San Francisco-based illustrator Bernadette Carstensen paints sacred stories that transcend language. Many of her works have been ecclesiastical commissions. However, it’s a career path that she didn’t intend to take.
Growing up in Circleville, Ohio (25 miles south of Columbus), she had set her heart on becoming a book illustrator. Her parents, both art majors, had filled the family home with exquisite art and books full of adventures illustrated by the likes of English book illustrator Arthur Rackham (1867–1939). These artists brought the stories to life, and she fully intended to follow in their footsteps.
First, she majored in illustration at the Columbus College of Art & Design, the same college her parents graduated from. There, she learned the methods and business of creating and selling strong visual narratives. She also learned the importance of creating concrete models for her compositions, rather than relying solely on her imagination. For figures, this meant photographing and making sketches of costumed models posing in the studio.
The Apocalypse Epiphany
Then in 2013, a family friend sent her information about the Apocalypse Prize, an art competition based on the apocalypse detailed in the Book of Revelation. To enter, artists had to create any composition based on St. John’s revelations while staying true to the medieval (also known as the poetic) manuscript style of art. The ancient style features flat compositions full of sacred symbology (or “analogies embedded in sacred Scriptures,” according to the competition’s introductory video).She decided to create a triptych (a three-panel devotional painting) of St. John’s revelation for her competition entry, but before she put her brush to canvas she had to reread the Book of Revelation and also learn the language of medieval manuscript art. Artists were given an entry package containing a guidebook that described the process of making illuminated manuscripts and the traditional symbolism involved. For instance, God is traditionally surrounded by clouds, angels are always barefoot, and the size of the figures are analogous to the holy hierarchy—for example, saints are rendered larger than people.
“Even if you want to stylize your artwork, you have to have that foundation of being able to portray things realistically, as you see them,” she explained. Only when something is universally recognizable can it be communicated, almost without explanation, across cultures.
For inspiration, she referred to a lot of Renaissance paintings, especially Northern Renaissance artworks such as Hans Memling’s “Last Judgment” triptych and Jan van Eyck’s “Ghent Altarpiece,” a copy of which hangs in her studio. For instance, in her triptych, she rendered the dragon at the Virgin’s feet based on the ones that she'd seen in Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings.
She painted the piece in gouache, a water-based paint that she started using after her high school art teacher told her it was the hardest paint to master. Gouache gives a similar finish to egg tempera, the paint used in medieval manuscripts. Ms. Carstensen explained that gouache produces a flat appearance that reflects the light but can’t achieve the deep contrasts that oil paints can.
The work is rich with meaning. For instance, an olive tree in the left panel represents the two witnesses. And in the central panel, Ms. Carstensen rendered Mary, the immaculate Virgin, descending from heaven on a crescent moon, a traditional symbol as written in Revelation 12:1.
While the paint and symbolism she chose fit well with the medieval style, she couldn’t resist adding a more naturalistic style to her painting, contrary to the flat medieval manuscript style that shows no perspective or depth of form.
Entering the competition had a profound impact on her life. While rereading the Book of Revelation, she had a reconversion. “Reading Scripture by the grace of God just converted my heart,” she said. And from that point on, she has received sacred art commissions and has focused on illustrating the divine ever since.
The Dominicans
In 2016, Ms. Carstensen’s mother suggested that she create a large composition to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the Dominican order; their family church (St. Patrick’s in Columbus) belongs to the order. The timing seemed perfect. She was between jobs and living with her parents, so she could devote her days to her first multifigure composition titled “Domincans.”First, she selected the saints and blesseds from a book called “St. Dominic’s Family” by Sister Mary Jean Dorcy; it details short biographies of over 300 Dominicans. She found learning more about the Dominicans very moving.
Wanting each figure to be recognizable, she selected famous figures such as St. Pius V (pope), St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Catherine of Siena, alongside a few obscure figures Blessed Anthony Neyrot (who wears a turban), Blessed Fra Angelico (who holds a paint palette) and St. Zedislava Berka (who holds a shield). Just like in the sacred art of centuries ago, she made each figure recognizable by the objects they hold, which could indicate their order or how they were martyred, among other meanings. For example, Blessed Jean-Joseph Lataste, on the far left, bears the flag of The Province of St. Joseph, also known as the Eastern Province (founded in 1805), and he holds a skull representing St. Mary Magdalene. According to the website Ordo Praedicatorum, while transferring the relics of the saint in 1860, the brother reflected: “It is thus true that the greatest sinners have in them what makes for the greatest saints; who knows if they will not one day become such.” He later founded the House of Bethany for reformed women.
Ms. Carstensen scoured thrift shops for sheets and costumes to clothe the sacred figures and borrowed a habit from one of the priests to dress her friends and family as models for reference photographs. Most of her illustrations feature her husband and eldest daughter, Brigid (who appears as baby Jesus in her early works; her son inherited the role in more recent works). She then overlaid each character portrait on her composition before creating the final work.
People really resonated with the work, and soon similar commissions came in, including one from Father Donald Calloway to depict “St. Joseph Terror of Demons.” Father Calloway wanted a work similar to the “Dominicans” but with a vertical composition of St. Joseph Terror of Demons surrounded by sacred figures. He was writing a book titled “Consecration to St. Joseph: The Wonders of Our Spiritual Father,” and he specified the figures that he wanted in the book illustration.
“This one was definitely more challenging,” Ms. Carstensen said. She explained that the vertical composition made arranging the different figures difficult, to avoid overcrowding the painting.
Father Calloway came up with St. Joseph’s genius pose, as he holds baby Jesus, who kills the demon dragon at the saint’s feet with the stems of a bunch of lilies. “The intent is to show [that] the purity of Jesus is what destroys the devil, and that’s why the lilies represent purity and turn into a spear,” she said.
Ms. Carstensen wasn’t content with the piece, so she made another painting of St. Joseph Terror of Demons without the surrounding figures. “I love this painting; I have it in my bedroom,” she said. She likes looking at it when she prays, and it’s also a sentimental piece, as both her husband and daughter modeled for the work. She isn’t the only one to love the work. Judges at the Catholic Art Institute awarded it third place in the institute’s 2021 Sacred Art Prize.
Another of her multifigured commissions posed a different challenge: rendering many contemporary religious figures. The Benedict XVI Institute commissioned the artwork for composer Frank La Rocca’s “Missa Sancti Juniperi Serra,” a new Mass honoring St. Junipero Serra. In “St. Junipero Serra and American Saints,” she set the saint in the center, in front of the universe, and he’s flanked by American saints and those in process of obtaining sainthood. Some believe that the saint had abused Native Americans. “This was a way for us to honor him, and … to correct the record,” she said.
Universal Humanity
While the past inspires Ms. Carstensen, she’s also moved by her life experiences. She used a naturalistic style in her tender interpretation of the Madonna and child, commissioned by one of the ministries in her church. She'd just become a new mother, and the composition mirrored her maternal instinct. Mary stares up adoringly at her baby, Jesus. “He is crowning her with flowers, representing what will come when they are both in heaven,” she says on her website.
Ms. Carstensen constantly works on mastering her art. She wants people to look at her illustrations and be able to understand the story right away.
Of all her artwork she says: “l want people to really empathize with the figures, … to feel the reality of the spiritual, and hopefully, to help people with their devotion.”
