An Amazing Catholic Artist

ANTHONY VISCO - Atelier for the Sacred Arts in Philadelphia.

Here is an awesome Catholic Artist who's works I admire very much. Not only is the art that he produces wonderful and beautiful, but his writings on the subject are so insightful and inspiring. I hope to someday be half as good as Anthony, and to help in a similar way restore the beautiful artistic traditions of the Catholic faith in the churches of our country.

ANTHONY VISCO is the founder and director of The Atelier for the Sacred Arts in Philadelphia where he does commission works and offers professional services as devotional art consultant. Upon graduation from the University of the Arts, formerly, Philadelphia College of Art, he was the recipient of the Fullbright–Hayes Grant to travel and study in Italy, where he attended studios at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence. In 1975, he was awarded the Elizabeth T. Greensheilds Grant for figurative sculpture and has received the coveted Arthur Ross Award twice for sculpture in an architectural setting.
Known for his work in relief sculpture, his panels depicting the Stations of the Cross can be seen at St. Joseph’s National Shrine in Old Philadelphia as well as hisi large relief sculpture entitled, “Religious Freedom”, done for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the same church. At the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, Mr. Visco has sculpted three bronze panels depicting “Baptism, Eucharist and The Word” designed for the raredose in the Catherine Pew Memorial Chapel there. In 1997 he completed two bronze reliefs of the Eleven Blessed of Novgrodech and Mother Foundress for Holy Family College Chapel.
In 1999 he began his work for Saint Rita National Shrine in Philadelphia where his reliefs, sculpture and mural paintings combine to make a most unique devotional environment. His commissions include “St. Thomas of Villanova, Father of the Poor”, a life sized group of bronze figures for Villanova Province and a bronze statue of St. Norbert for the Norbertine Community at Daylesford Abbey in Paoli, PA.
Since 2004 he has performed as fine arts coordinator for the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, WI. His current commissions there include bronze Stations of the Cross, a series of porcelain murals for the Rosary Walk, the Four Pendentives murals depicting The Doctors of the Church, the Baldicchino Angels, and the Narthex ceiling mural of “The Visions of Guadalupe.”
His lectures include:
Saint Francis of Assisi and the Renaissance ImaginationThe Art of DevotionNuditas: The Theology of the Body in Sacred Art

I love this particular writing from his website:

"To make sacred art is to wed one’s faith with one’s esthetics in hopes to bring even closer, “the created” to our Creator, to shorten the real or imagined gap between “the called” with the Caller. When the artist answers, when this invitation is met successfully, a covenant is formed; the work is sanctified. This covenant is then extended from God to artist and from artist to fellow believers and finally back to God again. It is this covenant that we wish to explore here. As faith and aesthetic works combine, the work in turn is employed to reflect those beliefs. As culture becomes infused with and by our trust and hope in God, sacred art becomes an indeterminate good, a means by which we may come together and witness the meeting of heaven and earth. Thus, sacred art can not ever be the same give and take between artist and society as secular art."
- From "The Anatomy of Sacred Art" by Anthony Visco

Please visit: http://www.anthonyvisco.org/index.html to see many of his amazing pieces. Also I added a link in the side-bar under 'Art'