From paintings of icons to saints to the life of Christ, more than one hundred pages are filled with beautiful, religious art of Michael O’Brien in a new book aptly titled THE ART OF MICHAEL D. O’BRIEN.
Readers won’t need to go to a museum, university or website to pray and meditate using religious art; it’s all in the book, which compiles some of O’Brien’s most stunning work and includes explanations of the art.
Since 1970, O’Brien has been a professional painter of religious art. Though his reputation as a Catholic novelist and essayist began in 1996 and continues on the strength of more than twenty-eight published books, he is also widely known as a visual artist, with his paintings in churches, universities and other institutions, as well as in public galleries and private collections throughout the world.
The book is more than a collection of one artist — it calls the reader to delve deeper into the life of Christ through contemplating the mysteries in each of the paintings and icons.
In THE ART OF MICHAEL D. O’BRIEN, the artist presents and comments on many of his important pieces. He explains his development as a religious artist and his philosophy of sacred art. The vibrancy, originality, and variety of his work are on display in more than one hundred twenty full-color reproductions of his paintings and Byzantine-style icons. Also included are some of his drawings and other works in black and white.
“Michael O’Brien’s search to evoke the timelessness of art has led him on a compelling visual journey from nature drawings to icons to realism to dreamscapes to history painting,” said Elizabeth Lev, art historian and author of How Catholic Art Saved the Faith. “Freed from stylistic and formal fads, his images arrest viewers in the here and now before propelling them into the depths of spirituality. O’Brien’s story recalls that of Fra Angelico — living Truth while painting Truth — and using simplicity and elegance to renew Christian art for an age overshadowed by secularism.”
