Mount Tabor Talks – Topics

*Lectures will be given via Zoom on each Saturday listed from
11:00 AM- 12:30 PM EST
If you would like more information on these lectures and discussions, given in 2021 via Zoom, or interested in a recorded session on one of the topics below, please email [email protected]

January

JAN 9th | VERDON: Following the Star (the Magi in Art)

February

FEB 13th | VERDON: The Art of Penitence (Lenten Images)

FEB 20th | ROSSI: Creativity

March

Both talks will be given on Saturday, March 27th

ROSSI: Tools of the Trade as Instrumentum Dei: Materials and Techniques

VERDON: Michelangelo and Christ’s Passion (The Florence Pietà)

April

APR 10th | VERDON: The Victory of Life (Easter in Renaissance Art)

APR 17th | ROSSI: Spirit and Beauty

May

MAY 8th | VERDON: The Great Mother (Nature and Mary)

After Christ, Mary is the principal subject of Christian visual art, represented by painters and sculptors of all periods. This talk reflects on how Medieval and Renaissance artists interwove traditional biblical and theological notions with then new humanist ideas to produce images of a woman at once submissive and strong, obedient and free.

MAY 15th | ROSSI: Sharing Light

As an introduction to the meaning of some of Filippo Rossi’s works, this talk explores the theme of Light: Light as forgiveness, salvation, gift, faith, and love—Light as gratitude and contemplation. In Rossi’s art the Light theme is a thread binding together works done in different periods and situations that allow us to penetrate several levels of meaning.

June

*The talks in June, July and August will be 10 AM – 11:30 AM EST

JUNE 12th | ROSSI: Intimate Beauty

Join us on a journey with Filippo Rossi to a country home in the hills Tuscany, where his works have found their destiny and brought much beauty.

JUNE 19th| VERDON: St John the Baptist in Florentine Art

July

JULY 10th| VERDON: Christian Monastic Life and Art

Throughout history, monasteries have traditionally fostered creative activity, seeing scholarship, music, architecture and the arts as ways of expressing the monks’ inner life. The resulting cultural heritage, rich in spiritual content, in turn influenced many other spheres of Christian experience. This talk reflects on the messages of ancient and modern monastic art.

JULY 17th | ROSSI: A Painting

Join Master Artist Filippo Rossi in his studio as he walks through the process of creating a painting. Filippo will highlight the various phases of the creation of the work of art and show one of the many possibilities of giving shape to the message that the artist wants to communicate. He will also demonstrate some of the technical aspects involved on the realization of paintings.

August

AUGUST 7th| VERDON: The Transfiguration of Christ: Raphael and Other Artists

This reflection on the Transfiguration of Christ as recounted in the New Testament, developed in the month of August when the Church celebrates the Feast of the Transfiguration, focuses on the theological meaning of this event as elaborated by theologians from the early Christian period to the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

AUGUST 28th | ROSSI: A Sculpture

In this session of Mount Tabor Talks, we invite you to expand your artistic skills and stimulate your creativity. Join Filippo Rossi, directly from his studio in Tuscany, as he creates a sculpture in extruded polystyrene going through every working phase. As with previous sessions, a time for questions and discussion with Filippo will follow the presentation.

September

SEPT 11th| VERDON: The Exultation of the Cross: History and Mystery

Christ’s cross is the most important symbol used by Christians, present in every period of Christian art. This lecture reflects on ways in which artists have represented it from early times to the present, at times emphasizing the historical reality of the Savior’s death, at other times pondering that event’s mystic significance. Presented in proximity to the annual Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, Mons Verdon will also offer meditations on the theology of Christ’s self-offering in the liturgical prayer life of the Church.

SEPT 18th| ROSSI: Sacred Spaces

In this talk journey with artist Filippo Rossi to three spaces where he has worked and where the religious spirit is clear: The Maternity Chapel of the Florentine hospital of Careggi; the House of the Spirit at the new Meyer Children’s Hospital in Florence; and the Chapel of the Reparation Sisters in Scandicci, close to Florence. Each of these spaces exude spiritual intensity. These are truly ‘sacred’ spaces.

October

OCT 2nd| VERDON: St.Francis of Assisi: Icon of Christ

Join Mons Timothy Verdon as he offers reflections on Giotto’s pictorial account of St. Francis’ life in the frescoes of the upper basilica of Assisi, in relation to St. Bonaventure’s biography of Francis—the literary masterpiece from which they derive. The theme that emerges from both Bonaventure’s text and Giotto’s murals is the ‘iconicity’ of Francis: his conscious role as ‘imago Christi’, image of Christ.

OCT 16th| ROSSI: Break A Leg!: Promoting Your Work as an Artist

One of the most frequently asked questions an aspiring artist asks is how to promote his or her own art.How do you know how to put a value on your own work to create an interest around it and attract others? In this session we invite you to join Master Artist Filippo Rossi as he shares his own strategies and tips on how to do this.

November

NOV 13th| ROSSI: The Exhibition

Join Master Artist Filippo Rossi in the beautiful city of Piacenza, in Northern Italy for the inauguration of his most recent exhibition. Using his own new exhibition as an example, Filippo guides artists on how they might communicate their message through an exhibition in a gallery setting.

NOV 20th| VERDON: Hearing, Believing, Conceiving- Mary and Advent

In anticipation of Advent, this talk ponders the ways in which artists across the centuries visualized the moment of his conception. From the first age of Church art to the present, this theme has fascinated believers, and its treatment in painting and sculpture bears eloquent witness to their faith.

December

*Both talks will be given on Saturday, December 18th. Filippo Rossi’s talk will begin at 10 AM EST – 11 AM . There will be a short break and Mons Timothy Verdon’s session will begin at 11:15 AM and run until 12:30 PM EST. Registration is available for each session individually, or for both (see links below).

DECEMBER 18th

10 AM EST| ROSSI: New Beginnings / Nuovo Inizio

The season of Advent is a time of new beginnings, as we approach Christmas and look towards a new year. It is a time when we review the past year and begin to dream of future projects, new expectations, new goals. In this session Master Artist, Filippo Rossi invites us to participate in his new project, the transition to his new studio! When an artist changes his studio, an earthquake occurs! One changes perspective, rearranges the past and reflects on the future. Join us this Saturday as Filippo will show us the passage from the old to the new studio, a time for a New Beginning!

11:15 AM EST| VERDON: Christmas and Art: Incarnation and Visibility

As we approach the season of Christmas, this final session of our Mount Tabor Talks of 2021 treats the visibility of God that Christmas – the appearance of the Word made flesh – gave to Christian art. Mons Verdon offers reflection on Beauty as a reverent pathway to the expression of the Divine, and art as a tool in the growth of wisdom and understanding.

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