RELIGIOUS ART | NEWS OF WEEK -- Daniel Mitsui

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton

Marriage of Adam and Eve Summula Pictoria #67 Ink on calfskin 6" × 6 3/4" Medium: Drawing, color ink on calfskin vellumDimensions: 6" × 6 3/4"Year: 2020

We'd been overwhelmed by COV-19 news including the sixth Indiana death and the plummet of the stock market. Then Indiana-based Daniel Mitsui shared a new drawing, "Marriage of Adam and Eve Summula Pictoria." It's a timely reminder that the Garden of Eden, a paradise where there is no more fear or pain—is still promised. In these final 20 days until Easter, let's focus on creating that paradise, and as part of it, support artists like Mitsui (Originals: $450-3,964). Artists keep creating, and that makes Daniel Mitsui, our artist of the week.

Indiana's Daniel Mitsui Provides Coloring Sheets for Homeschoolers

DANIEL MITSUI
March 2020 Newsletter

Marriage of Adam and Eve Summula Pictoria #67 Ink on calfskin 6" × 6 3/4" Medium: Drawing, color ink on calfskin vellumDimensions: 6" × 6 3/4"Year: 2020

I hope that you are all safe and well. Given that I work from home and educate my children at home - and that my family has already experienced several medical trials requiring extended self-isolation - I am relatively well prepared to endure the current epidemic. I am at least able to draw as much as ever. I ask that you offer your prayers for and your support to those performing artists who are unable to earn their livelihood at all now, most especially singers of sacred music. I know that many parents have unexpectedly become homeschoolers lately. I have at least one resource to offer them: a variety of coloring sheets available for free download. [More]

Meet Daniel Mitsui, Modern Artist With a Medieval Gothic Heart

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REGISTER
By Jay Coop

Indiana artist Daniel Mitsui carefully crafts each work of art, including Our Lady of Seattle, the Sacred Heart and other saintly depictions, including St. John the Baptist and St. Francis. (Courtesy of Daniel Mitsui)

A captivating new drawing of Our Lady of Seattle, created for St. Luke Church in Washington, is rich in details and symbols. To wit: On the border of the illustration, pairs of animals approach Noah’s Ark. The artist, Daniel Mitsui, who is married with four young children, is no monk, and he prefers not to talk at length about his Catholic faith because he does not want to leverage his devotion as a way to attract clients. But his idiosyncratic yet traditional Gothic art, inspired by illustrated manuscripts, panel paintings and tapestries from more than 800 years ago, has drawn a devoted following. [More]

Daniel Mitsui's Ink Drawings Available for Easter 2019

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

St. Kateri Tekakwitha Ink on deerskin 5 1/2" × 8"

This month, Indiana-based artist Daniel Mitsui is working to finish the second largest drawing that he has undertaken in my professional career, a panorama of the naval battle at Lepanto on half of a goatskin. In his April newsletter, he describes having drafted plans for several pictures in the Summula Pictoria, and drawing them in ink after receiving a new supply of vellum. The artists notes also that, "There is still time to place an order for prints to be delivered before Easter. Please include a note with your order if there is a need to expedite it for Holy Week." [More]

Catholic art creator Daniel Mitsui auctions his "Sacred Heart"

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

Daniel Mitsui's "Sacred Heart" 9 1/2" × 12 1/2".

INDIANA---Daniel Mitsui's broadside, "Sacred Heart" measures approximately 9 1/2" × 12 1/2". It is based on one of his ink drawings on paper. "A scan of my drawing, slightly enlarged and modified, was used to create the plate for letterpress printing" said Mitsui. "When challenged by one of my patrons to create a new image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, I determined to reconnect this devotion to its early expressions in the visions of St. Gertrude, and to create an image with the vigor and precision of late medieval art." To place a bid for this new image of the Sacred Heart, e-mail danielmitsuiartist@gmail.com. [More]

Iconographic summary of the bible by Chicago artist Daniel Mitsui

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

"The Crucifixion" by Daniel Mitsui. Image courtesy of Art for God's Sake

CHICAGO---Christian artist Daniel Mitsui is seeking support for his new project, Summula Pictoria, an iconographic summary of the Old and New Testaments. Over the next fourteen years, from Easter 2017 to Easter 2031, the artist plans to illustrate those events of the bible that are most prominent in Roman Catholic liturgy and patristic exegesis. In his May e-newsletter, he describes his goal for every image to be detailed and "thoroughly considered and significant." The final project will consist of 235 drawings. Additionally, Mitsui also launched a blog at danielmitsui.blogspot.com about Christian art principles and symbolism.

