The Christendom Project: January 2015

In Search of Christendom – The Chartres Pilgrimage

Series title and logo

Coming soon EWTN’s documentary In Search of Christendom – The Chartres Pilgrimage, dates yet to be announced but we are now in the final stages of mixing the sound. Keep checking this blog for dates and times and EWTN. It will be broadcast in the usual ways and will also be shown live on St Clare Media’s site at www.ewtn.co.uk

Young people gather at Notre Dame Cathedral

Camp fire pilgrims sing hymns

Here is a short description:

On the day before Pentecost Sunday thousands of young people gather at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris France. They are there for a Traditional Latin Mass before they set out on a three day walking pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Chartres Cathedral. As they march through Paris praying and singing hymns it is clear that this is a great act of witness. This shows that despite the wishes of secularists, Christianity is still alive in Western Europe, especially among the young.

The Sacred Heart in National Flags

One of the documentary's themes

Pentecost Mass in field

Many of the chapters are made up of scouts, there are also other groups and chapters that come from all over Europe, some as far afield as the USA and the Middle East. There can be between 12 to 20,000 people on this pilgrimage. We asked the question why do so many young people come on this pilgrimage? It became clear they have rejected secular values with all its hedonism and materialism they are searching for a deeper meaning for their lives, and they are looking for orthodox Catholic values – they are searching for Christendom.

High Mass with bishop at Chartres Cathedral

Illustrations for EWTN’s The Crusades

When making a documentary it is important to make it as visually interesting as possible. Therefore, I like to use as many props as possible. Both Wales, The Golden Thread of Faith and The Crusades had drama sequences to depict the historical events. I also like to use other visual aids such as Maps and Illustrations. I did have permission to use actual manuscript illuminations however these proved to be too expensive and we would need to renew the licence after a certain time. In the end I did the illustrations myself. For the Crusades I employed a manuscript illumination style. However, as a trained illustrator I couldn't help add perspective in some of the illustrations. For example The Crusader Ships and St George and the Saints at Antioch have perspective in them. The Crusader Knights are perhaps more true to the actual style of 11^th and 12^th manuscripts illumination style.

Perspective did not arrive in art until the Renaissance and the great Piero della Francesca who did some amazing studies in perspective theory and virtually invented it. Having studied perspective theory when I was at art college I find Piero della Francesca work very inspiring.

Below are some of my illustrations for The Crusades and for Wales, the Golden Thread of Faith