshire, England June 2006

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Stationen unserer Resi

Resi Nebel
geboren am Fest des hl. Evangelisten Lukas 18. Oktober 1909 im landwirtschaftlichen Betrieb Vater: Johann Nebel Mutter: Mechthilde Nebel erstes von sechs Kindern drei Schwestern (Franzi 1910, Nanni 1919, Kathi 1921) zwei Brder (Andreas 1913, Konrad 1932) Grund- und Hauptschule in Eresing Kchenhilfe in der Klostergaststtte St. Ottilien (1926-28) Hausangestellte im Ferienheim Schondorf (1929-31) Kchenhilfe im Caf Vogel in Diessen (1932-34) Hausfrau bei der Knochenschmiedin in Eresing (1935-36) Kchenhilfe im Caf Deible in Landsberg (1937-42) Lazarett Kloster St. Ottilien (1942-47) Klosterkche St. Ottilien (1947-51) Seminar (Kchenhilfe, Putzfrau / 1951-2004) gestorben am Dreifaltigkeitssonntag 6. Juni 2004 in St. Ottilien beerdigt am Mittwoch 9. Juni 2004 im ottilianer Friedhof

Our Resis Stations

Resi Nebel born on the feast of St. Luke the Evangelist, October 18, 1909 on a farm father: Johann Nebel mother: Mechthilde Nebel the eldest of six children three sisters (Franzi 1910, Nanni 1919, Kathi 1921) two brothers (Andreas 1913, Konrad 1932) primary and secondary school in Eresing Worked in the monastery guesthome kitchen at St. Ottilien (1926-28) Housekeeping staff of the resort at Schondorf (1929-31) Kitchen staff at the Caf Vogel in Diessen (1932-34) House maid to the Knochenschmiedin in Eresing (1935-36) Kitchen staff at the Caf Deible in Landsberg (1937-42) millitary hospital St. Ottilien (1942-47) monastery kitchen St. Ottilien (1947-51) school kitchen and cleaning staff (1951-2004) died on Trinity Sunday, June 6, 2004 at St. Ottilien buried on Wednesday, June 9, 2004, in the Ottilien cemetery

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Weit du, wie viel wir dir verdanken?

Ich mchte dir danke sagen fr dein Lcheln, dass du uns immer geschenk hast. Im Caf Resi war es immer frhlich. Ich mchte dir danke sagen fr deine Hilfe, wenn wir am Abend das Geschirr gebracht haben. Da gab es immer paar nette Gesprche. Ich mchte dir danke sagen fr deine Einfachheit, die du uns mit deinem Leben gezeigt hast. Das machte das Schlerleben viel leichter. Ich mchte dir danke sagen fr deine Vitalitt, die wir immer wieder bestaunen durften. Ohne sie htten wir manchmal schlapp gemacht. Ich mchte dir danke sagen fr deine ernsten Worte, mit denen wir deine mitdenkende Art erkannten. Dadurch konnten wir manches erst richtiger sehen. Ich mchte dir danke sagen fr deine Mtterlichkeit, die wir alle schtzen lernten. Du warst halt wirklich die Mutter des Seminars. Danke Resi, dass wir dich erleben durften!

Do You Realize Just How Grateful We Are?

I want to say thanks for your smile With which you constantly gifted us: In the Caf Resi it was always cheerful. I want to say thanks for your help On evenings when we brought the silverware: Then there were always a couple nice conversations. I want to say thanks for your simplicity Which you life revealed to us: It made school life much easier. I want to say thanks for your vitality At which we still marvel: Without it we would sometimes have given up. I want to say thanks for your serious words That told us how you saw an issue: They helped us see things more clearly. I want to say thanks for your motherliness Which we all learned to treasure: You were indeed the mother of the boarding school. We are so thankful, Resi, for having gotten to know you!

PATER VIANNEY OSB

St. Ottilien Archabbey June 2006

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NINE STUDENTS OF THE RHABANUS MAURUS GYMNASIUM (from the hundreds I have drawn)

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NINE DRAWINGS IN BOSNIA (from the many I made)

My first drawing of war-orphaned Emina was distant - she literally sat anxiously away from me. When she saw the drawing, something changed - perhaps then she trusted me. For this second drawing, on a dusty knoll outside the wired perimeter fence of the grim refugee camp, Emina came to sit right beside me, and I saw her childs eyes of pain. 102

In a bare room of the Barake Laukevic refugee camp, Zorika sat uncomfortably on the edge of an ex-army steel bed. As I drew her in wars destitution, I thought she was one of the most beautiful women Id ever seen. It was my privilege to make this - her portrait. Perhaps that legendary Helen of Troy might have been as imperiously noble and essentially female as this Zorika Perak in lifes despair witnessed by me. 103

Two inseperable orphans of the war. When a year later I returned to the awful Barake Laukevic Refugee Camp, in answer to my question, I was told that Senada had died of sorrowing. On my drawing the names were written by the children themselves. 104

Advaeja, a recently Bosnian War-widowed mother with her only child, Muhamed. In a refugee camp containing some 500 people - the adults mostly female - Advaeja, unable to ascertain in which baraka I was actually working that day, had waited stoically in late afternoons broiling sun for two hours beside my parked truck to which she knew I would eventually return. She wished only to ask if I would draw her fatherless son. There and then, at the conclusion of an arduous day, I agreed to draw both her and her son. Even in these unexceptional penlines Advaejas dreadful inner sorrow is evident. 105

In a Trappist monasterys hospital north of Banja Luka, war-maimed and orphaned Serbian brother and sister - the boy, I was told, wearing his dead fathers wristwatch 106

A dignified lady who once cleaned my muddy shoes as her only means of giving me a gift. 107

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A severely wounded Serbian soldier encased in medical plaster - yet who implored me to draw him 109

The slender minaret of Gracanicas mosque - used for occasional and casual target practice by Orthodox Christian Serbian artillery in the encircling mountains. Oh what a tangled web we weave. - William Shakespeare 110

THE RAISING OF LAZARUS month: October

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Principal Portrait: Reverend Dr Sabina Alkire

Once I made the decision, in England, to set this subject in the museums sadly hidden-away chronicle of Benedictine suffering in the Korean War, I knew it would be a difficult proposition. Monochrome studies were part of my studentship, and also a regular component of my courses during decades of university teaching. But never had I painted a major and complex canvas - least of all, one of an important series - basically in black and white monochrome. This is one of two black RESURRECTION paintings. Except that the first, The Annunciation, is not actually black: it is darkly unawakened purples, blues and greens. But Lazarus concerns the stark blackness of death where lifes threshold is Christs red-shirted raising arm; is the blood turgidly reflowing in Lazarus himself (Pater Rudolf ) as, with a Thomass grave incredulousness, he is reborn... caused to live again; and it is a pronouncement firmly declared in the eyes of Sabina Alkire from Harvard University and St. Pauls Cathedral, London. Despite its death and blackness, this painting is really about the optimistic Beauty of a miracle, and the essentially procreative Beauty of one singular human being. You may consider this next comment somewhat eccentric, but artists work according to their own inner truths. Music has been an essential enrichment to my life since childhood: my Protestant mother a pianist; my Roman Catholic father a church choir singer and soloist. The arm of Christ is that of Pater Emmanuel - portrayed in The Sermon On The Mount - who is an exemplary organist, truly an artist of the keyboards. Sabina Alkire was once violinist in the professional Anastasi String Quartet in which her sister, Hannah, was cellist. As, in this darkly monochrome arrangement of death and life, I painted Emmanuels arm and hand, and Sabinas face, in my heart there was music for piano and violin... of sonatas by Mozart, Beethoven, 114

and Brahms. Maybe even Massanets eloquent Mditation... concerning loves religious conversion. Even at a funeral, music is always life-affirming. In 1960, at the Painting School of The Royal College of Art in London, the title of my post-graduate dissertation was Death in Music. Music. I can still hear, as if this very second, as if in concert, my fathers Italianate tenor voice singing Macushla to my mothers nimble piano accompaniment - more than sixty years ago. I was told that when he, Joseph, died without stress or pain during an afternoon in a hospital ward near Milton Keynes, my sometimes difficult yet morally-truthful father suddenly sat upright in his bed, sang the first verse of Francks Panis Angelicus, lay back on his pillow, and simply passed away. Offhand, I think of the imperiously-skilled, great American portrait painter of a society he frequently abhorred, John Singer Sargent - he died well too. And he was a pianist who played demanding contemporay music such as Iberia by Isaac Albeniz. (Apropos Sargent, if you query my words died well Im afraid youll have to verify their accuracy for yourself!) One leg amputated, Edouard Manet on his deathbed continued, it is thought, to paint small studies of the flowers in a glass vase placed beside him. If this was so, then what vocational courage facing lifes oncoming tidal termination. And Carel Fabritius - painter one of my favourite pictures in Holland, The Goldfinch, yet another wooden panel, possibly for an interior furnishing such as a cabinet. Young Fabritius was a pupil of massively Shakespearean Rembrandt and very likely teacher to music-imbued Jan Vermeer. When on October 12 in 1654, the gunpowder factory in Delft exploded it took emergingly-talented Carel and his studio with it. What an awesome annihilation for any painter! Lazarus - such imposing death, such high drama, and such compelling art, and music.

And my mother? I loved her. My saintly, and throughout the spartan severities of WW2, my loving, nourishing mother? For that charmingly stubborn, socially-talented and stylish woman, there was to be no Raising from the Dead. No rebirth in Christs blessing. Instead, relentlessly programmed for May ne Edmondson - Maisie to family and friends - were eleven harrowing months of increasing pain and pitiless disability as she died in the crucifixion of abdominal cancer. In her coffin my mothers corpse lay as an emaciated, carved brown effigy unknown, unidentifiable to the staring adult boy whod shared her entire maternal life.

In Winters threadbare regret and Springs optimism afresh, Memory is timeless. And music? Yes please, a return to music - the greatest, most profound of human artistic expressions. In loving dwell: Beethoven - his Romance no 2 for violin and orchestra, played without orchestra once in my studio as a personal gift to me. Emotions tear intelligence apart. And, in this fleeting life, rightly so. For intelligence is but a child. And these memories of Art and Death and Love and Music are my Lazarus.

At work on the developing Lazarus.

