The Art of Michael O'Brien

Michael O'Brien has been a professional painter of religious art since 1970. 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. In this book, O'Brien 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’Brian’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. Freed from stylistic and formal fads, his images arrest viewers in the here and now before propelling them into the depths of spirituality. O’Brian’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.” -Elizabeth Lev, Art historian and author, How Catholic Art Saved the Faith "In an age where art of every kind is often disastrously divorced from the divine, a perusal of this book is pure joy. Not only are many of these images an aid to prayer—they actually demand prayer. I could not bring myself to turn away from the gorgeous depictions of Christ’s Passion—prayer was the only response. O’Brien’s time spent as writer of Byzantine icons has influenced all his work: these pieces are indeed ‘windows to heaven.’ There is an enormous sense of the artist’s devotion here, and his vocation to express the mysteries of God." -Sally Read, Poet and Author, Night's Bright Darkness and Annunciation "To say that Michael D. O'Brien is a man of many talents is to do him a great injustice. He has rare gifts as both storyteller and artist which few, if any, of his contemporaries can claim. Those of us who know his fiction will delight in this volume of his art. As a visual artist, he works from a palette which includes iconography, primitivism, symbolism, even surrealism, and also what he calls implicitness. At the same time, his work is always quintessentially personal, in the sense that it incarnates the extraordinary vision of this marvelous man." Joseph Pearce, Author, Tolkien: Man and Myth and Wisdom & Innocence: The Life of G.K. Chesterton

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