‘Art, the greatest art, is to see things as God sees them’: Biblical scenes in the drawings of Bl. Vladimir Ghika

Vladimir Ghika was born on Christmas Day, 1873 into a noble family. His grandfather was Prince Gregory V Ghika, the last Prince sovereign of Moldavia. He was born in Constantinople, where his father was a diplomat, but he was educated in France and during his university career in Rome, he converted to Roman Catholicism. Ghika returned to Romania and dedicated himself to charity work. He was ordained priest in Paris in 1923, and until his return to Romania in 1939, he worked across the world. Following the outbreak of the Second World War, he would not leave Romania so that he could tend to the poor and sick - and after the Communists took power, he similarly refused to leave. He was arrested in 1952 and charged with High Treason, eventually being imprisoned in Jilava where he died in 1954.

Ghika’s reflections and meditations were published widely in French and Romanian, and he was a skilled pianist and organist. He was also a gifted artist. In a letter written when he was only two years old, his mother wrote to his father: ‘Vladimir spends his time scribbling on paper.’ In the interwar period, he produced a couple of albums of miniature drawings - depicting religious and mythological themes, birds, animals and ships - all in a graceful and expressive style. He also designed ex libris plates and ornamented letters as well as stamps and logos.

There is a very fine collection of these drawings published in Fericitul Vladimir Ghika: In spiritu caritatis - Desene (Bucuresti: Editura ARCB, 2018). Below you can scroll through a small selection, depicting biblical scenes.