Photograph by Andreas Janikowski 115

I will add something else. Professionals often do not like admitting their errors: errors of technique; errors of judgement. During the progress of this painting I made two conspicuous, avoidable mistakes. The first was a serious one for which, in university semesters past, I would have severely reprimanded a first-year Fine Art student. It is encapsulated in Andreas Janikowskis rather immediate photograph of me working on this painting at an intermediate stage. Each of my pictures was overtured by weeks of mental planning - rarely with drawings on paper and never with detailed compositions of any kind. I work on adrenalins impulse hoping for a fluid amalgam of thoughful preparation, intuitive informed visual judgement, and, on the day, experienced deftness with the brush. This is not what I have taught my students. I have taught the well-tried general rules which, like legal laws, are good for most people most of the time, but for some individuals? Human methods have their pitfalls. Beginning Lazarus with directly brushed lines of mixed grey oilpaint, I geometrically subdivided the canvas into its subordinate rectangles more or less as they are in the finished picture. Aware that it might be many months before Sabina Alkire was able to appear in my studio, I concentrated on the assembly of Korean Benedictine photographs, accurately recomposing them as displayed in the museum. Tolerably satisfied, in my usual fashion I made a digital photograph of the developing painting, fed it into my iBook, and then almost instantly departed to England for a necessary intermission. One night in Winlaton Mill, in my small bungalow, in the darkness I studiously browsed on my Apple computer the in-progress images of the Saint Ottilien pictures. Though in England, I was still working on the compositions. I critically evaluated. I made notes of things to do. I clicked Lazarus to the screen, nodded to myself, and passed to another. Suddenly I had a strange sense of visual doubt. I clicked back to Lazarus. What was it? It seemed quite OK for a beginning... but my memo116

ry objected - there was something wrong. What was it? Whats wrong with the twenty-five photographs youve so carefully measured and transcribed? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven... you fool, there are only twenty two! The top row of three is missing! My thoughts during that night are here unprintable! Returned to Saint Ottilien, it meant completely redrawing the complicated left area of the half-developed picture. A stupidly humbling tactical defeat from which one learns? Yes, one learns that one is always a student... never a master! My second error was not as serious - but... Im an old-fashioned painter whose studentship included grinding pigments with mortar and pestle to make useable oil paints. Much more recently teaching English children at Saint Albans Primary School weve ventured into the local suburban countryside where suitably protected by hygienic plastic gloves weve collected various earths, vegetable growths and leaves, and sundry seasonal berries. Back at school in later morning, children, class teacher and friend Denise Swindlehurst, and I have manufactured water colour paints - yes, un-permanent and quickly-fugitive maybe, and yet with those simple colours the enthusiastic kids have actually painted lovely pictures in that same days afternoon. But there are modern electronic tools too... And to that second error. In this picture Pater Rudolf is Lazarus. Rudolf is an extremely busy monk with demanding spiritual responsibilities in the Diocese of Augsburg, making it difficult for him easily to schedule painting appointments in my studio. For this reason Id promised to strive for completion in only two sessions. Rudolf arrived for the first, which seemed to go well. However, that evening after refectory supper, when,

as usual, I returned to the studio to clear palette and wash brushes, and, most importantly, to sit quietly evaluating my days work, I realized that not only had I made Rudolfs head too big for the composition, but it was also injudiciously positioned. O dear, such a gloomy state of mind to end the day! But yet again, in this Twenty-first Century, my laptop computer came to the rescue! Next morning I made a good digital photograph of the ill-placed portrait. Cabled into the computer, it was then printed out as an enlarged copy. In the afternoon I literally obliterated the face on the canvas before making a corrected image from the print-out. When Rudolf returned for his second session, I was actually able to complete the portrait in the agreed period of time - to our mutual satisfaction! Modern technology has its decided advantages. Akin to Roland Wards shirt in Christ In His Fathers Workshop, here, too, is another fortuitous concidence. When film maker and photographer, Pater Martin, visited my studio to see how the twelve paintings were coming on, Lazarus was quite well-developed but still lacking Christs arm, Pater Rudolf, and Sabina. Pater Martin was especially

interested in my deployment of these tragic museum photographs as the paintings black and white environment. He asked who the principal portrait would be. An American colleague of mine, I explained. Someone involved in the Bosnian War, a Developmental Economist dealing with international poverty reduction who was now a minister of the Anglican Church. I added that, as if in designs monochromatic compliance, she would wear her black and white ministerial attire for the picture. Hmn, Martin murmured thoughtfully, an American? He pointed up to my rendering of the photograph of the war-ruined Korean monastery. Do you know who took that photograph? I shook my head. An American, he replied, an American GI soldier in the United Nations army once again advancing northwards. So: an unknown United Nations American soldier fighting in the Korean War; a known American involved in the Bosnian War, who, once with the United Nations, is now ordained as minister to God. In monastic silence I ponder and contemplate: yes, it is a most fortuitous coincidence. Verily - for me, an Americans Raising Of Lazarus.

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The Reverend Dr Sabina Alkire in my studio nearing the conclusion of her portrait in Lazarus.

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The completed portrait of Sabina Alkire in The Raising Of Lazarus. 119

THE REVEREND DR SABINA ALKIRE

Faded photos in dusty glass cases. The faces of martyrs. They are displayed to celebrate human courage: the courage to live fully at lifes very cost. Silent faces invite onlookers to such a path. I pray that you might find something to live for, something worth dying for. Greater loss has none, than to lay down life itself for ones friends - no? Is this sacrifice not the model for self-giving, of nobility, of holy love? Indeed it can be. So we savour the sweet sadness of their stories, the cadence of plucky bravery in view of peril, of love resolute before violence, of gentle faith serenely dying. Death provides the crowning medallion, the ultimate proof of faith. Death serves to inspire, not disappoint us - and there is true wisdom here.

How unwelcome, how ugly, the hands that intrude to heal. We repulse them. Fiercely. The story is set, + its ending too. We have come to be comforted by it.

But we do not prevail. Unwelcome to us, the dissonance of healing - of joy - of resurrection. We had relinquished these. Yet ignoring our rebuff they reach in unbidden gently, surely, instantly - not uprooting the earlier wisdom but completing it.

On spiritual retreat in rural Wales

July 2006

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PATER RUDOLPH STENGLEIN, OSB

Text to my picture Lazarus Can you imagine what its like to receive your life as a new gift? No you cant. Can you imagine meeting again that friend to whom you owe your second life? I have experienced what Jesus means: in God is salvation. St. Ottilien Archabbey, Bavaria June 2006 121

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

month: November

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Principal Portrait: Anand Madhvani

Here you can read an eloquent essay by Anand. It is of his memories across twelve years. It is about me too - of our periodically recurring friendship. It touches upon the personal history mentioned in my Introduction to this Handbook. But it perceives that identical history through anothers observing sensibility. When I first read Anands carefully-shaped prose, I shed tears. Let me say this: many of the pictures hanging on walls in domestic rooms or in illustrious international art galleries, are not simply artifacts of aesthetic or accumulating financial worth, they are testaments to human lives lived. They encapsulate passions hours ecstatic and loves trials expired. Yes, surely thats life as most of us know it? Despite some arid conceptual narcissisms within the Twentieth Century, art is not about being clever. Art is about lived human experience truthfully expressed. That is its only gleamingly-true worth. I am a contemporary European artist. I exist today. Yet my paintings here are in a direct pictorial tradition stemming from the prehistoric cave drawings at Lascaux, perhaps even including the Nineteenth Century tepee image/murals of the Great Plains tribes of North America. But, returning to The Sermon on The Mount: beneath the onion-domed tower of Saint Ottiliens rococo chapel, and next to his Crucifixion, Christ stands orating to a group of Benedictines. It has recently been commented how ill-mannered it is that no monk looks towards Jesus as he speaks. During the making of these paintings I have been permitted the honour of dining with monks in their splendid refectory. Weekday evenings, as we eat at supper, there is one monk reading a prepared text from the central pulpit. No one looks at him as he speaks. This paintings foreground group comprises senior monks and junior monks. Superiors and teachers, and their students. From the left margin, back row: Brothers Julian, Ja-

kob, Quirin, Postulant Ralf - a medical attendant in the monasterys sick bay, hence his white tunic, and Brother Raphael. Immediately in front from left to right are Paters Emmanual (Christs raising arm in Lazarus), Willibrord, Johannes, and Cyrill - enthusiastic five-a-side indoor soccer player, sometimes to be seen outside whizzing at speed around the monastic complex on roller blades. Left foreground in orange, in the manner of Judas, Brother Jonathan steals away from this al fresco assembly of Christs disciples. Beneath his Masters sermon and appropriately dominating the centre is Pater Raymund, the monasterys subprior. To the right of Raymund are Paters Matthias, and Dominikus - the archabbots personal secretary and a talented flower painter whose picture postcards sell very well in Saint Ottiliens bookshop. Behind are three novices all possessing doctorates in science - brothers Elias, Timotheus, and Markus...who are, in the context of the last painting, The Resurrection, an objective cause for my rejoicing. And finally, but by no means least, Guesthouse Master Pater Remigius quietly serenades on his guitar these famously enduring, profoundly influential words of Jesus Christ: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God... Matthew 5/2-9 Sitting in a 21st Century Benedictine monastery, I shudder at the relevance of these words to this year of 2006 wherein on our planet, according to the World Health 125

Organization, one million people will commit suicide, and eleven million children will die unnecessarily of HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, enslaved social and sexual abuse, of starvation in orphaned and unloved neglect, as unwanted trash discarded along our human roadside. Eleven million? Eleven million of our tribes youngest - unloved and casually thrown away. Thats 1,200 children for every hour of this our Bavarian day secure and comfortable, of this our English eating and reading day. When you have your mid-morning coffee, estimate how many unloved children will expire in your refreshing cup to be enjoyed. And what would a come-again Jesus Christ think and say about us and ours? A benign parable or a scalpels stricture? The Reverend Dr Edmund Newell, Canon Chancellor of Saint Pauls Cathedral in London, is co-author with Sabina Alkire of What Can One Person Do? (Darton, Longmore and Todd 2005). Buy it. Read it. Be sobered. Be affirmed in a determination to improve life for all those dispossessed and forgotten other human beings on this single spinning globe. In Seven Words for the 21st Century - same publishers 2003, and edited by Newell, in her essay on I thirst (John 19:28), Alkire, an American, I gently remind, poignantly writes: When a mother has a baby in Singapore or the United Kingdom or another well-off country, that baby could expect to live to be about 77 years old. When a mother gives birth in Senegal or Haiti or Laos, she can expect her child to die 25 years earlier, at the age of 52. In Sierra Leone the children can expect to live only half as long as Singaporean or British children. In 38 countries the children born today are expected a shorter life than the children who were born in those countries a decade ago. The fall in life expectancy is even more unjust because the worldwide 126

life expectancy has risen by four months each year since 1970. We have more food on the planet per person than ever before (and more than enough to feed everyone well), more children in school, and more adults who can read. But we still do not take care of one another. On 11 September 2001, more than twice as many people on earth died of AIDS than in the tragic catastrophes at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania air crash combined. But not only on 11 September. On 10 September and 12 September, and each day that year, an average of 8,210 people died of AIDS and 15,000 contracted HIV/AIDS for the first time. (When I first read these sentences, they left within me an abject feeling of hollow inadequacy.) And later in his sermon Christ preaches the unarguable, but humanly near-impossible?: You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well... Matthew 5/38 In Christs time such seminally brave words declared within absolute tyranny; and in this our capitalistic age of greedy, predatory litigation... do these words fail? Then: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheeps clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves... Matthew 7/15 Religious belief or not, surely these words haunt us still for are they not a stabilising Truth, a clearing Torch to our shadowed and feckless moral human conscience?

The Sermon beginning

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Anand Madhvani beside his completed portrait in the unfinished Sermon On The Mount

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ANAND MADHVANI
I first met Carl when we travelled to the Balkans in 1994. My memories of that time are unfocussed and dreamlike: my father had died in the previous month and, being with strangers in an unfamiliar setting, full of both natural beauty and human horror, was bewildering. Cathartic as well, in unexpected ways. Our group journeyed up and down the Croatian coast, crowded into two small minibuses, performing a little play and spending time with refugees in shelled-out hotels, or bare, dusty camps. We didnt have much aid to distribute. We were simply saying, in our small way, You are not forgotten. For me, Carl became a bubble of calm and concentration amid the hectic clamour. Somewhere, in a doorway or under the shade of a tree, he would sit for an hour or two and draw. Magically, children would be drawn to him, curious to see what he had put on paper. What could this stranger have seen of such value in their dismal surroundings? A grown man, taking the time and care to draw the unloved place they had been forced to inhabit. The faces of the children would then begin to appear in the sketchbook. With a few lines here, a graceful curve there, something of that time and that place, and their memories, would be gently read from their faces and carefully recorded, stored, treasured. A powerful ancient enchantment. Carl would soon have his young audience transfixed, intensely watching every stroke of his pen, waiting patiently for their turn to come. That summer I was inspired to take a sketchbook of my own to Switzerland. I spent many useful hours quietly filling it. 130 Two years later our paths crossed again, in Bosnia. Same war, different refugees (Internally Displaced Persons, to be clinically precise). The artist was still to be found in a patch of shade somewhere, patiently and methodically transforming the empty pages into the likenesses of children. As he worked, the faces around him became illuminated with looks of thoughtful wonder. I remember stories that became woven into every sketch. Carl would remember where each sitting took place, minute details about clothes, how the child initially sat - shy, playful, dubious, challenging... It was a pleasure to catch up on his days work every evening, with a detailed account of each encounter, the living context to each pattern on paper, amidst our frustrations and doubts. What are we doing here? What can we possibly achieve? What do we have to give these people who have lost everything? Carls sketchbooks became, for me, part of the answer. There were other stories too, told by the surviving men, having built up their trust - fiery shots of sljivovica providing social lubrication. Stories that the rest of the group were perhaps too young to be entrusted with; the background we were vaguely aware of, but spared the horrific details of. Rapes, murders, and vengeance. Pain. The personal stories that, one by terrible one, become the components of a conflict, a war, an atrocity - words we often use but rarely comprehend. I can vividly picture Carl listening in his patient way as each story unfolds, shaking his head gently with each new horror: the sharing a terrible privilege, a burden to bear forever. Im still learning the importance of such sharing, listening. Simply being witness to the things that have occurred.

