Why Your Local Catholic Church Art Might Have Hitler In it.

Ville Platte Catholic Youth Group has an interesting post up at Check Out Our New Banner. .

The banner that runs across the top of this blog was taken from the St. Brigid Catholic Church website. Here is the full piece of artwork:
Let me quote the website’s description of the artwork:
“Our Stations of the cross were completed in 1948 by Dom Gregory de Wit, who, like our first pastor, Msgr. Van Veggel, was Dutch-born. Born in 1892, Jan Aloysius de Wit entered the Benedictine order in Belgium in 1913 and as ordained in 1918, taking Gregory as his monastic name. He was a monk, priest, painter, and designer.
He was a true Renaissance man who spoke four languages; his artwork is scattered across Europe and North America. In addition, he designed vestments, statues, and furniture in wood and marble, and was also a prolific painter of religious and secular scenes in every artistic medium.
Dom Gregory studied art in Belgium, Germany and Italy and by 1929, had had several art exhibitions in Holland and Germany. He began creating murals in the 1930’s, painting on dry plaster.
The artist came to the United States in 1938 at the invitation of the Abbot of St. Meinrad Abbey in Indiana. In his mid-40’s, he there began his most productive years. Most of his major American works are in Indiana and Louisiana.
Our Stations are unique in that they are murals and are not episodic, but a continuous procession of events leading to the Crucifixion. They clearly display Byzantine iconographic influences and the humanity of Christ as he walked to Golgotha.
In many of his works, Dom Gregory included contemporary figures in the Stations. If you look carefully, you will find the faces of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.”

I have encountered his wonderful art before and it shows the interesting sense of humor before. For instance at St Josephs Abby in Louisiana there is a Last supper scene that has among other things salt and pepper shakers. He also had a wicked sense of humors. Monks that got on his nerves ofter were portrayed in the facial features of work.

In Baton Rouge Louisiana there is a stunning example of his work at Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish. There is a brief discussion of that here.

Much more about the man and his work is located in this very interesting PDF file