New Christian Drawings by Chicago Artist Daniel Mitsui

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

Series of new works by Daniel Mitsui

ILLINOIS---In August, Chicago-based artist Daniel Mitsui and his wife welcomed their fourth child, a daughter, Lux Helena. During weeks before and after the birth, Mitsui has made many new, smaller original drawings that are now available for sale including eighteen of these appear in his September 2016 e-newsletter. On Saturday, October 1, 7:00 p.m., Mitsui will be speaking about sacred art in the hall of St. Peter Church in Memphis, TN as a guest of the Wojtyla Institute.

Coloring Books and New Works by Chicago Artist Daniel Mitsui

DANIEL MITSUI ARTIST
By Daniel Mitsui

ILLINOIS---I recently passed the sixth anniversary of my full-time self-employment as an artist and have been giving thought to the future. I have already begun some intense research and experimentation with new methods for drawing and composition that are described below. My first coloring book, The Mysteries of the Rosary, has just been published by Ave Maria Press. It is available for purchase from the publisher, or on Amazon. A second, The Saints, will be published in November. [link]

In time for Christmas: Daniel Mitsui's new drawing of the "Sacred Heart"

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

"Sacred Heart of Jesus" (2015) by Daniel Mitsui

ILLINOIS---Artist Daniel Mitsui lives in Chicago with his wife and their three children, and ink drawing is his specialty. Since his baptism into the Catholic Church in 2004, most of his artwork has been religious in subject, and in 2011, the Vatican commissioned him to illustrate a new edition of the Roman Pontifical. This month, in time for Christmas, he has released his new image of the "Sacred Heart of Jesus," which is available for sale online. "For the Sacred Heart itself," said Mitsui, "I started with the shape of a realistic heart, and reduced that to a stylized emblem." [More]

Roman Catholic university welcomes Daniel Mitsui's celebration of Christian art

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

"Ss. Thomas Aquinas & Anselm of Canterbury" by Daniel Mitsui

OHIO---Daniel Mitsui, a Chicago artist whose work renews the illustration techniques and visual images of medieval manuscript illumination will be the featured works on display this fall at  Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. This Fine Arts Department's new exhibition: "Invention and Exaltation: Contemporary Religious Art" opens on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, September 14 with a 7:00 p.m. lecture by Mitsui on "Invention and Exaltation." [link] 

Franciscan University Fine Arts Department: "Invention and Exaltation: Contemporary Religious Art," (Sept. 14 - Oct. 31, 2015); Studenville, OH; (740) 283-6964; franciscan.edu

New Drawing: "Great Battle in Heaven" by Daniel Mitsui

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB

"Great Battle in Heaven" (2013) by Daniel Mitsui

ILLINOIS---Daniel Mitsui's new ink drawing "Great Battle in Heaven" is a composition based on Albrecht Dürer's famous series of 15 woodcuts illustrating the Apocalypse, first published in 1498.  Mitsui, a freelance artist drew it using both dip pens and technical pens; calligraphers' inks mixed with gum arabic; and palladium and 23k gold leaf adhered with gum ammoniac. He lives in Chicago with his wife and three children. For more information on his religious drawings, visit his website: danielmitsui.com.