Later that summer, after our first journey to the Balkans, a friend showed me an historical account of how the conflict unfolded, documenting atrocities in methodical and shocking detail. I could barely look at the graphic cover photograph. It was all too close, too connected to the families wed been seeing, to real people. Something similar happened years later in South Africa as I read the first few pages of Catherine Stewarts copy of Jonathan Kaplans book The Dressing Station. It began with a vivid account of violence in the coloured townships Id just been working in. A few pages in, I had to put it down, feeling physically faint. What could I achieve by reading these things, by hearing about the pain I had been fortunate not to have experienced? The years passed. For me, the Balkans was followed by other work - aid management within the international system, and work with homeless people, with young children. Six years later, just before I left for Johannesburg as a peace worker, Carl and I met again amongst the ruins of Rievaulx Abbey in Northern England. That was when I first heard of his plans to paint this series. Another two years passed, with me in Africa, engrossed with projects half a world away, unsure why Id agreed to a sitting in Germany when time permitted, not at all clear why hed asked me, of all people. Im not Christian by background, so to be placed in a painting about the life of Jesus, for a Bavarian monastery, was something of a surprise! A long time had passed since our trips, and memory grew dim - surely this was a finished chapter and our lives had moved on? However, I trusted Carls judgement so, when timings eventually came into alignment in 2005, I met him once again, this time at Munich airport. Though Id stayed at St Ottilien before, while briefly passing through on our earlier journeys to the Balkans, the

monastery seemed utterly unfamiliar. Carl was just the same as I remembered him though. A week of sittings and conversations passed both quickly and slowly. Having the time to simply talk with someone, and find connections between our very different lives and experiences, is such a gift. We often talked about the Balkans and this project. The huge canvases, in various states of completion, already dominated his two small rooms, and also invaded the narrow corridor outside. I learned who had come from where for their sittings, the significance of each face or look, the problems that remained to be solved... Meanwhile the stairs or floorboards above occasionally creaked with the tread of the cobbler/barber monk who shared the house. Outside Carls little studio the spring sunshine was dazzling, while inside the cool guesthouse the lunchtime soups were delicious. Something formed a clearer shape for me during these sittings. Our journeys to the Balkans, a decade earlier, had felt like a closed chapter before I returned to St Ottilien for this portrait. I hadnt stayed in contact with people in the region, nor read much about what had happened. When a memorial service took place earlier this year for the 8,000 men and boys massacred at Srebrenica in 1995, I caught painful glimpses of it on television, feeling a pang of guilt, together with sadness, at seeing the grief still evident on the faces of people there. We had met families who had lost fathers, brothers and husbands in those killings. I wondered how their lives are now, and felt guilty that I didnt know, felt guilty that my own life had moved on. Yet I also started seeing more connections linking these experiences, what we saw and learned and shared, and the work I have done since. Those encounters, in dusty refugee camps, made a lasting impact on many of us. When 131

Carl and I met another group member, Mark, a few weeks later, this was confirmed for me. Carl certainly didnt, and perhaps couldnt, forget; he has written and painted from those experiences for a decade now. I have forgotten many details, names and faces, but have been processing and remembering in my own way, and through my own work. I dont know much about art, so talking about painting, while watching Carl work, was a revelation. I could only glimpse how many layers of interpretation and meaning might combine within each choice an artist makes, different stories becoming interwoven into each piece of work. I started to understand how Carls sketches, stories and experiences had been deeply thought over, gestated, over the past decade, and were now maturing into new forms on the canvases around us. Everything fed into this remarkably rich series of paintings. Here was one way of processing and dealing with some of the intense things we had seen and experienced: doing them justice by capturing them within simple brushstrokes of pigment, colours on cloth, with the gentle but firm request that this not happen ever again. We also talked about subject matter, the chosen scenes of the Bible. Carl would, every few hours, exclaim incredulously that he didnt understand how he, an atheist, could possibly have been chosen to paint this work. Yet there we both were, in a German monastery, looking at his scenes from the life of Jesus Christ. I hadnt given much thought to the nature of these paintings before I arrived at St Ottilien but felt vaguely relieved when Carl told me I would feature in the painting of the Sermon on the Mount. For no obvious reason he was aware of - thats just the way it had worked out.

As somebody outside Christian traditions, I would have felt uncomfortable in a scene that I felt was historically questionable, clashed with my own beliefs, or rested on miraculous events. In the Indian spiritual traditions I have grown up within, miracles have become distractions for me from the central insights, the deeply rooted and practical teachings, which I have come to value. One can question miracles, but a person speaking on a hill is something basic and universal. Yet as I read those passages again, prompted by the painting I had begun to materialise within, they proved more difficult for me than Id anticipated. I knew the Beatitudes, of course - Blessed are the meek and so on, each turning common-sense perceptions of actions and rewards upside-down - revolutionary indeed. I had always taken this to mean reward in heaven for earthly good deeds. Eastern faith traditions also offer rewards in the next life for our actions in this one, a minor difference being that they take the next life literally: reincarnation. Either way, a standard philosophical move to square what seems best for an individual with what is best for their wider social matrix - an age-old problem in different forms, for which most societies have developed similar spiritual/religious/ cultural solutions. However, as I read on, what I see is far more challenging, urgent and amazingly contemporary. After two years learning at the cutting edge of non-violence methods in Johannesburg, here I find a two-thousand year-old manual for non-violent action, and a strident and demanding one at that. This voice is setting challenges for me personally, which I perhaps understand better than I would have a few years earlier, but Im afraid I cannot live up to. This voice also seems to identify with and understand my doubts unnervingly well.

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I look at this text in a completely different light now. I am in this painting, so now its personal. Ive heard how other people have also seen the life of Jesus completely afresh because of these canvases. Even some of the monks, who have devoted their lives and work to his teachings, have been challenged afresh simply because they saw him in a different context, in their own context - within these paintings. They are renewing something important, and making that source of wisdom unflinchingly immediate and tangible, speaking directly to us, right now, across hundreds of years. The simple challenge to live in peace. With love.

Perhaps that is Carls final enchantment, as he adds the final touches while I type this. Maybe this is why the paintings are so important: why they have drawn him, and so many other people, into this project, even though many of us were unsure quite why we were chosen at all. That includes Carl himself, of course. As he works in his small studio, bewildered but unable to stop, to pull himself away from his work, I can clearly imagine him still muttering, But Im an atheist! Yes, Carl. Of course you are. London, England December 2005

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PATER CYRILL SCHAEFER OSB The Steep Mountain

I first met Carl Lazzari in 1997. We found ourselves walking a pilgrimage from Subiaco to Montecassino. On the first day we traversed the enchantingly still Aniane valley. In its steep sides many a monk had earlier sought solitude, among them Saint Benedict. Several beautiful impressions came together here: the landscape which constantly displayed new vistas, the awareness of being in one of monasticisms most sacred spots, and the bright mood which flowed out of us, drawn by the radiant weather. Then came the steep mountain: the valley narrowed abruptly and we had to scale a steep and seemingly endless slope in the midday heat. This brought us to the limits of our energy. Carl battled upwards with great effort and several pauses. But he didnt give up. As we got to the top and stretched out for a long rest, he pulled out his sketch pad again in order to record our improvised midday siesta. The steep mountain near Subiaco sometimes appears to me symbolic of the huge project that Carl has pursued steadfastly for over three years in our monastery: a series of paintings which binds the biography of the artist together with his impressions of his stays at St. Ottilien, accidental acquaintances together with years-long friendships, past together with present, salvation history together with the monasterys history, micro- together with macrocosm. The execution of the paintings came with several difficulties which sometimes caused me to marvel at Carls patience and other times at his flexibility when an intended goal was unattainable and some solution had to be sought. And not seldom it appeared to me that the

improvised solution was more successful than the previously set plan. One example of a successful improvisation is in the first picture in the cycle, whose theme is the Annunciation of Mary. For the principal portrait Carl had his eye on a Carmelite nun who had given up her artistic career in order to enter a monastery. The necessary sittings for the portrait just could not be realized. The painting had to be delayed. A solution was finally found: Mother Irene Dabalus, the Prioress General of the Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing, now opens the line of portraits. This execution appears more successful to me that the original plan, for now the first painting of the cycle portrays the leader of the Missionary Benedictine Sisters, and the cycle closes with a portrait of the Archabbot of St. Ottilien who leads the male branch of the Missionary Benedictines. Upon reflection it becomes clear to me that the completion of so ambitious a project requires not only patience and the ability to improvise, but also a fitting measure of charm, for the models were often less than willing to allow themselves to be painted. So Carl had to invest a large portion of his time into convincing his models that no pain would befall them. Many were thereby able to enjoy the experience, like the princes of the 18th Century, of sitting for hours and being recorded with oil and brush. Carl said to me before my sitting, that I should sit looking toward my own image, whose form began to appear under his hands. That was good advice, because it is harder than it sounds to sit still for over two hours. Countless thoughts shoot through the head, one recalls roughly similar situations, thinks over the days plans, or is simply in danger of falling asleep. Seeing ones own image helps

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to stay awake and remain present. It is uniquely fascinating to see how the most prominent features of ones own face emerge out of a circular form. With astonishment one notices face lines and features formerly less noticed. Reflecting upon these features, one becomes conscious of his own development. Good portrait art is obviously a school for honesty. With his series of paintings Carl has created for us a great gift. It is a monumental portrayal of his years at St. Ottilien which documents our situation at the beginning of the 21st Century. However, many timeless moments flow together in the pictures which are independent of St. Ottilien and so can be understood by people of other places and times. One continues to wonder how Carl, under great effort, managed to conquer this steep mountain.

