Looking for the Sacred Heart

In honor of St Patrick’s Day and acknowledging by Irish-Spanish heritage, I am sharing my Sacred Heart painting.  In Catholicism, in the traditions of the Irish and Spanish Church, the Sacred Heart is often depicted and is at the heart of devotional prayer.  The image for the Sacred Heart of Jesus often consists of a heart surrounded by roses, pierced by a sword, bound by a crown of thorns, with fire emitting from the heart’s center top with a cross.  Very vivid color is employed in the image in both the Irish and Hispanic traditions.

If you were looking for a single word to define this concept, it would be ‘Love’.  The devotion to the Sacred Heart is widely practiced, taking Jesus Christ’s physical heart as the representation of his divine love for humanity.

If we look at the symbolism of the heart and other objects, we find the Heart represents love and life.  The fire represents passion and purity.  It exudes the transformative power of divine love.  The crown of thorns signifies his suffering, endured for the love of man to redeem him.  In traditional images of the sacred heart, you may also find a cut, a lance, blood and roses. 

I did the preliminary color placement in watercolor using a wet-on-wet technique with vivid pinks, reds and purple last fall.  I liked the color but wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, and literally where I wanted to go with the painting – so I hung it up and looked at it for a period of months.  I have employed this type of editing process for years and have found that the unfinished painting will ‘speak to me’ over time.  I have found it best not to push the process.

I chose to focus on a heart image in the color field of phase one, called Fire and Ice, and defined it as a more literate heart shape.

At this point, I really felt the painting had moved beyond 'Fire and Ice' and was seen in my mind's eye as a part of my Heart Series.  I didn't re-name it, but simply let the process flow.

As things often do, our world evolves and I run across people with seemingly Machiavellian intent.  As I analyzed and thought through this human behavior, I couldn't help but wonder what happened to integrity, sincerity, purity and goodness.  In our modern world, it seems like these traits get lost in some individuals' greed and aggressive lust for power. Often times we're surprised by the players who evince these traits.  This brought to my mind the concept of the sacred heart, and how we long for simpler times when things were as they seemed, without ulterior motives.  As this idea formed in my mind, I decided to explore the image of the sacred heart.  I added the traditional crown of thorns and the background painting for the fiery flames.

I began to look at many different contemporary artists' depiction of the sacred heart.  I did not like the flame shape on my painting, and in my quandary decided to define it as individual flame-shapes.  I did not want the thorn shapes to be isolated in the crown, so I repeated them around the heart itself to give interest and to carry the darker dark of the painting into other portions of the picture plane.  I was pleased with the shape of the flames, but remained determined not to put the more obvious cross shape into them, which is seen in the more traditional renderings of the sacred heart.

I also decided to add additional bands of the thorn vines to make it wider and give it a more dominant place in the picture plane.

I felt my next challenge was to give definition to the flames with some color that would reflect the ethereal qualities of fire, so in two separate applications I added gold and bronze powder to acrylic varnish to capture this quality.

Being happy with the flames, I next focused on the heart and unifying all parts of the its shape with a wash of napthol red, magenta and alizarin crimson (I love this color!).  I also found that it mirrored the color of the heart in traditional renderings.  This was pleasing to me.  Next I added a light gold to the brown metallic scumbling I had placed in the negative space surrounding the heart and flames.

Finally, I felt that the painting was finished.  All that was left was to place a coat of acrylic varnish to release the depths of the various colors and to seal the watercolor of the red heart shape.  This is my interpretation of the sacred heart.

Tomorrow honors St Patrick, who was known to have driven the snakes out of Ireland.  A snake in traditional painting often represents evil.  In my mind, St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, represents the true essence of the sacred heart.

So, for St Patrick's Day...and always...

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind always be at your back.

May the sun shine warn upon your face,

and rains fall soft upon your fields.

And until we meet again,

may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Sláinte!