Sister Wendy Beckett Meditates on Janet McKenzie's "The Holy Family"

AMERICAN MAGAZINE
By Wendy Beckett

Janet McKenzie's "The Holy Family." The painting hangs in the chapel of Loyola School, a co-educational high school in New York City.

It is impossible to paint the Holy Family realistically. We do not know what they looked like.Artists, though, are forced to imagine for us the appearance of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and over the centuries they have done so with great enthusiasm. The jolt many will feel when they look at Janet McKenzie’s painting “The Holy Family” forces us to recognize the vast stretches of time and culture that lie between us. The whole painting is a marvelous interplay of realism and symbolism. We are compelled to think again and to look twice. [More]