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CHRIST DRIVING MONEYLENDERS FROM THE TEMPLE month: December

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Principal Portrait: Reverend Pastor Ephraim Satuku

The main doors of the archabbey church are usually opened only for special occasions - important services, processions and the like. Here, on a December night those doors are flung wide and the light of Saint Ottiliens Temple floods out into our darkness. Almost consumed by the sacred incandescence he defends stands Christs angry figure. I chose this subject as one of my twelve because it is the only chronicled occasion when Christ was furiously aggressive. It is an aspect of his humanity with which certainly I, and perhaps all of us, can easily identify. Anger. The world-changing Christian deification of Jesus Christ has a danger - that we forget, no longer appreciate, those common-or-garden ordinary days of his life when he lived more or less as do we today. While violence is dangerous and to be avoided, the actual sources of anger are an important diagnostic evaluation of who we are. So why was Christ angry? Along the base of the picture are portraits of several of the monks who deal with monastic finance. A little later in this Handbook, Brother Ansgar, who is portrayed extreme left, writes a thought-provoking essay on his Benedictine role as the congregations international procurator responsible for the annual expenditure of millions of euros. He touchingly expresses a mite of sympathy for the money mongers who flee Christs wrath in my painting. Beside Ansgar appears Pater Frederik - Saint Ottiliens own procurator. Then Pater Ludger who is in Prokura finance. Brother Gabriel - responsible for church service collections, who smiled in happiness every minute he was painted, which gave me joy too. And convivial Pater Tobias, the deputy Cellarer. Pater Berthold - fundraiser further afield in Germany. Brother Wunibald in finance, and Pater Walter - art gallery director and until recently manager of EOS Verlag, the Saint Ottilien publishing house. And, finally, Pater Rupert, the all-important Cellarer himself. 140

The Reverend Pastor Ephraim Satuku is here the principal portrait - his wife Winnie is painted in The Nativity immediately behind the Three Benedictine Kings. Recently retired, Ephraim was for many years based at the remote Elim Mission in Northeastern Zimbabwe near the Mozambique border. Ephraims important responsibilities were for the entire Mission - its community, its church, its hospital, and its school. Ephraim and Winnie and myself have tenuously preserved a friendship begun in 1997. It was then that Catherine Stewart and I set out, impecuniously, as if in some fictional adventure of uncertainty, north from Pampierstad in South Africa, across southeastern Botswana via Gaberone, then into southern Zimbabwe, wearyingly to Bulawayo and Harare, then, with almost increasing despair northwards to Nyanga. And why? To work with the wonderful children of Ephraims Elim Mission. Indirectly sponsored by Christiania Whiteheads personal contacts, Elim was a rich experience for me and for everyone concerned... oh, alert young pupil, now grown-adult Tatenda Chaka - be well? What a time that was - through Tatendas eagerness, finding unrecorded centuries-old Bushman brush paintings on a precipitous cliffface of Manjanjas jungled mountain. Filled with fear of falling I gazed transfixed at simple yet profound red-ochred images of life and death painted on a weathered bare stone wall by my masters. I am currently invited to a Quaker orphanage outside Bulawayo, and again to wholesome Elim. Given life and continuing health I will certainly respond to both with enthusiasm. During their visit to St Ottilien, Ephraim and Winnie Satuku informed me that since 1997 Catherine and Carl have become a living strand in the oral tapestry of Shona tribal history. How amazing, and infinitely humbling for us both.

The Moneylenders on its way.

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THE REVEREND PASTOR EPHRAIM SATUKU

One of my longest journeys was when I went to Germany on the 13 February 2005 with my wife, Winnie. I felt very honoured to be one of those many people from all over the world who were chosen to be painted by such an experienced artist. I come from North Eastern Zimbabwe close to the border with Mozambique. Words may fail to really express how much we felt about you and your whole place of St Ottilien. Our welcome at the airport by Pater Frederik and Mr Carl Lazzari was such a great moment. And on our way to St Ottilien, the snow, which we were seeing for the first time in our lives, looked like moths, or tiny delicate butterflies during the summers here in Zimbabwe. We received a very warm welcome from you all despite the fact that we dont speak your language, and the fact we come from Africa. Both of us enjoyed our visit to the school - my wife sitting in the art room being drawn by the senior students was such an honour and a lifetimes memory in our longest trip overseas. Of all, not to forget the delicious food we ate each morning, lunch, and

supper. The friendly attitude found there has a very loud voice to the community and to visitors. The people there practise what they are there for, and this is not found in many places. I didnt really know what I was going to look like after I was painted, because to me, this was a very strange thing in my life. But with the great experience of Carl Lazzari, I looked similar to other black people in the region I come from. As I have already said, it was a great privilege and honour for my wife and I to be among great men and women of the white world. Many thanks to the artist and to the authorities of St Ottilien, Deutschland, for allowing us to stay at no expense from our own pockets - and, as well, we were given love from dear brothers who loved us so much. St Ottilien remains in our hearts and we shall surely always pray for its being there as a light to the Community and throughout the whole world. We will never forget you in our daily prayers.

Nyanga, Zimbabwe March 2005

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BROTHER ANSGAR The Procurator and the Money Mongers

Christian teaching was never fond of money. The expulsion of the money mongers by Jesus set a first example of this attitude. Money and religion do not form easy company anyway, but in Christianity it means trouble. St Paul was the first to feel it. His collection for the poor of Jerusalem raised suspicion and he had to defend himself. On the other hand these early examples tell us that social welfare will not be available without some cash. So what do we do? Being the procurator of a missionary congregation, I have to make sure our social activities can be financed and that the pastoral work continues without interruption. The good news means: The blind will see, the lame will walk and the poor will hear the message. If this becomes true, people with money will be ready to share their wealth with those who have less than they have. This is a good and accepted Christian principle. However this is not as easy as it sounds. For how can this sharing be organised? There must be Christians who are ready to deal with money professionally. Procurators like me belong to this group of people. Proper administration also means to use the law of the market, to assess the need of the recipients and to control the use of donated money. This creates the impression that a procurator is a money man. He has the power of saying yes or no. He is exposed to suspicion and jealousy. Sometimes I feel that there is not much help and advice in the gospel about how to deal with money. Christian tradition though has developed some ideas during the centuries of church history. The religious orders especially wrote down rules and regulations for how an attitude to-

wards wealth should be developed. St Benedict was one of the first to give a concept of community property. For him a monk must not own anything, but the community can do so. The combination of biblical virtues and the practical experience in history is my guideline for how to deal with money. First I should be independent of money. That means my actions should not be ruled by money, but by Christian values. I give a very simple example. Somebody would like to give me a donation. He tells me that he can only visit me during the hour of prayer. Then I will tell him to visit me at another time of the day. Our prayer life should not be ruled by money, even if it is for the benefit of the poor. I think this is what so enraged Jesus: the services of GOD were mixed up with money. We as men religious should be aware of this temptation that the work for the poor may outshine the service for GOD. The other way round is as bad if religious worship is used for accumulating wealth. Many shrines are corrupted by greedy tradespeople who use the naivety of the faithful to get money. In such circumstances Jesus could come again and act as he did in the temple. I have to deal with big sums of money and I often feel the power of it. Whenever I enter a bank I am treated as a rich cutomer although nothing belongs to me. Gifts are offered, invitations given and flattering words are in the air. I can overcome these temptations only by an active spiritual life. I am never sure of myself and try to be as correct as possible. Yet the doubts of failure stay. The expression on my face in the painting reflects these doubts very well. As a Christian, as a monk dealing with money, I never know whether my actions are not spoilt by my own self deceit or hunger for power. Somehow I even feel some sympathy for the money mongers. Dont they have children to feed? Were they not forced to look for means to 145

survive? What actually did they do wrong? Their example shows me that even the approval of religious authority is no guarantee for correct actions. I have to develop my own consciousness and readjust it now and then. My human weakness depends on prayer and

the solidarity of my fellow Christians. Only in active community life I may act as Jesus wanted me to do.

Benedictine Monastery of St Ottilien, Bavaria

May 2006

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THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM month: January

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Principal Portrait: Orii Ishizuka

The piazza of Saint Ottilien has the character of a small city centre - perhaps in northern Italy. This composition is divided horizontally across its centre. The lower half contains the crowd welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem. However, this is the identical crowd which would later shout, Crucify him! The upper half is ominously unwelcoming. The moon wanes. A dark sky of brooding blue devours bare trees seen as spiders webs against the tented roof of the monastic Porters Lodge and the searchlight of a helicopter seeking this revolutionary man Christ. This dangerous Messiah, this Jesus whose persuasive teaching proclaims human equality and spiritual purpose. The crowd comprises students from St. Ottiliens Rhabanus Maurus Gymnasium, monks and other adults all of whom I will now endeavour to indentify. On the left are Ludwig Mert and Markus - brother to Martin Mayr earlier drawn playing saxophone. Ludwig and Markus are the DVD filmmakers who are recording these paintings. Greeting Christ is Saint Ottiliens porter Brother Almerick. Do you require a room for the night, Jesus? he might be asking. Then left to right along the back row: Ann-Sophie Neumann is waving a little nervously - perhaps she cannot believe this really is the Jesus Christ shed heard so much of; Pater Eduardo was painted in Rome, this canvas transported there with The Annunciations. You may detect a different light to his face - it is Roman rather than Bavarian! From Rabanal, his handsomely bearded Spanish compatriot Juan Antonio is next. Then Pater Siegfried - librarian to the impressive bibliotek and creator of the monasterys interactive Website. Blonde Heidi who is a supervisor in the Retreat House. Brother Kornelius - director of Saint Ottiliens Fair Trade import business. Thomas Hoch has already been mentioned in my Introduction. Andreas Janikowsys words follow soon. From the 150

bookshop, and, like Andreas, a monastic oblate, Frau Lenz - whose sister is a Benedictine nun in Northern Germany. Between Andreas and Frau Lenz is Brother Marianus. Second row from the left: Julian Rind earnestly reaches towards Christ - transferring to the Messiahs receiving fingers a drop of Holy Water. This is an intimate Benedictine ritual. Moreover: Julians father is a Luftwaffe helicopter pilot whose Leonado da Vincis flying machine often passes over Saint Ottilien on its way to Landsbergs military airport. And even moreso: some years ago, Julians father was seconded, with his family, to a Royal Air Force air sea rescue station at Boulmer, on the Northumberland coast in Northeastern England. As it happens, I live only half an hours drive from Boulmer. Consequently I think that Julian knows as much about my region of England as I do... and probably more about my home city of Newcastle upon Tyne and its famous football club, too! One final reason for the helicopter in the top right corner has, of course, nothing whatever to do with Julian or his father. It is that this Christ is a pacific troublemaker. With his ideas of compassionate equality he represents an overthrow of dictatorial tyranny, of the oppression of an individuals freedom of belief. In the blackness of a cold January night, the predatory beam of the State attempts to locate and keep track of this revolutionary voice. Over his blood red top Christ wears a backpack similar to many owned by gymnasium students. Purchased from department stores in Munich, they bear the trade label 4 YOU. As you view the painting, consider that Christ is truly coming to Jerusalem - FOR YOU? Vividly black-haired Tanja Maier converses with Sara Hppner in her rainbow sweater, and blonde Tanja de Wever, notices out of the corner of her eye that something important is happening. Then white-tennis-banded Lukas Wille lost in far-away thought. Esther Joas. I met Esther when she was a fluent English-speaking final-year

Gymnasium student who generously volunteered to effortlessly translate Deutsche documents and letters for me. As she departs the picture, not only are she and partner Alex now my friends, but Esther is mother to tiny but delicately wonderful Julius Emmanual - all of five-months old. Last Sunday I was invited to Julius Emmanuals baptism not far away by train at picturesque Utting on Ammersee, spacious lake with passenger paddle boats and steamers, with the numerous white sails of yachts making trim patterns on its azure vastness. In the verdant church garden, a panoply of flowers, families, and friends. Good things to eat and drink and, kind to old Carl, much English spoken. Social and personal happiness unreserved. A truly perfect, a truly flawless day. Esther Joass words will follow. Right of Orii Ishizuka are black-quiffed Stefan Ullmann and blonde Klemens Zernikow almost hidden in the throng. Above-left of Orii, Sunita Nitschke strives for a better view of Christ arriving - perhaps Sunita knows this visitor is special. And, in the middle foreground is Thomas Tieschiky... and another mini-tale! When Thomas first came to my studio for this portrait, I had already made an ink drawing of him in school in the same context as others earlier reproduced here. I explained that I wished to paint him standing, waiting to give Jesus a welcoming present. Two sessions later the head-shoulders-portrait was done - but lacking hands and gift. I asked Thomas to go away and consider what he might wish to give to Jesus - that it would be his decision and not mine. Off he went. I suppose I half-expected him to choose a FIFA black and white football or a pizza or a bottle of Coke or lemonade or something boyish. Several days later, when he returned, Thomas said quietly, The Holy Grail. Im sure I gawked at him in surprise. Have you seen the Indiana Jones films?, he asked. Still dumb

with surprise, I nod my head. Well you know the last one where Harrison Ford has to cross a Bridge of Faith? Another nod. And he throws dust on the Bridge so he can see it and goes into that cave where theres an old knight guarding lots of expensive goblets and things? I actually manage a Yes. His enthusiam mounting, Thomas continues, And to save his Dads life, he has to choose which is the real Holy Grail, and its that small plain one at the back? Well, thats what I want to give Jesus... a pause, ... Is that OK? Deeply touched, I look at Thomas. Is it OK, is it OK? Thomas its wonderful, absolutely wonderful! Thank you for thinking so carefully about this. Its really great, thanks again! Gerhard, Thomass father, brought to my studio the locally-crafted blue goblet which I painted as held by Thomas. When the portrait was finished, I was honoured to be presented with the goblet by the Tieschikys as a thank you for painting their son. All in all, I think, a delightful little story: I hope you share my opinion.

