Mornings with Mary: Magnificat Cover

linking to the radiant Rebecca 

at Recuerda Mi Corazon

Can’t We Dream?

(my paraphrase of part of the article 

in the May 2013 issue of “Magnificat” 

by Pierre-Marie Dumont)

Guillaume Dubufe was a master in Symbolism 

at the turn of the 20th century. 

Symbolism developed as a poetic and spiritual reaction

 against materialism, positivism and rationalism.  

These isms were trying to drown out art 

by demolishing all sense of the sacred.  

French poets Baudelaire, Verlaine and Mallarme, 

fathers of Symbolism, predicted that materialism

 would dissolve all ties that provide reasons to live, 

that is vertical ties uniting us to God 

and horizontal ties uniting us among ourselves. 

Ever since the Middle Ages, 

art has been a reflection of society’s soul.  

In present times with the world’s soul being lost,

it is thought that 

art can only survive by battling this society

 so driven by materialism.

“Thus, in this House of the Virgin, 

the vibrations of a white, diaphanous light suffuses the painting 

like an image out of a dream, 

an image wherein all is a mystery waiting to be revealed:’’

To dare utter your praises we need it all,

O virgin Mary, O Mary Immaculate,

White through the wing beats of angels, 

you who set your feet upon our consoled earth.

~Paul Verlaine~

More detail about Pierre-Marie Dumont can be found at this site:

http://www.kathleenbeckman.com/Articles/YearofFaithMagnificat.htm

Art prints of work by Guillaume Dubufe can be found at this site.