Category: Watercolour - Cavanagh Art

Our Lady of La Vang, Viet Nam (2024)

22/8/2024

Painted 20–21 August 2024

Vincent Cavanagh © 2024

On this Feast Day of The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary (22 August), I am relieved to finally reveal my attempt at portraying the apparition of Our Blessed Mother in 1798 to gathered Vietnamese Christians taking refuge from the persecution by the Nguyen Dynasty in the jungle forest in central Việt Nam, near the village of Quang Tri.

The origins of this project go back to November last year (2023) with a visit to the seminary used by the Diocese, but research for this painting started in earnest on 5 July 2024.

For more information about the apparition and Pope John Paul II’s later involvement read this detailed summary about Our Lady of La Vang at The Miracle Hunter website here.

This is the handed down Description of the Virgin from that same Miracle Hunter summary:

One evening, according to tradition, a lady of great beauty appeared to the refugees in the jungle, clad in white and surrounded by light, holding the infant Jesus in her arms, with two charming boys holding torches at her side. The lady walked back and forth several times in front of the Christians, her feet touching the ground.
Even the non-Christians who were there witnessed the vision.”

I opted to save myself some artistic headache and stress by deciding to only focus on the Virgin, child, and torch bearing youths rather than attempting to include the onlooking Christians and have even less room for the actual apparition. I think that that decision has born itself out well.

Vincent Cavanagh
22 August 2024

One–Knight Comedy

30/3/2024

Surrealism incoming!
Illustrated 30 March 2024

Vincent Cavanagh, 2024

A spotlight on Bishop Stumbers’ short-lived career in stand-up comedy.

Congratulations to anyone who “gets” the cameo appearances on the far side table ;)
With apologies to Messrs Astley and Baker.

Vincent Cavanagh
30 Mar 2024 / Holy Saturday

St Joseph and Jesus (2024)

19/3/2024

Happy Feast of St Joseph.
Painted 14 March 2024

‘St Joseph and Jesus (2024)’,
Vincent Cavanagh, 2024

This painting may have only taken a day to paint, but it was a whole year—and two months—in the making. The product of a deadline that I didn’t think that I was even supposed to be working towards and God’s Timing. Aack!

Leaving the histrionics aside, the photograph that this picture of St Joseph and the child Jesus is based upon was taken at a local church just before mass. A father was sitting with his family in a pew, about three rows over, holding his sleeping youngest son over his shoulder. One of those “take a photo or regret it”–moments from God.

In the end, very little actually changed from the photograph—well, apart from changing clothes to robes, adding head coverings, and including hair on the back of St Joseph’s head, of course.

Holy Family (detail), William Holman Hunt, The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple, 1860 ( Reference )

Colour–wise, I do admit taking a very strong inspiration from Pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt’s The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple, his effort of producing an ethnographically correct depiction of “Christ Among the Doctors” (of the Jewish Law), for which he travelled through the Middle East searching first-hand for information about Jewish customs and finding models for the figures he wished to depict.

He was very specific in including Biblical symbolism in his work: the colours of Jesus’ robes being the same blue, purple, and crimson that God instructed Moses to use for the veils in the Tent of Meeting as well as in the robes for Aaron the High Priest (Exodus 26 and 28, respectively).

The one–and–a–half day deadline (getting back to the histrionics) was because the whole reason behind this rush was the intention to gift a printed version of ‘St Joseph and Jesus (2024)’ to the housemates of the Joseph House, a men's discernment house in the Diocese of Broken Bay, at a youth event on the night of the day after the day I had left to paint the picture by.

This whole hectic schedule of events was due to a conflicting parish event after the youth night and the lateness of the St Joseph’s Day Eve party at Joseph House being on at a prohibitively late time for me to attend.

In the end the picture was printed (Thank God!) and present to the housemates, and it should now be hanging somewhere inside Joseph House.

Vincent Cavanagh
19 Mar 2024

Now, as for an update on my previous update about working on writing down my experiences of WYD Lisbon, that’s no longer moving forward. I’m not joking when I write that it was a commandment from on high. And given how much I was reliving certain emotions to an unhealthy amount, I’m more than alright with just letting it drop and focusing on what God actually wants me to be focused on instead.

