Sacred light

After many years admiring the work of the Latin Mass Society from the far side of the Atlantic, I recently had the opportunity to complete watercolours of the Society’s patrons, St Margaret Clitherow and St Richard Gwyn, and of the patron of the Altar serving guild, St Tarcisius. All three were completed with Holbein watercolours on Arches 300lb hot press watercolour paper, and designed for reproduction on holy cards and other media.

Painting with watercolours is a bit like cooking an omelette—both come together quickly out of the simplest of ingredients, but success requires a good deal of practice, and not a little luck. Seconds differentiate a light and living mass from an overworked, stale one, and there’s really no way back from a mistake; one can only throw the failure out and try again.

Watercolours translate the shifting effects of light and shade especially well, which is why they are so often used for landscapes, but I think they are also well-suited to sacred portraits. There tends to be something sun-drenched and glorious about watercolours that conveys holiness and apotheosis. They also lend themselves to the exploitation of negative space—the parts of an image that are either not highly developed or left entirely blank. In a sacred portrait, this can serve to emphasise the subject’s otherworldliness, while also highlighting symbols that serve to identify the saint and situate him in the living history of art and devotion. I also find that watercolours generally, and the use of negative space in particular, reproduce well on holy cards.

Like most American Catholics, I’ve always been drawn to the English martyrs. Our own martyrs are mostly French and Spanish-born, so we sometimes feel closer to those who died for the Faith in England. At eighteen, I was fortunate enough to go on pilgrimage to London and Glastonbury. I still remember standing in St Thomas More’s cell in the Tower, hearing Mass in the ruins of the cathedral, and praying at the traffic circle where Tyburn tree once stood. Over the years I’ve had the chance to paint Saints John Fisher, Thomas More, Edmund Campion, and Robert Southwell. Now as a wife and mother I feel a special kinship with St Margaret Clitherow. I was grateful that an English mother of five from my parish agreed to model for the watercolour.

During my pilgrimage in England, the great Michael Davies was one of our tour guides. His strength and magnetic joy have always epitomized for me the Welsh soul. I thought of him especially while painting my not-quite-namesake St Richard Gwyn. Though I couldn’t find a Welshman, I did find a Richard to model—and one who had fond memories of growing up hearing Masses organised by the Latin Mass Society.

My model for St Tarcisius was an altar boy from my local ICKSP parish with a good Roman pedigree. The new image of St Tarcisius will be revealed in due course. I hope these watercolours of your heavenly patrons will remind you to seek their intercession and help you to imitate them in raising your minds and hearts to God.

Gwyneth (née Holston) ThompsonBriggs is a painter, mostly of sacred subjects, who lives in St. Louis, Missouri, withherhusbandandfoursmallchildren. More of her paintings may be viewed at GwynethThompsonBriggs.com