The principal portrait is Orii McDermott (ne Ishizuka). You will recall that on the upright piano in Christ in His Fathers Workshop is sheet music, an opened score. It is the first page of Robert Schumanns Phantasie in C op 17 probably his greatest work for solo piano. This commemorates a recital which Orii bravely gave during the war in Gracanica - a bombarded town in northern Bosnia . The concluding piece in her recital was the Schumann Phantasie. As performed by Orii in those adverse circumstances, the Phantasies final movement did indeed feel like an entry into some mysteriously sublime Jerusalem. Following Oriis own thoughts concerning her principal portrait in this painting, I recount the story of that epic piano recital in Gracanica.

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Orii Ishizuka with her nearly finished portrait in The Entry Into Jerusalem

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ORII McDERMOTT - ISHIZUKA Carl Lazzari - an artist who sees music

Carls passion for music was the impulse that started our unique friendship. Since 1989 he was a regular presence in the Music Department at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. He sat quietly but attentively at the front of Kings Hall drawing professional musicians and music students alike on his trademark black paper sketchbook. His drawings were often produced in the heat of rehearsals and concerts, capturing the tensions of musicians at work. What was always prominent in those drawings was Carls passion for live music. As a first year, Japanese, music student, I struggled, communicating through a second language. However, Carl has always encouraged me to let my piano playing speak for me, and helped to provide me with opportunities to perform, whether in the country houses of Northeast Eng-

land, or bombed cinema halls of Bosnia. This meant more for me than mere peer support in difficult times, and I am very grateful for his continuous trust in my musicianship (and for keeping his eye on my practising!). My invitation to St Ottiliens monastery to sit for Carl involved a Bosnian Memorial piano recital in the Rittersaal, but it was also a special occasion for me. To experience the Benedictine spirituality with St Ottiliens community and with my husband Samus, even if only for a few days, was both rewarding and humbling. To be part of such a unique commission illustrating the life of Jesus and the St Ottilien community through the work of Carl and his art is one I shall always cherish for the profound memories it rekindles. As I speak through the piano, Carl sings with colour.

London, England March 2006

The Entry Into Jerusalem - the beginnings... 154

... later developing with Oriis portrait and also those of Thomas, Julian, and Tanja.

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ESTHER JOAS Dedicated to Carl

Its all about trust. As one whos being painted I have to trust myself to be myself, to feel confident about the way I appear, and the way I pose. I have to be able to tolerate the painters piercing look that rips off any kind of protecting mask and leaves nothing but my blank self. I can almost feel how the mask dismantles - it dangles from my face.

In order to open myself that much to a painter, it is crucial to trust him. Trust that he accepts me the way I am and trust that he will not make vulnerable my blank self. A highly concentrated and sensible atmosphere fills the room. I can almost see the waves of thoughts and feelings between the painter and me and between the painter and his painting. What an experience!

Hofstetten, Bavaria

November 2003

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BEYOND THE RIVER SAVA

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There was no moon. It was well after midnight. Orii, Peter, and myself, watched the lights of a great timber vehicle-raft creeping slowly on an enormous hawser cable strung across the River Sava. It was coming only for us. There was nobody else about, for it was long after a ten oclock curfew. Now that the only road bridge had recently been destroyed by Serbian artillery, there was no other means of crossing this wide eastern border between Bosnia and Croatia. Following repeated flashings of our vehicles headlamps, in the darkness signalling our presence, we now waited by Peters minibus in which, earlier that same night, wed nearly died in the Sava. Peter and I were bringing my friend and colleague, Orii, from Zagreb Airport on an arduous seventeen-hour return journey to the small town of Gracanica near Tuzla in Northern Bosnia. We were exhausted and not a little anxious. In particular, Orii had just flown from Tokyo to Heathrow, London, where, almost instantly, she had boarded a flight to Zagreb. Although the Dayton Peace Talks were planned to commence soon, the Bosnian War was yet a terrible reality with, in particular, the Croatian Army in sporadic thrusts attempting to reclaim territories it had lost to resisting Serbian and Bosnian Serb Forces. Fortunately for us it seemed, this action was mainly in and around Bihac to the west. However, in reality the entire country was, in a military context, unpredictable, volatile, and desperately unsafe. Peter and I had half-expected the Sava raft not to be ferrying after curfew. But here it was slowly approaching to collect us, to land us in what was then commonly known as The Federation Territory. This was a supposedly safe corridor for road transport from the Sava into northern Bosnia. It was guarded by American troops who had recently come into ex-Jugoslavia to join the UN International Peace-keeping Force - IFOR now redesignated as SFOR. Nevertheless, in this area there had been a number of hi-

jackings and indiscriminate killings perpetrated by local warlords. Hence the shared anxiety of Peter and me. Peter was here for the first time. This was my third of five Bosnian Aid missions attempting to assist the conflicts dispossessed refugees and orphaned children. Peter climbed wearily into the drivers seat and waited. He and I had shared the driving - it was now again his turn. Orii and I stood side by side in the night. She said to me in a whisper, Look at the stars, Carl. They are so beautiful. If I reach up with my hand, I could pluck one... And as she spoke there was that characteristic, so-brief, etched trail of a shooting star away off to the left. Yes, I said, also in a whisper, They are truly beautiful tonight... like in Africa. Half an hour later we were climbing a steep, semi-crumbling slope from the landing jetty and moving off along an absolutely deserted road. Because of the ever-present danger of land and anti-personnel mines, Peter drove a central line well away from grass verges. After a couple of kilometres we neared the down-shaded floodlights of the first checkpoint, approached, as always, along an artificially slalomed lane between obtruding low concrete blocks necessitating not only a severe decrease in speed but, every few metres, zig-zag steering as well... all the time nearing the ominous gunbarrel of a tank positioned to command all oncoming traffic. Even in the dark we were aware of our curiosity value - a solitary vehicle travelling in contravention of the civil curfew, moreover, a British registration-plated minibus emblazoned with OXFORD UNIVERSITY - ROMAN CATHOLIC CHAPLAIN. All three of us were in the front bench seat: Peter driving, Orii in the middle, myself passenger side. The minibus stopped and was approached by two US Marines - both heavily armed. The black officer who, to my tired eyes, seemed about eight feet tall with the Lawrence Taylor159

build of a top linebacker, inclined towards me as I wound down the door window. Hello, I said, ... may I introduce Peter, at the wheel, who is the Roman Catholic Chaplain to Oxford University; and, I continued, indicating the Oriental member of our trio, ... here is Orii, who is a Japanese concert pianist from Tokyo due to give a recital in Gracanica next weekend; and my names Carl - Im an artist, a painter from Newcastle upon Tyne in Northeast England. There was silence. My! said the officer, his white teeth shining as he smiled. My, my! he repeated as he passed our proffered passports for inspection by his subordinate . We had a serious accident, I continued, ... nearly a catastrophe, on the way back from Zagreb. Wed collected Orii at the airport. Were many hours behind timetable rejoining our Magdalen College Aid group. Theyll be very worried. Theyre in Gracanica. Thats where were heading, but we obviously need your advice on what to do now. We could sleep here in the vehicle... inside or outside your compound - if you think thats the safest thing to do? The officer straightened. Sir, our job is to keep this road open. I dont know about curfews. They are a matter for the civil authorities. Youll know that we have SFOR checkpoints at regular intervals along this road. I figure the last one is pretty close to Gracanica. Peter, there, you drive off along this road right now. I will ring the next checkpoint. They will watch out for you, meet and identify you, then pass you onward, and so on along this road. Well hand you on from checkpoint to checkpoint. He leaned almost through the open window, returning the passports as he surveyed our trio. And, he added, smiling even more broadly, ... because I do not intend to lose such an unusual group of people as yourselves, if you dont arrive safely at any of our checkpoints... He stepped back, a darker tone to his voice, If you dont arrive, I guess well start this damn war all over again! OK? Off you go... Peter fired the engine. As we moved away into the darkness the Marine 160

officer called, If you have any bother with local police about this curfew, tell them to ring us... and... from an increasing distance,... good luck with your music concert, Japanese lady... We reached Gracanica without further mishap although in a state of total collapse - Peter and I moreso it seemed than Orii, whose calm, unflappable demeanour hardly betrayed the truth of her having travelled non-stop for more than twice as long as her male companions. And Orii it was who one week later gave perhaps Gracanicas initial piano recital. The performance took place in the damaged cinema hall. Orii played Bach, Brahms, Ravel, and Schumann on a badly-used, horrendously out-of-tune upright piano - one of only two remaining in the bombarded town. This piano had been pushed on its three remaining castors, even at times virtually carried, by half a dozen fit men and unfit me from one side of Gracanica to the other. During the intervening days, Orii had become a celebrity, a kind of film star for a community which had never before actually seen any person from the Far East least of all this beautiful young Japanese woman. Following a days work when many citizens gathered for black Turkish coffees or cheap local brandy at either of two streetside cafs on Gracanicas short main avenue, the older teenage girls vied to sit at Oriis table - to be a sharing party to her foreign glamour. I suspected the few remaining young Bosnian men also wished to do so but were too nervous and uncertain. And now, now on that Saturday early evening, as advertized on scores of quickly-produced, and by voluntary runners widely-dispersed handbills, here was Orii Ishizuka from Japan, wearing her elegantly long and formal concert gown brought from Tokyo, sitting at the - better tuned-by-her - unexeptional piano, playing Johann Sebastian Bach. I have in my possession black and white

photographs of the towns devastation caused by enemy artillery in the surrounding mountains. Somewhere also on file I have a black and white photograph of the dead bodies of townsfolk laid out on the floor of Gracanicas mosque - the communitys only large, unfurnished, interior floorspace. These people had suffered the tribulations of war. They were now listening to a musician who had come risking danger, indeed her life, solely to create living music for them; a young woman who had given concerts on the finest Steinway grands in great halls in Tokyo and London who was here with them in their adversity; an Oriental pianist who wished to give the only gift of spiritual succour she could offer - her playing of music. Most of the compositions performed had been selected by Orii for their visual associations, as for instance Ravels Une Barque sur lOcan. Immediately before each piece, one of Oriis devoted admirers who was skilled in English as well as fluent in her own Serbo-Croat stood proudly on the concert platform informing the audience in translation of Oriis description of the imminent work. But the concluding piece, Schumanns Phantasie in C, op 17 - also from visual origins... this I knew she had prepared especially for the Gracanica recital. For only six brief months Orii had intensely studied and learned note by note, bar by bar, movement by movement, repeatedly practising,

rehearsing, reshaping, and thence resolving daily her interpretation of this formidably difficult yet consummate masterpiece; in my opinion, perhaps Schumanns greatest for solo piano. As Orii began the Phantasies opening movement, that simple yet heroically affirmative descending tenor theme with its rippling bass accompaniment, I was not the only person shedding a tear in her audience. And when, eventually, the slowly benign and spiritually-blessed conclusion came both to this work and to Oriis entire recital on an appallingly inferior piano in, by killing seige, a partiallyruined building in a ravaged Bosnian town, for divinely golden moments it felt as if, in some timeless Benediction, there had never been a war at all. Carl Lazzari of one brave musician who is my lifetimes friend 18/27 October 2002

(My heading picture of the Sava raft coming to ferry us into Bosnia was, on a very basic painting software programme, computer-mouse-drawn from memory and also, in my drawing book, from random, descriptive words scribbled a few days after Oriis recital.)