Ask God before you leap into things whether you should be leaping into them at all.

P.S. Also, the writing was the reason that I only had a single day left to paint Joseph and Jesus. (Face palm) Oi vey!

Happy New Year and all that

1/1/2024

Illustrated 1 January 2023

Vincent Cavanagh © 2024

'Bishop Stumbers: All Nog-ged Out'

Finally putting to paper an idea that's been knocking about in my head since around about Christmas Eve.

Happy New Year and Merry Christmas to you all.

Vincent Cavanagh
1 Jan 2023

St Charles Lwanga, Ugandan Martyr

20/7/2023

Pencilled 17 Jul 2023.
Painted 18 Jul 2023.

Vincent Cavanagh © 2023

St Charles Lwanga, one of the Ugandan Martyrs.
He was a strong protector of young men from sexual predation and advocate of chastity.

He was martyred at the age of 26 when he refused to renounce his faith in Christ Jesus, in the year 1886.

For a far more in-depth look at St Charles Lwanga than I could ever attempt, read this reflection by Bishop Robert Barron on Word on Fire here.

And for the histories other Martyrs of Uganda, visit the Basilica of the Ugandan Martyrs Catholic Shrine, Namugongo, website here.

Vincent Cavanagh
20 Jul 2023

St Augustine Zhao Rong

7/7/2023

Sketched 29 Jun 2023.
Painted 6 Jul 2023.

Vincent Cavanagh © 2023

St Augustine Zhao Rong, a former prison guard from Wuchuan who was converted by the testimony of the missionaries and Chinese Christians that he guarded and escorted to trial before his baptism into the faith in 1776.

After this he became a diocesan priest on 10 May 1781 and went on to proclaim the gospel and life of Jesus Christ to his fellow countrymen in rural areas. He was later captured and tortured, dying in the coldest part of 1815.

He and his fellow Chinese martyrs from the period between 1648 to 1930 were canonized by Pope John Paul II on 1 October 2000.

For more details read this article from Society of Saints.

Vincent Cavanagh
7 Jul 2023

Caroline Chisholm (1808 – 1877)

6/3/2023

Painted 2–4 March 2023.

Vincent Cavanagh © 2023

Rather than fail admirably at trying to condense the epic life of Mrs Chisholm into a few measly paragraphs, I will direct you instead to the Friends of Caroline Chisholm website for a greater insight to her and her works than I could ever attempt to do justice within the confines of this blog.

Link to the Mrs Chisholm website.

St Peter Chanel, S.M.

1/3/2023

Painted 23–24, 26 Feb 2023.

Vincent Cavanagh © 2023

St Peter Chanel is the Protomartyr of Oceania, and Patron of Wallis and Futuna.
He was a French Marist father and religious superior of seven fellow Marist missionaries sent out to the region, having left France on the 24th of December 1836.

St Pius X + Our Lady of Confidence

1/3/2023

Painted 21–22 Feb 2023.

Vincent Cavanagh © 2023

St Pius X was the 259th Pope and successor to St Peter. He was a vehement opponent of what he called "Modernism" inside the theological circles of the Roman Catholic Church.

Something that the church is still fighting with today, what may be bluntly explained as: trying to convert the church to appease the (fickle) world, rather than converting the world to appease (and please) God the Father.

Prisoner for the Faith

3/2/2023

Vincent Cavanagh © 2023

Venerable François-Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận

Former Coadjutor Archbishop of Sài Gòn (now Hồ Chí Minh City), imprisoned for his faith and family connections by the communist government of Vietnam for 13 years after the fall of Sài Gòn. He was released in 1988 but kept under house arrest. He became exiled in 1991 when he was allowed to visit Rome but never to return to Vietnam. He died in Rome in 2002, aged 74. On the fifth anniversary of his death his cause for sainthood was begun. He was named Venerable by Pope Francis on 4 May 2017, the first step on the long road to being made a Saint by the Catholic Church.

This painting was the fruit of listening to the introduction and homily by the Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, for the Solemn Pontifical Funeral Mass of George Cardinal Pell (1941–2023) on 2 Feb 2023.

Vincent Cavanagh ~ 3 February 2023