Paintings of Stations Spur ‘Reflection and Meditation’

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
By JoAnne Viviano

Sister Ruth Caspar, with two of the Stations of the Cross
as painted by French Dominican friar and artist Marie-Alain Couturier

OHIO---Exiled in the United States during World War II, French Dominican friar and artist Marie-Alain Couturier took comfort in the hospitality of the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine de’Ricci. Secluded in a small house among the trees at a retreat center in Elkins Park, Pa., he wrote of the "exquisite kindness” of the sisters and spent part of his hours painting a distinctive set of Stations of the Cross that reveal his influence in the modern sacred art movement of his time. The oil paintings, depicting the stages of Jesus’ final sufferings, death and burial, spent the past decades hanging in a chapel at the retreat center, making their way to central Ohio this year after the de’Ricci sisters joined the Columbus-based Dominican Sisters of Peace. They’ll remain on display at the sisters’ Martin de Porres Center through March 22. [link]