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ANDREAS JANIKOWSKi Benedictine Oblate, Monastery Bookstore Employee, Photographer

There are more people who get painted than who paint. Therefore few who get painted are ever asked to write about their experience and it is impossible to write vicariously for everyone, because every picture, every painter, and every painted person is unique and always has a partially unknown history. The word for art in German (Kunst) is derived from the word for ability (Knnen). Carl Lazzari stands in the tradition of artists with the ability to paint people who are recognizable as such, which is important for the common understanding of arts goal. The Passion of Christ appeared to me from the beginning to be a good idea: Carl planned to transpose the chaotically decisive event to our time, before the door of our housethe painful belligerence to this monastery of St. Ottilien which is so dear to us. The works of Lazzari which I had known up until that point caused me to expect something great. Carl Lazzari placed me in the painting of Christs Entrance into Jerusalem amidst the waiting crowd in the Ottilien church plaza, because I would definitely have tried to capture that historic moment from the perspective of those observers. Therefore, I had to model for him with my camera while looking at several already-painted faces around me, some whom I knew and some whom I didnt. In the painting I was surrounded mostly by students, by people all awaiting the same thing: by people like me except that they were very young. Now and then a glance into Carls familiar face, now complete introversion without conversationthen it dawned on me that I now belonged to the category older people. How was I to understand that? I realized for that all my life I had lived with older people who had more experience and perspective that I, this began with my grandfather, continued with my teachers, and now includes the old and older monks. Carl Lazzari was harder to categorize: on the one hand he seemed calm under-

standing, and elder, on the other curious, agile, and young. Inspired by the biblical painting, I pondered in which period of history I was living. I can somewhat imagine the last 150 years, but the Middle Ages and New Testament Era require more effort of our imaginative powers, because they lie much farther back in time. Carl Lazzaris transposition of back then into today seems to me an appropriate and fresh way to stimulate new contemplation of the event. We are living in one window of history which reflects certain things, just as other windows have done, and part of what comes out of the mixture are these twelve paintings. No, Carl does not appear to typical people as a conventional, older man, and older men are not necessarily wise. Lazzari however is wise and also generous, understanding, and tolerant. One really notices this when he talks about the fate of humanity, especially of the children in Tschernobl or the Yugoslavian war orphans. Because of his family and life history, he personifies for me Wise Old Europe that free Europe of the 60s and 70s that openly and enthusiastically stood up for the freedom of every single person, even when this seemed hardly possible. Today the world has completely changed. Economic factors seem to dictate everything, and no longer those humanistic ideals. What, however, can point us in the right direction when not these ideals? Carl Lazzari is a natural and sweet person who doesnt come from any theological art school, so his pictures can speak afresh and give us hope that there will always be prophetic voices and warnings, which cry out to heaven against avoidable suffering. Punitive laws are obviously the worst way to effect change. Prophetic artworks, though, can communicate insight on the emotional level and perhaps more deeply influence the future, than stricter legislation. In the sacred scriptures and in Biblical art, I often notice those quiet and humble characters appearing at the periphery and having a completely trusting attitude toward God. I think that these are the real bearers, practitioners, and spreaders of the Faith. In the New Testament are sev163

eral ever-present as well as several fleeting characters who appear along the Lords way as quiet, stable companions: from Mary and Joseph through Elizabeth and Zacharia, the Apostles and Disciples, Veronica and finally at the end of the passion to Joseph of Arimathae. They all must have been filled by the radiance of Christs wisdom and goodness so that they put themselves completely and spontaneously, often at great risk, at his service. In Lazzaris paintings one rediscovers flashes of that kind of biblical passion in earthly everyday people. Our painter has been a part of the St. Ottilien routine for several years. In his quiet way he has celebrated countless divine offices, let himself be informed about happenings of the monastery with quiet reserve, and offered his reflections on St. Ottilien to those who might be interested in his perspective. We have a good life here in the shadow of the monastery. All of us who work here at St. Ottilien are a big family. Carl Lazzari is a quiet member of that family along with the many Ottilien monks, employees, and students. He has an understanding manner which makes it easy for people to become comfortable with him. So it was with me: already during his second visit to the archabbey, our friendship began. What distinguishes the painter from the photographer? The painter paints an optical likeness of a person or an object, but also paints beyond that pure optical image a background and impressions: he can convey to the art-sensitive human deep connections. The photographer takes the same objective photographically-scientifically object, and captures a moments image. He can include accessory images and try to capture romantically-idyllic or crassly overstated situations. But the painter composes. Only seldom does the photographer succeed in satisfactorily capturing more than a split second of meaning, for his instrument is too technical, and considered too manipulation-proneespecially with the development of digital photography. The photographer encounters criticism and skepticism about his authenticity, while the painter is met 164

with a more understanding eye. The painter can depict the entire Middle Ages, bring to expression lyrical glory next to the slaughter of knights in battle, and all this together in one picture! Sculptors have similar possibilities. Their manipulations are considered style and can be more or less obvious. It is considered somehow honest for them, and the contemplative even seeks to ponder their manipulations. I once encountered a very honest painter on the Russian hill in Geltendorf. Bicycle and empty wine bottle lay in the grass, the painter nearby. He must get sober for the street traffic portion of his trip home, he said. He travelled once a year here in order to drink in the view of St. Ottilien and the Alps and sought out a day with a certain sunset. As a painter he must once in a while tank up on images and impressions; he didnt get rich, because he painted only Bavarian genre paintings for parlors, restaurants or clubhouses. He was, however, not unhappy with that, otherwise such painting would have been impossible. You must paint what people will buy. That clarified to me the until-then hidden meaning of some artworks. I departed with my camera. Both, the laborious painter just like the photographer, have the joy of seeing, capturing, forming the public eye for the things and situations of the everyday as well as the unusual. Carl Lazzaris series spans a period of 2000 years, a not-exclusively European geography, and the last picture blows even those limits away. These are pictures impossible for even the cleverest photographer. They arise from an attention to ideas and their importance. Not least, the Ottilien book store made its contribution to the depth of meaning and the success of the pictures. When Carl is not at St. Ottilien, the sale of our red wine will diminish somewhat. Wine, as a biblical as well as European elixir of life, goes so well with the existing paintings. There are future classics among us. Blessed are they who can already recognize them! We can be grateful to Archabbot Jeremias for making Carl Lazzaris way to St. Ottilien possible.

THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN month: February

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The national flag of ancient Bosnia - drifting neglected in European ice

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Principal Portraits: Ivo and Margharita Bakula

A picture expressly about Bosnia - of that murderous Bosnian War. For generations people from all over Europe holidayed in Jugoslavia, enjoying its welcoming diversity, its scenery, culture, music, food, and wine. It was indeed a Garden of Europe. And then the war which destroyed everything, terminating, perhaps forever, a religious and ethnic equilibrium which had been long-maintained. Truly an Agony. The scene of my painting is the small lake adjacent to the Gymnasium. It is winters adversity. There are no leaves, no flowers, no birdsong. There is no warmth, trust, or comfort. It is a landscape of total denial. On the island of Bosnias garden, Christ is in agony - down on his hands and knees in the snow. In icy water the Bosnian flag is half submerged. At the other end of the island is an anonymous Benedictine monk who stands aloof as if wilfully denying both the presence and the ordeal of his Master... as thrice did Saint Peter himself. The principal portraits are Ivo and Margharita Bakula - refugees fled from Sarajevo. They lost everything. Yet as a caring dimension of this Benedictine missionary monastery of Saint Ottilien, they were both temporarily domiciled here. It was my privilege to paint their marital dualportrait. I am grateful that, surely in painful stress, Ivo and Margharita have written their own words for this RESURRECTION Handbook.

The Agony beginning

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Ivo and Margharita Bakula in my studio at the end of their final combined portrait session.

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IVO AND MARGHARITA BAKULA

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IVO AND MARGHARITA BAKULA This Monastery was our Salvation

The war was so terrible that we do not want to think about itonly forget. Otherwise the nightmares come back. Better to forget it. We lost everything. Everything. Ivo had lost 20 kilos. He was just a nose on a bag of bones. We escaped Serjievo and stayed in Croatia for several months. Noodles to eat: pasta, pasta, pasta. Then a Caritas bus was going to Germany and we got on it. It came to Munich. We were there in a church with all the other people, the refugees, and everyone was being taken to places to stay. We did not speak German, so we just stood there as the crowd kept getting thinner. Then a priest came up to us and said we could go with him. It was Fr. Claudius, the prior of St. Ottilien. He asked, Where are your bags...your things? We had only the clothes we were wearing. Everything else gone. He took us with a couple of others to St. Ottilien. We ate in the old dining room in the guest wing of the monastery. Schnitzel, potatoes, vegetables...oh my the food! It was so wonderful. Archabbot Notker came to the dining room, this elegant man with a pectoral cross, and welcomed everybody individually. He was so hospitable. The prior said to Ivo, Br. Aurelian will give you clothes, so he went to the tailor shop where the monks get their clothes. They didnt have womens clothes, though. We stayed in the retreat house for a long timein separate rooms. Then we got to move over to this apartment. It was so wonderful. Margharita cried and cried, and Fr. Claudius kept asking, What is wrong? It was simply so wonderful that we couldnt believe it.

Br. Markus, the subprior, was amazingly kind. He was simply an amazing mana heavy equipment mechanic, and the boss of everyone who worked for the monastery. He noticed everything, all the details everywhere; made sure everything got done, but loved life, too. His mechanic garage was the cultural center of St. Ottilien: always cars parked there, people visiting, he was simply wonderful. He would help anybody in need, anybody, and was so easy to talk to. But not just the prior, subprior, and archabbot: everyone was so kind and so helpful. St. Ottilien was our saviour. We dont know what we would have done otherwise. We were always religious Catholics, and God somehow got us to this placea monastery. It is a miracle. These monks are very good people, truly Christian. Br. Markus became like a brother to us. His real brother, Br. Richard, is also a monk here, and they have a sister who is a nun, too. After Br. Markus found out that he had cancer, we spent even more time with him. Ivo would drive him to his chemotherapy. His last week we were at the hospital with him. He was so skinny, but still the same as ever. He said, God must need a repairman. I shall have to pack my toolbox and get ready to go. When he died, we were there with him and Br. Richard and their sister. It was such a sacred event. We can relate to the Jesus in this painting because of our own suffering. And we know that the monks here are willing to help people who are suffering. This monastery was our salvation when there was nowhere to turn.

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THE CRUCIFIXION month: March

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The Crucifixion - early days.

