Mini Thoughts

I have been so inspired by all the bloggers at Clear River, I decided to give it a try.

Monday, July 17, 2006

The Four Evangelists


Finally!! I have something I can blog about on a (hopefully) regular basis. I am embarking on what probably will be most challenging thing I've ever done....next to raising my kids. The painting to the left is by Peter Paul Rubens,"The Four Evangelists". (Can you figure out who is supposed to be who?) Rubens was a Flemish Baroque painter, lived from 1577-1640, and is often called the Prince of Baroque Painting. "The Four Evangelists" was painted around 1614.

What I will be doing is reproducing this painting.....in cross stitch. In fact, the image that you see is actually an image generated from the cross stitch pattern, NOT from the original painting.

I will be working on linen fabric with a stitch count of 28 stitches per inch. The size of the piece is 600 stitches wide x 495 stitches tall. That will make the finished project 21.42 inches x 17.68 inches....approximately. That also means there are a total of 297,000 stitches. Believe it or not, that is not what makes this project challenging. The challenging part is it uses 106 different colors, some used alone, some are blended together to make the right color needed.

I got this idea, and the pattern, from the web site Golden Kite. They have literally 750 patterns on their site...and yes, I looked at each and every one of them before deciding to do "The Four Evangelists". There is a fella on this site that is working on a project and posting updates on his work as he goes along. He started the project March 6, 2001, and his latest update says he has completed 95,507 stitches, worked 3,011 hours and is 56.5% complete. His project uses 110 colors and has 169,000 stitches total. This update is dated April 10, 2006.

Why, you ask? Well, I love to cross stich, but have never found anything that has really challenged me. Until now. I do believe this will be challenging! More than I can handle? No, I don't think so. I believe if I don't finish this piece, it will be because I got lazy and/or lost motivation. It won't be because it was too hard.

So, what I plan on doing is posting pictures of my progress on my blog, with updates, similar to the above project. Except I don't think I'll keep track of the hours I spend working on it. That might get a little daunting, doncha think? I'll be using this blog as part of my motivation, especially if it seems I have some people interested and "demand" updates!

I hope you look forward to following me on this journey, and please feel free to post any comments (I already know I'm crazy, so don't bother posting that!) or encourgement along the way! Pray the Lord blesses my hands, and my eyesight!

posted by Cheryl @ 2:57 PM  

3 Comments:

  • At 12:29 AM, Blogger David said…

    A Daunting artistic endeavo! My guess on who's who? Mark has his back to us (and is sitting on an ox, which is typically a symbol of Jesus the sacrifice) Luke is the old guy with the beard conversing with the angel, Matthew is sitting next to him (with the Lion? at his feet) and John is last (with an eagle staring in his face? - it's hard to tell its dark). John is typcially portrayed by an eagel because of his far-reaching vision - and the figure on the right is the youngest of the four.

     

  • At 10:26 AM, Blogger Cheryl said…

    Is that your final answer? :) According to my research, and there is very little I've been able to find on this particular painting, Mark is the one sitting on the lion, Luke is on the ox, you got John right with the eagle, and Matthew is the one seeming to be conversing with the angel, representing human. According to this source, these are the traditional symbols for the four evangelists. (Scroll down about 1/3 of the page, you'll see the painting.)

     

  • At 8:08 AM, Blogger David said…

    yeah, Yeah,so I got my symbols mixed up. My thinking was a vague memory of the representations of Jesus in the gospels - the ox being the sacrifice or burden bearer, (which I thought was Mark, but apparently he is associated with the lion) and Luke portraying Jesus more as the Son of Man, hence the conversation with the angel. However, upon further review, Matthew is being talked to by the angel and Mark is the Lion, so that leaves Luke as the Ox.

    St. Irenaeus of Lyons has Matthew as the Human/angel, Luke as the Ox, JOHN as the Lion and Mark as the Eagle.

    St. Augustine of Hyppo has Mark as the Human/Angel, Matthew as the Lion, Luke as the Ox with John as the Eagle.

    Psuedo Athanasius has Matthew as the Human/angel, Luke as the Lion, Mark as the Ox (see I'm not totally crazy) and John as the Eagle.

    St. Jerome has Matthew as the human/angl, Mark as the Lion, Luke as the Ox and John as the Eagle.

    Regardless of the symbology, this is going to be an amazing cross-stitch. I tried one time to do one of an angel, and it involved all kinds of mixing of threads and that kind of stuff. Frankly, it was too much work, so I put it down. But I think this should keep you busy for a couple of years at least.

    Later,

    D

     

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