Now, I see them for what they are — little icons that, in the words of Dylan Thomas, "rage(d) against the dying of the light."
Traditional Hummels were smaller and were of children doing childish things, and this is when I knew exactly what she was talking about — those kitschy statues of children in Grandma's glass case ...
I knew what figurines Seth Haines was talking about when I read it. My kids' Grandma (and my mother-in-law), a Hummel enthusiast herself, has the same figurines behind a glass case.
But what I didn't know was a story to be revealed in Amber and Seth Haines' Deep Down Things (my first nonfiction read of 2024 and a book I think will also be a favorite at the end of the year) that would change my mind and teach me something I keep coming back to:
All art comes from the human capacity to create, a capacity gifted by the great Creator. And just as he looked into the darkness, into the void and said, "Let there be light," we're given the opportunity to do the same.
Sometimes we don't have a say about whether the darkness rolls over us like a blitzkrieg, but we can still tend to the light of the deep down things, the light of hope. Keep that light burning. Let it move in and through your own acts of creation.
Gift light to others.
Say to them in their darkness,
"Rise, let us go from here"
(John 14:31 ESV).
pg. 158
I often recognize this type of darkness-piercing creative act of defiance through films. For example, during the recent season of Advent, the season that "begins in the dark," I like to return to films that show what it's like when light breaks through in the pitch black.
Such films include Children of Men, A Quiet Place, Tokyo Godfathers, and even a miniseries like Netflix's recent All the Light We Cannot See, stories that I think rage against the dying light in all sorts of furious and fascinating ways.
But I wouldn't say a Hummel painting or figurine does that for me. In fact, I might write one off as kitschy and sentimental, a tiny collectible from a bygone era.
That's the beautiful thing about sacred artifacts from the past. They have a way of "participating with the sacramental, deep down things that demonstrate God's wild love for the world."
Some might call this love subversive.
Haines describes Hummel's art as punk rock.
Others look at her images as peaceful.
Now that I know Hummel's story,
I agree with all of the above.
Her art does rage against the dark—
subversive, peaceful, and punk rock.
Her art is infused with God's wild love.
Surprised?
Read Hummel's story below.
Joy Subverts the War Machine
Berta Hummel was born on May 21, 1909. The third daughter of an established and successful Bavarian merchant, Adolf, and his wife, Victoria, Hummel did not know poverty. In fact, she didn't want for much. At five, she was enrolled in a school run by an order of teaching nuns. There she learned reading, writing, and art.
At twelve, she was admitted to the Institute of English Sisters, where her artistic talent stood out. At the prodding of her father, she applied to the Academy of Applied Art in Munich and was admitted without being required to take the entrance exam. She excelled and at age eighteen graduated at the top of her class.
Now, if you know anything at all about world history, it's this: in the early 1930s, the Nazi Party was on the rise in Germany, and at its helm was Adolf Hitler. In a time of poverty coming out of World War I, he promised the people of Germany power and prosperity. Berta Hummel was interested in neither. She was more interested in simplicity and art, and so instead of trying to make a go of it as a commercial painter, she joined a Franciscan convent and adopted a new name. The artist formerly known as Berta had become Sister Maria Innoncentia Hummel.
This is not to say that Sister Maria Innocentia Hummel gave up on art. She continued painting and sketching, but her work was sold to help support her sisters. And though she could have painted more sophisticated portraits, landscapes, or icons (she did on some occasions), she chose subject matter that stood in stark contrast to the darkness of the age — cartoonish children who often wore smiles, held hands, or examined a butterfly, frog, or angel with wide-eyed wonder.
Sister Hummel's art may have been simple and affected, but it was not weightless. In an age of nationalistic fervor, of a führer who continued to advance the myth of Aryan supremacy and the belief that a master race could assert global white supremacy, Hummel did what all great artists do. She painted in shades of subversion.
Painting in Shades of Subversion
Sometime between 1933 and 1935, Sister Hummel created a charcoal and pastel work now known as The Volunteers. The piece depicts two children goose-stepping, one beating a drum while the other carries a rifle backward. Beneath it she'd inscribed Lieb' Fatherland magst ruhig sein! (Dear Fatherland, may you be at peace!). The subtext was not subtle: Dear Hitler, do not send our boys off to die.
Hummel's artwork did not go unnoticed. It grabbed the attention of the Nazi media machine, thereby grabbing the attention of Hitler himself. Hitler fancied himself an artist and art historians agree he had some skill as a painter, even if his work was cool, aloof, and as detached from human emotion as the man himself. It was this detachment that led to his rejection by the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. When Hitler — a self-proclaimed artistic expert — saw Sister Maria's work, it burned him. This nun, who'd received an outstanding education in art, painted weak German children with "hydrocephalic heads" and club feet.
She should not be celebrated, (Hitler) said. It was not art.
She Was Punk Rock Before Punk Rock
I found no indication that Sister Hummel responded directly to Hitler, but maybe her images contain a cryptic rebuttal of Nazi ideology. She often depicted children as angels, and in a time when Hitler was persecuting the Jews — men, women, and children alike — many of those angels had Stars of David on their tunics, and sometimes they were staring at Davidic stars in the sky. In 1936, she painted Unser Aller Mutter (Mother of Us All), a portrait of Mary on some African coast tending to two Black boys.
 |
| Mother of Us All (Unser Aller Mutter) by Sister M.I. Hummel |
Between 1938 and 1939, she drew three German boys at a crossroads, and on the crossroads, a sign with a single legible word: Stop. Was it a call to contemplation before choosing the path of war or the path of peace? Sister Hummel took her art — cartoonish images of joy — and she shoved it in Hitler's eye.
She was punk rock before there was punk rock.
Joyous Cartoons in Age of Despair
Her work captured the popular imagination, and throughout the 1930s, the porcelain manufacturer Franz Goebel collaborated with her to turn her drawings into figurines. Many of those figurines were eventually purchased and sent back to the States by American GIs. But after Hitler took notice of her, commercial reproductions of her works were banned in Nazi-occupied territories. Then in October 1940, the convent Sister Hummel called home was confiscated by the Nazis and turned into a sort of camp for their troops. Only 40 of the 250 sisters, including Sister Hummel, remained. There she continued to produce hundreds of works of art, though relatively few of them were sold commercially, and what the Nazis allowed to be sold — mostly to unsuspecting consumers in the United States — helped support the sisters. Of course, the Nazis skimmed a little off the top to help fund their war machine because evil always tries to co-opt beauty.
Though Sister Hummel would continue to sketch her joyous cartoons in an age of despair, she would not live to see full-scale production of figurines based on her images. The embargo on Hummel production was not lifted until 1946, the same year she succumbed to tuberculosis. On November 6, she joined the communion of the saints in heaven. She was thirty-seven years old ...
Before I knew the history of Sister Hummel and these figurines, I would have said these were silly and unserious knickknacks.
Now, I see them for what they are — little icons that, in the words of Dylan Thomas, "rage(d) against the dying of the light."
+ Seth Haines,
Deep Down Things
Ch. 9: Flip the Script
pgs. 154-157
Next post: Faith | Marveling at the Kingdom of God
New Year posts:
+ Wisdom | Receive & Give Healing in Jesus' Name
+ Healing | Sozo Jesus, Shalom, and Kintsugi Gospel
+ Laughter | Jesus Wants His Joy to be in Us Fully
+ Gathering | Anticipating the Artistry of What's Next
+ Epiphany | Glory and Gifts for the Joyful Journey
+ Snow | Beauty, Stillness, Wonder & Joy in Worcester
Christ is all,
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