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Principal Portrait: Krdzic Munelera

Location: the monastic cemetary, the Friedhof Sankt Ottilien. It is truly Golgotha - the place of bones. During March 2003, from a position across the railway stations road, I carefully evaluated its topography, its elevation, its trees. Here, now, in the painting, at the precise moment of Christs tortured physical demise, as though by a haloed satellite dish, there is an intense accumulation of Cosmic Light... Heavens Fireball. Resurrection is in the offing... Always, there must be hope. As monks come in procession to their cemetary, pear flowers bloom in espaliers around the elevated south-facing Refectory windows. From Winter comes Spring. From Death comes forth Life. Honey from the lion. Always hope: men, women and children who suffered obscene abominations have taught me - always to hope... The principal portrait is a Bosnian Muslim girl, Krdzic Munelera who, in 1995, was drawn by me in the refugee village of Doborovci near Tuzla. In the absence of Munelera herself, that drawing is this principal portrait. Albeit faith-

ful to my original lines and her name written by her own hand, it is deliberately painterly rather than being simply an imitative replica of a pen drawing. Despite assistance from two officers in German Military Intelligence - who had served in Bosnia, and one of the principal portraits, together with my own direct contacts with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, it has not been possible to rediscover Munelera, or even to ascertain that she is alive. As yet unpublished, my autobiographical story of the Bosnian War, the novel To The Incarnate Rose, is partly dedicated to waiflike and gentle Munelera, a young girl who fled bewildered from Srebrenica. In the novels Foreword I promise to find her again: O Munelera, I am, I am still trying to find you. The novel describes my two meetings with Munelera at Doborovci - our simple joy shared: our anguish shared eternally. Only weeks ago new Bosnian friends of mine contacted a Mothers Association as part of my, now our, continuing endeavours to discover Munelera somewhere still alive and well. Krdzic is a very common family name. But, always, there must be hope: even in a savagely barbaric crucifixion, surely hope?

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On this brief drawing made in 1995 in the refugee village of Doborovci, at my accustomed request, endearingly gentle Munelera wrote her name clearly and carefully in her own hand

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Flowers of The Crucifixion.

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Drawing a war-crippled patriarch in the refugee village of Doborovci. There were few men. We had just distributed assorted sweets to the children. The girl in pink blowing bubblegum, summarises for me, lifes bitter comedy. My sincere apology to whichever unidentified Oxford University colleague took this photograph.

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In a Benedictine painting studio: The Crucifixion and myself. Photograph by Andreas Janikowski

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KRDZIC MUNELERA written for her in sadness by Carl Lazzari

During 1996, with Oxford and American University colleagues, I was based in the small Bosnian town of Gracanica not far from Tuzla. This Anglo/American expedition was organized and led by Catherine Stewart of The Baptism. In 1996 the war was nominally ended. Yet the country remained broken and destroyed. Despite the peacekeeping presence of United Nations troops, pay-back murders were commonplace, and daily, undetectable plastic antipersonnel mines continued wars killing and maiming. I possess a large official military map of Bosnia given me by a British IFOR intelligence officer. It is a charting of the known and identified minefields. It is hard to believe that so much of an entire country could be patterned by irregular areas of diagonal red lines. In their own nation of birth thousands of totally dispossessed people, in ruthless ethnic division, huddled in often terrible camps and inadequate makeshift accommodation. Widowed mothers became prostitutes to feed their children. Teenage boys and girls, enforced drug addicts, were shipped out of the country into terminally-short, unspeakable existances as sex-slaves in the international market. All over Bosnia families had been reduced by killing, many hundreds of families eradicated entirely. This is a brief contextual background for the story of Krdzic Munelera. Virtually every day, from Gracanica, in one or both of our minibuses, we would slowly drive an unsafe winding mountain road cratered by artillery fire. In this densely forested valley our destination was the refugee village of Doborovci. With its Scandinavian-style chalets nestling amongst tall trees thinning at the foot of a forested slope, this hamlet had been constructed by Norwegian engineers financed by their countrys Government. It was built to house victims of Srebrenica. Srebrenica - what a night-

mare word the name of that small southern town has become. In Europe it was the worst atrocity since WW2. Srebrenica... in 1995, eight thousand unarmed Muslim civilian men and boys were taken into the forest above the town and, as in a butchers yard, there they were slaughtered. Doborovci housed the inhabitants - mostly women and children - who had fled the horror of their homes in Srebrenica. There were a few men, but mostly maimed by war as in the preceding photograph. I had two usual locations for my work - ironically neither is shown in that photograph! The first was the laundry area. This was a clearing in the trees which was strung with lines. Here after washing, garments and assorted fabrics would be hung up to dry. Here also, on a group of fallen logs, and with their mornings task accomplished, the women would converse for an hour or so. Their children would play there too. It was a mini-society attempting to salvage, indeed to resurrect, fragments of simple normality from utter devastation. The women were relaxed and agreeable; the children unfrightened and at playful ease. It was a good environment in which to draw. In Doborovci there was one shop - emphatically nonScandinavian! It was actually a large wooden box the rear of which was grounded firmly on the hillside. Against the angled slope, to preserve a level interior floor, the front of the box was supported by timber columns. The front door was therefore rather high above ground level. This had required construction of a timber staircase of six steps to reach the small square landing immediately outside the door. Meagrely stocked with such as flour, sugar, salt, tinned goods, coffee, tea, dried milk, and cigarettes, the otherwise bare shop was effectively managed by Muratovic Smajo and his wife Alija - themselves refugees. As I write this my notes are in England: I may be wrong, but I seem to recollect some UN rationing system, perhaps by 183

coupons. Its now ten years ago. Im not sure. But certainly these fine people had neither money nor the means by which to earn it. Smajo, I think from an exploding grenade, had the most appalling permanent damage to his wrist - it seemed impossible that his hand was still able to function. A miracle? Id made drawings of both Smajo and Alija before it dawned upon me that their spartan and only shop would be my ideal second working place. In the shade inside the doorway. People passing in and out. A chair for me. Another one invitingly empty. Perhaps the shops trade would increase through the curiosity of villagers keen to see what the old Englishman was up to! So, as well as Im able in a storytellers narrative, I have now set the scene for that young Bosnian girl, the Krdzic Munelera of my memory-in-tears. After one long day at the washing area, Id nearly finished. I checked my watch. Half an hour before we departed for our frugal evening meal in Gracanica, and thereafter to our lodgings assorted! Also in Gracanica was the commercial photographer who possessed his towns only remaining functioning photocopier. Every night from my drawing book, in a financial agreement between us, I copied the days every drawing. Later that night I collated and personally signed with an added sentiment all those copies to be given to their sitters the very next day. But now, this Bosnian afternoon, I checked my watch again - less than half an hour... even twenty minutes. I was besieged, indeed encircled by young teenaged macho boys wishing me to draw them. Beyond the belligerent circus, I saw a girl standing isolated, a fairish-brown-haired girl standing alone and watching. Such a gentle girl... perhaps nine years old. She had such gentleness. In one of those inexplicable impromptu decisions made in life, I held high my drawing book, wiggled my right hand against its white page as if in the act of drawing, then invitingly ex184

tended that hand towards her with an encouraging smile, and thence back to the sheet of white paper. I bowed my head to her. Immediately the long-skirted girl responded and came towards me. Clearing a path through the youthful masculine tumult, I gallantly motioned her to sit. But, gently, almost impassively smiling, no, she wished to stand. And so I drew her - these too-quick penlines few, simple, and ordinary. And yet they possessively contain one of the profound Truths of my own lengthening life. As is my custom, our drawing completed, I asked her to pen on the drawing in her own hand her name. This young girl did so... simply and carefully... Krdzic Munelera. In sign language I explained about the photocopy Id make that evening which I would personally sign and give to her the next day. I was helped by two Muslim women whod already been given their own copies. Then I hurried away to our impatiently awaiting minibus. The following day Munelera didnt appear, either at the washing area or at the shop. When such happened, I had an arrangement with Smajo and Alija that any unclaimed drawing would be stored face down on a clean shelf behind the shops serving counter. Muneleras drawing was duly placed there. Clearly it was a natural pleasure for me to be able to give my drawing to its recipient. But if that could not be, it was important, as soon as possible, to endorse trust in a promise given. I think it was probably a Thursday. Some of our group had to drive down to Sarajevo to make contact with an NGO - a humanitarian Non-Governmental Organization. We departed Friday, returned Tuesday. The following Wednesday afternoon Im drawing a teenage lad in the shop watched by a couple of customers. It is a blisteringly hot sunny day. As Im drawing, out of

the corner of my eye I detect a shadow in the doorways glare. I turn to see Munelera standing on the elevated landing. I smile in greeting. Also smiling, she responds by bowing her head. Soon my drawing is finished. One of the shoppers replaces the boy. During this change-over I look again in a friendly manner grinning at Munelera. She smiles. I notice shes wearing a gleaming white Tee shirt with a circular mandala-like pattern on the front, and a long dark blue skirt. I think, Shes wearing her best new clothes. Must be a special day for her. I do the body language bit - gripping a fold of my own Tee shirt and then shorts, pointing to her shirt and skirt with a thumbs up sign while nodding my appreciation. She smiles again. I commence the next drawing. Suddenly I feel a twinge of anxiety. Her signed copy... surely... its nearly a week since... I dart a glance at the passive girl standing in hot sunshine. Surely? Deliberately placing my open drawing book on the floor with my uncapped pen, I gesture to the sitter with upraised pacific palm and walk across to the wall shelves behind the counter. Four face-down drawings. At the bottom is Muneleras. Across the room I display the drawing to her. She positively beams in radiance - eagerly and repeatedly nodding her head. Beating my clenched fist againt my chest in what is certainly a universal gesture, I think how stupid I am not to have understood her silent presence. Out on the landing I give Munelera her drawing. Holding the A4 sheet in both hands she inspects it with a furious, dedicated concentration. Ten, twenty seconds pass by. The girl looks up at me and gravely bows her head. I watch her walk down three steps where she stops to study her drawing again. More seconds before another turn to me on the landing and, unsmiling, another very thoughtful bow of her head. Three more steps and shes standing on the hard earth path facing away from me. More silent scrutiny of the paper before she folds it very care-

fully, not in a damaging crease, but in a generous curve so that both ends can be held protectively between thumb and index finger of one hand. That intelligent task completed, Munelera turns to me. Her young face is serious maybe in introspection. Theres a pause before slowly and solemnly she bows from the waist. When she straightens, there is a faint smile at her mouth. Suddenly, Munelera pivots, throws her arms in the air and, in a state of obvious happiness, procedes to skip away up the path, her long skirt dancing as she does so. Her joyously animated figure disappears into the forest. I never saw her again. But, wait, this story is not yet finished. Two days later as I was preparing to return to England, the camp interpreter mentioned that Munelera had shown him her drawing with which she was so pleased. He thought it was great for her, and asked what I knew of her. Absolutely nothing at all, Id replied, except that she seemed a nice girl. He then told me what he knew of Munelera: that she had been one of an extended family clan of about fourteen - mother, father, brothers, sisters, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins; that all had been killed at different times and places during the war; that shed lived in Srebrenica with her father and remaining brother both of whom had died in that massacre; that now she had no living relatives, no blood kin. I was horrified. I later reflected on the evident joy my ordinary drawing had given young Munelera, and I wept - and have done so for ten years. O Munelera, please be alive and happy somewhere on this unjust planet. A large part of my lengthy college and university career as principal lecturer and head of department was wearily 185

spent on seemingly important committees and boards defending and upholding the worth of art education - indeed of art itself. I felt obliged to provide measured academic arguments together with extracted dimensions of cultural history. If then Id known what I do now, I would simply, again and again, have told the story of a young Muslim girl called Krdzic Munelera. The great Twelfth Century Benedictine abbess Hildegard of Bingen once famously described herself as, A feather on the breath of God. It is a phrase beautiful both in its humility and its stoic belief. With all my heart I wish that Muneleras Allah has breathed as kindly upon her.

(23 June 2006. A few hours ago Brother Otto and I happened to meet Margharita Bakula who reported that, a Krdzic Munelera had been traced to Switzerland, and she still had a sister living somewhere else. Is this the same Krdzic Munelera? Had the camp interpreter exaggerated my Munuleras tragic family circumstances? I do hope so. In a war there is confusion, making dispassionate objectivity almost impossible. In lifes uncertain turbulance is there a retrospective blessing? Yes, I hope so.)

