Global Christian Worship

“Sister Claire: A Brush in the Hand of the Lord”

Dr. Mathew Chandrankunnel CMI  has written an online short essay about Sr. Claire and her art. Below are excerpts; you can read his entire essay at
http://chandrankunnel.8m.com/clare.htm

Simplicity, powerful expression, lighter themes, Indianized, rustic representations of Christian life are some of the characteristics of Sr. Claire’s paintings. She interprets the Christian imagery in all colours, depicting the themes in terms of the simple life of the villagers. Themes like the Last Supper, Crucifixion, Christmas etc., are so powerfully portrayed in the Indian backgrounds. Her works of art are an embodiment of piety that invoke the faithful to devotion and a total surrender to the Lord.

Sr. Claire’s Christian imagery is rooted in the Indian soil, penetrating its culture, and drawing inspiration from the day to day life of the common man. Her symbols, like her, are simple in their forms and meaningfully represent the Indian ethos. She also deliberately avoids the classical [western] art styles of strokes, cubic and other modern and western techniques and introduces the line structure indicative of Indian art. Sr. Claire depicts saintly women like mother Mary in saris and adorns them with bindhis on forehead. The dress code and the bangles these women wear are borrowed from her own Hindu [background] culture. In the same way, the men in her painting wear the traditional dress code belonging to her culture. The colours in her paintings have special meanings. For example, red is for love, yellow for glory, green for fertility and hope, and blue for peace. Often the represented peacocks add a spiritual dimension to her paintings. Her paintings radiate the joy and simplicity of finding solace in the Lord. In short, she powerfully portrays the Indian and indigenous elements through her paintings. Her paintings express the form and the beauty of natural colour combination and texture.

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This blog post is #2 in a 3-part series highlighting the art of Sister Claire SMMI showing scenes of Holy Week. I’m using this as the approximate timeline:
http://www.jesus.org/death-and-resurrection/holy-week-and-passion/a-time-line-of-the-passion-week.html

All of the paintings in sets 2 and 3 of this series are from a set of around 100 paintings she made to illustrate Bible stories (Old and New Testaments). The paintings have been published in book form in India and Pakistan.

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Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday)

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Anointing the Feet of Jesus, Forgiving Sins

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Cleansing the Temple

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Teaching About Faith using the Fig Tree

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Jesus Washes the Feet of the Disciples

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The Last Supper (#4 in this series)

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Praying in Gethsemane

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Betrayal by Judas and Arrest

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Peter’s Denial

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For set 1 in this series, go to
http://globalworship.tumblr.com/post/140609059310/holy-week-art-from-india-sr-claire-set-1

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Sister Claire was born in 1937 and is still alive as of Feb 2016. She has lived for many years at St. Mary’s Convent, Briand Circle, Chamarajpet, Bangalore (India).

This photo of Sister Claire shows her at work a few decades ago. It comes from Fr. Antony Kolencherry’s book: ‘Art in Culture: Meditating with the Paintings of Sr. Claire SMMI’. Bangalore: Indian Institute of Spirituality, 1996. I am grateful to Fr. Antony for his help in learning about Sister Claire and obtaining resources.

All images posted here belong to those who own their copyright, and are used here for educational, non-commercial purposes under Fair Use criteria.