Bartering With Artists, a Forgotten Form of Collecting

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By Ernest Disney-Britton

ILLINOIS---Bartering was once the norm for the exchange of valued goods, but Chicago religious artist Daniel Mitsui has resurrected this idea and made it integral to his sales strategy. "I specialize in meticulously detailed ink drawings done by hand on paper or parchment," wrote Daniel in his most recent newsletter. "I offer my patrons the option of purchasing artwork, prints or lessons by barter if they prefer this method of payment to cash. For suggestions, please see this list of items that I am seeking in barter." Barter is characterized in Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" by a disparaging vocabulary: "higgling, haggling, swapping, dickering," but when exchanges are clearly defined as Mitsui has done...there is no "dickering." In its place is a dialogue, and a real relationship that is often lacking when using money.

Daniel Mitsui Announces Creation of Millefleur Press

DANIELMITSUI.COM 
By Daniel Mitsui

ILLINOIS---I am excited to announce the establishment of my own private press. I will be the publisher and the principal illustrator, designer and typographer. I will hire pressmen, papermakers and bookbinders as needed for its various projects. My first projects will be broadsides, but my ambition is to produce printed books, inspired by the incunabula and blockbooks of the 15th century that retained the large illustrations, ornamental borders and elaborate versals that characterized illuminated manuscripts. Millefleur Press takes its name from an art historical term for a decorative fill composed of tiny plants and animals, common in late medieval tapestries and in my own artwork. [link]

Chicago Artist, Daniel Mitsui's Completed His Move to New Studio-Home

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By Tahlib

Chicago artist, Daniel Mitsui has moved. He wrote in his newsletter, "I now reside with my family in an apartment in the Jefferson Park neighborhood of Chicago." The family's unexpected move was funded by the unique sale of his drawings and prints. "Thanks to the funds raised by this sale, the cost of moving was not difficult to bear," said Mitsui, but it has set the highly productive artist behind, and it may take months for him to catch up. We will continue to monitor the progress of this exceptional American religious artist.

      

Chicago's Daniel Mitsui's Christian Art Moving Sale

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By Gregory Disney

Christ in Majesty

ILLINOIS---After two years of success at his current location, Daniel Mitsui is reluctantly moving his artist studio/home. In his July newsletter the illustrator writes,  "This has been a lovely home for the past few years, one that has provided many fond memories (my younger son was born in the master bedroom) and bizarre stories (the previous tenant went to prison for murdering a homeless man)." He then adds, "The building was recently foreclosed, and the new owner (a bank 96% owned by the Walton family) has given us terms and conditions for staying that are less favorable that those for leaving. So I will be moving soon. I do not yet know to where." To cover the cost of the move, he is having a special sale of his original artwork and prints. This is a real opportunity for anyone fascinated with religious art generally, and especially for collectors of Mitsui's finely detailed work. For more information, visit his website at http://www.danielmitsui.com/.

(PHOTOS) 5 Faiths Friday

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By Tahlib

This week's A&O 5 Faiths Fridays artists are Daniel Mitsui (GA), Shirin Neshat (NY), Kelly Spencer (New Zealand), and more.

(PHOTO) "Christ the High Priest" by Daniel Mitsui

 "Christ the High Priest" (2011) by Daniel Mitsui
Colored ink on Bristol board | Courtesy artist's website

  

Medieval Christianity gets pop-art facelift from Illinois artist Daniel Mitsui

WND | WORLD NET DAILY
By Marisa Martin

St. Michael fighting the devil by Daniel Mitsui | Ink drawing

ILLINOIS - Mitsui is artist of the contradictory: Creative orthodoxy, fiery, artistic conservatism and guarded zeal flood his work. In the tradition of ancient illuminated manuscripts, some of his pieces depict such unhappy events as beheading and martyrdom. This is highly unusual for modern Christian art, which often steers toward subjects more suitable for polite dinner conversation. Mitsui is creating a buzz with his neo-traditional icons and illustrations. His name stirs up admiring comments by artists, writers and apologists who catch hints of a resurgence in religious art. The secular world and mainstream art critics aren’t getting too worked up, but what else is new? [Daniel] Mitsui is clearly more concerned with his reception in the “The City of God” than the “Big Apple” at this point. [link]