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NINE DRAWINGS OF SAINT OTTILIEN (from many made in 1997)

Saint Ottiliens Benedictine monks in solemn procession entering their archabbey church for evening Vespers. 188

In 1998, on Benedictine pilgrimage, monks from Saint Ottilien at prayer in the German Chapel of the Vatican 189

During Orii Ishizukas Bosnian Memorial Piano Recital in the monasterys Rittersaal, Archabbot Jeremias Schroeder listens as she performs Schumanns Phantasie in C, op 17. 190

The colossal, almost cathedral-like silos of Saint Ottiliens farm. Between them - a lengthy and physically demanding agricultural stairway ascending slowly upwards to - birds flying wondrously free in... in Heaven? 191

Friendly 1395 posed so patiently for me as I made this study, which I thought was quite good. With dozens of my other drawings in diversity, the very next day, it was displayed on exhibition screens in the monasterys Bibliotek. Several weeks later, a diabolical monk - and yes there are a few! - asked if I had enjoyed my dinner. It was great - as always, I innocently replied. With a malevolent gleam in his eyes, he reparted, Quite right - we have just eaten your 1395! 192

Monks from Saint Ottilien celebrating Mass at Montecassino at the conclusion of their Benedictine pilgrimage. 193

The archabbey church of Saint Ottilien in penumbra. 194

Some of the bells of Saint Ottilien. 195

The spire of Saint Ottilien seen amidst autumns harvested fields. 196

THE RESURRECTION month: April

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Principal Portrait: Archabbot Jeremias Schroeder OSB

During 2001/2002, during a depressively low period in my personal life, as I strove to actively prepare and plan in England, my intention had always been to honour and portray Jeremias Schroeder in this final, culminating picture of the RESURRECTION series. It was impossible to contemplate any other individual concluding and passing onto our future this dynamic saga of Divinity. Around the portrait of Jeremias I had devised an abstract environment based on yellow - the colour of the sun, of golden tesseraed Byzantine Heavens, of all life itself. Then, returned to Bavaria, one afternoon browsing in Hugendubels superb international bookshop in Marienplatz and I discovered a book of American photographs of outer space. At one picture in particular I stared in wonder... and, at length, I considered. Days later, on a Friday as I recall, at Deeba, the splendid Pakistani restaurant on Barerstrasse, over a tasty lunch, I conversed with librarian and good friend Thomas Alf Hoch - portrayed in The Entry Into Jerusalem. I recounted my attraction to this surprising image. No problem, he repled. Later that afternoon especially for me Alf downloaded freely from the NASA website this print-photograph which completely transformed my semi-determined designs for this conclusive painting. My sincere thanks, Herr Hoch! In 1995, in the U.S.A., scientists at the University of Arizona processed digital data transmitted from a NASA space probe. They produced this extraordinary picture of three gaseous columns - each light-years tall, and located near where the Big Bang commenced at the centre of our universe. Light-years at the Beginning? Im definitely no scientist. A light-year... I cannot comprehend what a lightyear might be. But, apparently these columns are the essential creative stuff of matter from which stars are born... 200

and there are three of them. Three? A Trinity? Since the Industrial Revolution and the development of electronics and advanced medicine, it has often been stated that the worlds of religious belief and modern science are in antipathy. But this proposition is clearly untrue and untenable. Here in the final painting of this series, I relate and depict a most awesomely modern of scientific discoveries with its principal portrait of Jeremias Schroeder OSB - Archabbot of this great Benedictine monastery of Saint Ottilien and its international community. Two thousand years after the Crucifixion, Archabbot Jeremias and his congregation are leaders in the ever-onward worldwide mission of benevolent Christianity.

The Resurrection beginning before its major change of strategic character

Archabbot Jeremias Schroeder in my studio.

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ARCHABBOT JEREMIAS SCHROEDER OSB The Twelfth Picture

I am sitting in the twelfth picture of this series. The other pictures have a Bavarian flavour: nine are set in St. Ottilien, one in Tutzing. The twelfth goes beyond this. It shows three gaseous columns in the Aquila nebulae M16, some 70.000 Trillion kilometers away from Upper Bavaria. These columns give birth to new stars which is why they are also called the columns of creation. It is not easy to sit exposed like this. My foreground colleagues in the other pictures of this series have a background which is tangible and familiar, often charming. We can imagine how those scenes are full of the smell of the land and the season. In front of these nebulae, however, one is unprotected, without our usual comforts and assurances. The womb of creation is also an abyss. In the series of this St Ottilien Gospel this is Easter. We are used to very different images of Easter: the stone that has been removed from the empty tomb, a radiant and triumphant Risen Lord. With this picture Carl Lazzari reminds us of the space dynamics in the biblical account of the last days in the earthly life of Jesus. At the beginning there is the Last Supper in the upper room of a house in Jerusalem, a rather confined space. The setting then widens: the garden should be a walled place of peace and instead turns into the location of betrayal. From here the action moves on to the palace of Pilate where the trial is played out on a public stage. Society and state are present now. Good Friday is set on a hill: what will happen here is meant for everyone. The Fathers of the Church were moved by the thought that the beams of the cross aimed at every direction, piercing the worlds length and width, height and depth. The resurrection takes place during the middle of

the night. This is not only the hour of darkness; it is also the time when space becomes visible to us. During the day the atmosphere seals our horizon like a blue bowl. In the evening it becomes translucent: stars and galaxies appear as we try to grasp creation. The explosive dynamic of Easter is brought home when Christ breaks out from his tomb into the unfathomable expanse of space. In the foreground of this picture I feel like those dumb soldiers who are strewn across the resurrection images of the great Renaissance painters. These soldiers dont understand what is going on behind their backs; and how could they? It is my consolation that the resurrection involves all, even those who understood very little and maybe nothing at all. I do look somewhat longingly to those other pictures where the scenery is common and even homely: at the fruit basket which the Three Kings are offering, and at Astra, the monastery dog who wags a joyful tail when the Lord arrives. This Life of Jesus has taken on the flesh of St. Ottilien, it has become rooted here. But it did not let itself be reduced to our everyday horizon: it remains an irruption of the absolute into the life of the world. Even the unimaginable expanse of creation is small in front of the event of Golgotha and receives its light from the resurrection. This is the immodesty of the Christian Faith, and Carl Lazzari has shown it. Carl made me look to the right, and me alone. I appear not overwhelmed by the emptiness of space and the distance of the nebulae but rather receive and turn back all that has happened in those 11 previous images. Resurrection is not a fresh start, all new and breaking with the past. It is a relecture, completion and transformation of all that has gone before.

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Acknowledgements: to Jeremias Schroeder for his invitation to paint these pictures, and also for his Foreword to this Handbook. Pater Cyrill, Mother Irene Dabalus, Thomas Alf Hoch, Kenneth and Annette McConkey, and Sabine Riedelsberger are accordingly acknowledged elsewhere in the text. Individual photographers are appropriately credited - all other photographs are mine. Additionally, my thanks to: Sabina Alkire who, within some mysterious Destiny, ignited the flame for this searching pilgrimage; the diverse individuals who agreed to be portrayed, especially those living busy lives in other countries; everyone, especially a youngest-by-poem, who bravely responded with their own well-written thoughts for this book - thus creating a truly genuine collaboration in the name of Jesus Christ; my immediate if naturally separated adult family in England - wife Sheila, sons Christopher and Simon, and daughter Karen, who, by an immense measure, have defined who I am, and, though not directly involved, are nonetheless discretely inferred in one painting; Christiania Whitehead, in long-standing friendship, for patiently enduring many, too-long, confessorial letters recounting ad infinitum my good days and bad; master carpenter Brother Rupert and painter/restorer Brother Laurenz for their making of the twelve golden frames for these paintings; colleague-in-art Meister Karlheinz Kappl for his total

enthusiasm and celebratory evening Schnitzels; Brother Damian for happily permitting my sharing of his Schumachers Haus, and his neighbourly caring thereafter; Sigi and her sister Claudia in their cheerful, Latin Americanmusic-playing coffee shop where, though often it may not have appeared so, to the sweetly haunting voice of Mercedes Sosa I did much thoughtful planning, detailed writing, endless editing, and pitiless revising at that little corner table which briefly became Carls; designer Sonja Schindler for this books excellent graphic layout and production; Brigitte Mller for careful pictorial editing; indeed to Saint Ottiliens entire warmly hospitable monastic, Gymnasium, and lay communities; but finally, and above all, to American Brother Otto, subject daily to strict monastic discipline, yet whose judicious encouragement, skilled administrative organization, precise critical responses, and generously disposed good humour were invaluable. This was especially true during the occasionally fraught, often wearying, ever demanding final months of this Italianate-sounding, English painters Resurrection... in a Benedictine monastery... in Bavaria. Head bowed, I thank you all.

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CARL LAZZARI, N.D.D., A.R.C.A. born 1934 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England
An abbreviated professional Curriculum Vitae Education: Saint Bedes R.C. Primary School Saint Cuthberts R.C. Grammar School Sunderland College of Art 1951 - 1955 British Army 1955 - 1957 The Royal College of Art, London 1957 - 1960 Life-long painter and illustrator; writer; ex-concert keyboard musician; occasional performance artist specializing in the Dada poems of Kurt Schwitters and those of non-Dada Carl Lazzari; own poetry praised by published poets; assistant music therapist to severely handicapped children in a Special School; tutor to equally handicapped adults at a MacIntyre Care Centre; humanitarian aidworker in Bosnia, Croatia, and in post-Chernobyl Belarus; teacher and lecturer; university head of department; university external examiner and faculty senior examiner. In theatre: producer, director, and performer in several interactive audio-visual productions interrelating painting and music; artistic director and designer to the first performance of Charlotte Gunnerstad-Grahams chamber opera Herr Arnes Silver Ducats; artistic director to performances of Henry Purcells opera Dido and Aeneas conducted by Janie Beacon. Collaborations: with composers Steve Ingham and Roger Redgate 1990 - 1995 with Welsh composer Bronwyn Evans Five Pieces - performed 1995 with Japanese master painter/calligrapher Tetsuo Wada - Tokyo -1999

Performances: Kings Hall: with the Armstrong String Quartet, pianist in Mozarts Piano Quartet in G Minor - 1992 Gulbenkian Theatre: as painter on-stage improvising with English soprano Nicola Walker-Smith - 1994 Kings Hall: Poems Of Loss - personallyspoken presentations of my love poetry to music by Mahler, Ravel, and Webern - twice in 1995 In 1996 as the first ever artist-in-residence at the Royal College of Music in London, amongst my other predictable activities, I was honoured to be invited to direct and conduct two experimental workshops in creative musical composition, by myself decided, from visual sources. What a privilege to work with a group of the worlds most talented post-graduate soloists divided, quite naturally, into percussion, strings, woodwind, brass, and keyboards. We created extempore a three-movement symphonic piece derived from my projected photographic slides of colours, patterns, art, and the micro and macro natural world! It was a highlight of my professional artists life. All of us, our eyes and ears together tuned, flowing in these expressive rivers, somehow, striving for the unattainable Eden... we knew it was there - but could we reach it? Perhaps we came close. As a painter, I have twice been funded by the Arts Council of Great Britain via its regional associations. I have visited thirty-two countries in fourteen of which Ive drawn and worked-for-and-with their children. My paintings, drawings, and prints are in public and private collections in nineteen countries. Twenty-seven solo exhibitions. Other pictures exhibited? Too many to list - from The Royal Academy and The Mall Galleries in London, via The British Council in Hong Kong, to All Saints Anglican Church

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in the black township of Pampierstad in the Republic of South Africa. But surely, between you and me, all that matters is who we are today. Dusty medals commemorate only the past. They cannot guarantee a tomorrow which is something we must decide together. And for myself? If you are now looking at my pictures or reading my words - I can ask for no more than that.

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