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“Hermit of Lost Island,” Bahamas

Article in “Island Notes,” a feature column of Bahamaislandinfo, titled “Sadly Lost to the World: The Hermit of Lost Island,” about the American Trappist monk Gerald Groves.

Groves spent time at the Abbey of Gethsemani and knew Thomas Merton, then spent a little while in Martinique, followed by six years as a hermit in Bahamas beginning in 1960, a period described by the article. Groves lived in an abandoned and dilapidated Baptist Church built in 1902 until development drove him out, returning to the U.S. to study and teach. Groves died in 2003.

(Groves published an article about Merton in a 1979 issue of American Scholar.)

An updated URL (2014): http://www.thebahamasweekly.com/publish/author-historian/Sadly_lost_to_this_world_-_the_hermit_of_lost_beach33846.shtml

URL (no longer available): http://www.bahamaislandsinfo.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10087:island-notes-sadly-lost-to-this-world-the-hermit-of-lost-beach&catid=113:island-notes&Itemid=228

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Friedrich: “Wanderer in the Fog”

The German Romantic painter Caspar (or Kaspar) David Friedrich (1774-1840) captures the psychological undercurrent of individualism in his “Wander in the Fog” or “Wanderer in the Sea of Fog” (“Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer”), 1817. The painting depicts a well-dressed man standing on a crag, with a spectacular landscape before him. Is he a mere object in the immensity of nature, or does his pose suggest that humanity — or he, at least — has conquered the mysteries of existence and now stands triumphant over the world? Frederich’s other works depicting bleak romantic (even Gothic) settings does not suggest triumph or clarity. But a Nietzschean interpretation is inevitable, as in the cover art of an older English-language translation of Thus Spake Zarathustra published by Wilco in Mumbai, India, in 2006 (which see here).

Wanderer in the Fog

The original is in the Hamburger Kunsthalle.

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Ni Zan, 14th cent. Chinese hermit painter

This China Daily article highlights the 14th-century Chinese landscape painter Ni Zan (Ni Tsan), known as the “hermit of cloud forest.”

“You hardly find images of people in his paintings, except for maybe a few Taoist monks, as he regarded ordinary people as so much less attractive than what he imagined and depicted in his art,” notes Lu Li, director of the curatorial department of Nanjing Museum in Jiangsu province.

URL: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/sunday/2011-09/18/content_13727099.htm

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Australian hermit documentary

ABC TV of Australia first aired the documentary “Hermits: Freedom or Madness” in February of 1998 on its Compass series. (Mentioned in this blog back in 2003!) The documentary is now available on the web.

Description from the Compass site:

COMPASS follows six very different Australians who’ve all chosen to live lives of complete seclusion, free from obligations – withdrawn from society (yet in some cases still living in urban environs), exploring life in depth.
We meet people like Vyn Bailey, a hermit and yogin – Father Ronan, a Priest and anchorite – and Pravrajika Ajayaprana, a Hindu nun.

URLs:
Compass site: http://www.abc.net.au/compass/series/1998/hermits.htm
Video: http://www.catholictv.tv/new/index.php/programs/113-freedom

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Carlo Bevilacqua’s hermit photos

“Into The Silence: Hermits of The Third Millennium” is a photographic gallery of Italian photographer Carlo Bevilacqua. Featured are over 50 photographs of hermits of India, Orthodox hermits of Greece and Georgia, Christian hermits of Italy, and secular hermits, plus their dwellings. Bevilacqua’s work is clear, focused, humane, and empathetic.

The photographer has communicated to Hermitary that he is looking for contemporary hermits pursuing silence and retreat for a new project. Contact the photographer at info at carlobevilacqua dot com and indicate that you learned of him at Hermitary.

From the gallery:

They are not so many, but their presence and their witness have a powerful and fascinating effect. They live sometimes isolated in small apartments in the heart of our cities, most often they stay by the side of woods and villages. They build their own retreat or put away old rectory and chapels that previously fell to pieces.

The phenomenon has been observed in the late eighties and recent years have seen a steady increase in number. Extraordinary stories and portraits of surprising humanity which strike for the radical and the beauty of life that flows from it. …

URL: http://www.carlobevilacqua.com/html/album.php?id_album=31