This historic commission was done as an illuminated manuscript published by Crossway, to commemorate the four hundred year anniversary of The King James Bible, released January 2011. Five major frontispieces, 89 chapter heading letter and 148 pages of illumined pages, this unprecedented marriage of a modern, usually secular art form with ancient scripture that most interests Fujimura, who aims to depict “the greater reality that the Bible speaks of… for the pure sake of integrating faith and art in our current pluralistic, multicultural world.” The original frontispaintings were shown in the inaugural exhibit at the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C., Gonzaga University Jundt Museum, and many other museums and galleries including ARC exhibit in London.
For the chapter heading 89 letters—Each of the chapter heading letters are done as visual exegesis of the content of the chapters, so it is possible to meditate upon the content of the gospel pages with these images. Copyright © 2011 Makoto Fujimura.
Charis-Kairos (The Tears of Christ), 2010
Charis - Kairos, takes the methods I developed for my Soliloquies series which exhibited my large scale works with Modernist master Georges Rouault’s paintings. Taking Rouault’s indelible images as a cue, I decided to start with a dark background, to illumine the darkness with prismatic colors. I write in the introduction to the Four Gospels’ project by Crossway:
Charis means in Greek “Grace”, and Kairos in Greek “Time-ful”. My art has been called "Slow Art" to capture a different sense of time.
I painted the five large-scale frontispieces for The Four Holy Gospels project using water-based Nihonga materials (Japanese style painting), with my focus on the tears of Christ (John 11) – tears shed for the atrocities of the past century and for our present darkness. The minerals are pulverized to be layers in a hand-made method of painting, and it is through the materials's brokenness, a gentle, prismatic light is shed onto the viewer.
Matthew—Consider the Lilies, 2011
“Consider the Lilies” began with over sixty layers of finely pulverized precious minerals (azurite and malachite), oyster shell white, and painted with sumi ink that has been cured for over a century, as well as gold and platinum powders, and mixed Japanese hide glue, to adhere the materials onto the hand-pulled Japanese paper. I speak of this method in my upcoming book "Art Is: A Journey into the Light" (Yale University Press)
The painting depicts Easter lilies, with triumvirate flowers opening up, but with the suggestion that even these common lilies are transformed into a post-Resurrection, generative reality.
Jesus tells us to “consider the lilies” (Matthew 6:28), instead of being “anxious about life, what you will eat or what you will drink” (Matthew 6:25). I consider this passage exhorting us to “consider/see” to be a crucial step that needs to be taken, before we can “seek the kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33). We benefit much from the artist’s observation and depiction of the visible and invisible worlds, and capturing of complex experiences and nuances of life, to help us grow in our capacity to love our neighbors and even enemies, and to learn to empathize with the broken needs of our world.
Prints (unsigned) are available here.
Mark—Water Flames, 2011
The Water Flames series depicts the way in which flames not only consume, but ultimately sanctify. There are over a hundred layers of Japanese vermillion to capture the mystery of sanctifying flames. These works recall the visual language of the apocalyptic using Japanese vermillion, gold, platinum powders and cochineal. The work moves the viewer’s gaze upward, even as we stand in the ever-expanding Ground Zero conditions of the world.
I am a survivor of 9/11/01, having been trapped underneath the towers in a subway, as the first tower fell on top of us. Then I spent a decade as a “Ground Zero” resident as my loft stood three blocks from the towers. After 9/11, I began working on a series called “Water Flames” based on poems by T. S. Eliot and Dante. When monochromatic layers are executed well on hand-lifted Kumohada paper, the paper’s buckling produces patterns akin to flames. Paradoxically, water marks create flame-like patterns. As I daily faced Ground Zero, I needed to use my imaginative capacity to turn the dark forces bringing destruction in my backyard into a vision for the future, where even fires of destruction can be a theme for generative creativity.
In the book of Mark, the violent imagery of judgment is often accompanied by – for the followers of Christ – flames of sanctification. For example, John the Baptist is beheaded, disciples cast out demons, and even Jesus’ words seem (to our modern ears) harsh and condemning: “And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell.” (Mark 9:45) Yet, after having pronounced these hard sayings, the Son of Man himself walks into the flames of judgment to save us from ourselves. Jesus turns the judgment flames into sanctifying flames, where we are purified, like the gold pigments used for this painting, as the heat takes out the dross.
Mark frontispiece also visually quotes Mark Rothko's sublime paintings to create a new portal for our journey toward the sanctified world.
Prints (unsigned) are available here.
Luke—Prodigal God, 2011
The title of this work, based on the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15, is taken from the late Tim Keller’s book Prodigal God. The visual complexity of the work depicts my own inner struggle between the legalism of religion (the elder brother) and the “recklessly spendthrift” nature of the father’s love in the story.
Tim was a dear friend and a mentor who I owe much to. When he was asked about his favorite passage of the Bible, he always spoke of Luke 15, the prodigal story. But I noticed that he never spoke of the story as a “prodigal son” story. In his book, The Prodigal God, Tim wrote that the word “prodigal” does not mean “wayward” but instead “recklessly spendthrift.” In Shakespearian times, the word “prodigal” had a positive connotation, of someone committed to spending extravagantly toward restoration. Thus, the true “prodigal” was not the wayward son (as is commonly understood), but the father in the story.
Jesus’ message here is toward both the younger son and the elder brother, whose legalism keeps him from celebrating his brother’s return, and from having not made any effort to search out his lost younger brother.
I painted the frontispiece for Luke based on a dream I once had - given to me in Nihonga material. I saw in this dream a wave-like vision of Japanese "gofun" - pulverized oyster shells - in the liminal space in between the split skies. I realized that this visual conundrum captured well the tension between legalism and waywardness, determinism and grace. Therefore, visually, the painting is literally split between left and right, but with a white wing painted over the divide with gofun.
Prints (unsigned) are available here.
John—In the Beginning, 2011
This work visually echoes the “Charis-Kairos” cover piece in the same way that the beginning of the Gospel of John echoes the beginning of Genesis. The first chapter of the Gospel of John speaks not only about the origin of all creation in Jesus, but also about the mystery behind creation. Art needs to inhabit such mysteries - to open us up to the generative reality of the deeper questions that lie behind our questions.
The Gospel of John begins with a profound mystery of the ontology of Christ’s pre-existence. Throughout, the youngest disciple deals with the reality of Christ as both a mystery and a greater Reality. Jesus, as John saw things, acted and spoke in generative terms, always expanding our view of God, and befriending us even as we kept on misunderstanding our Lord and Savior.
To depict such relational and complex Reality, language of modern art, mixed with Japanese and medieval aesthetics, is used to depict the depth of mystery. I am painting with Jesus’ tears shed on the hardened soils of Bethany - his tears were ephemeral, and therefore became permanent (they are still physically present on the atmosphere of earth). His tears were wasteful (there was no utilitarian reason for him to weep with Mary… when he specifically told Martha that he came to raise Lazarus from the tomb), and therefore the most essential human act. (See "Art+Faith: A Theology of Making" book for an extended writing on this process and visual theology)
The portion of John—In the Beginning was done as a live performance, as part of an ongoing collaboration with Jazz percussionist/composer Susie Ibarra (see portion of Plywood documentary here).