ShinsungHwa: The Visualization of Saint Bruno’s Spiritual Energy, Founder of the Carthusian Order (2023)
What is ShinsungHwa?
ShinsungHwa is a unique form of spiritual art where drawings emerge through spontaneous, flowing movements. Artists tap into their subject’s energy and let Qi(氣) guide their hands, creating geometric patterns that serve as a universal language.
Commentary on a ShinsungHwa: Saint Bruno
About three months ago, I stumbled upon a quiet little film called The Carthusian Cloistered Monastery, a documentary about the Carthusian monks. At first, I hadn’t planned on creating a ShinsungHwa of Saint Bruno, the founder of the order. But something in their lives—so pared down, so firmly rooted in silence and restraint—stirred me. Almost without realizing it, I felt drawn to begin. And once I started, the work grew into a project that carried me through the next three months.
The Carthusian order is small—there are only twenty-three monasteries in twelve countries, and one each for men and women in Korea, the only Carthusian presence in Asia. Their way of life is one of deep solitude, where the noise of the world is set aside so that only the voice of God may be heard. Even in death, their silence does not truly end. That sense of complete withdrawal, so far beyond what most of us can imagine, gives the film its strange and haunting beauty.
This ShinsungHwa is of Saint Bruno.
Above his head appears the ‘symbol of light.’ At his heart, light takes the form of a dotted line, and at his solar plexus, another spiritual sign of light emerges. Most striking of all are the streams of energy radiating outward from his hands—as if they were charged with the power to confront injustice and set things right. Hands, after all, represent both skill and strength. The release of this energy felt to me like a visible expression of his will to carry out God’s intentions.
As I worked, the energy of the drawing seemed to expand, almost as if it was unwilling to be confined to the paper. I found myself attaching extra sheets so that the image could grow.
In the completed piece, a five-sided figure—the ‘pentagonal energy’—emerged, serving as a ‘symbol of light’ in material form, enclosing all the other energies within it. Around this, an energy field appeared that spoke to the nature of Saint Bruno himself. The pentagon, with its firmness and its unyielding edges, seemed to reflect his resilience—the tenacity that allowed him to hold fast to a life of silence and solitude. Once he chose his path, no one could move him from it.
And I find myself thinking: perhaps the only way such a difficult life is possible—the rigorous rules, the long quiet, the loneliness—is that within it lies a mystery and a fullness greater than any earthly pleasure. Perhaps, at the very center, it is about longing: the deep yearning for union with God.
There is something deeply moving in that. To give yourself over completely to just one thing, one value—or one calling—without compromise. Whether in religion, art, or the simplest routines of a life well-lived, that kind of devotion carries its own beauty. And it carries, too, a quiet strength that asks for our respect.
Quote
“While the world changes, the cross stands firm.”
“Only those who have experienced the solitude and the silence of the wilderness can know the benefit and divine joy they bring to those who love them.”
“By your work you show what you love and what you know.”
“In the solitude and silence of the wilderness…, for their labor in the contest, God gives his athletes the reward they desire: a peace that the world does not know and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
“If the bow is stretched for too long, it becomes slack and unfit for its purpose.”
“For the devil may tempt the good, but he cannot find rest in them; for he is shaken violently, and upset, and driven out, now by their prayers, now by their tears of repentance, and now by their almsgiving and similar good works.”
“The unclean spirit enters easily into a man, and easily goes out from him.”
A Quiet Life of Devotion
When people hear the word saint, they often imagine dramatic stories, filled with miracles and grand events. But Saint Bruno (c. 1030–1101), the quiet, thoughtful churchman who founded the Carthusian Order, did not live a life of spectacle. His story is not one of loud sermons or heroic crusades. Instead, it is the story of a man who searched for silence in a world that was often loud, restless, and full of ambition. And perhaps that is why, nearly a thousand years later, people still find something steady and gentle in his legacy.
A Boy from Cologne
Bruno was born around the year 1030 in Cologne, a city in present-day Germany. At that time, Cologne was a growing and bustling place, a trade city with stone churches, merchants moving across the Rhine, and students coming to learn. Bruno was lucky to be born into a respected family, which meant he had the chance to study from a young age.
Education was not common for many children then. Books were expensive, written by hand, and schools often tied to cathedrals. But Bruno was sharp-minded and loved learning. He eventually studied in Rheims, in France. There, he earned a reputation as one of the finest scholars of his time. Students admired him. Teachers respected him. In the classroom, his words carried weight. He was not only intelligent but also steady and kind, the kind of person people trusted.
Bright Promises in Rheims
By the middle of his career, Bruno had reached a comfortable and respected position. He became a teacher at the cathedral school of Rheims, which was one of the most important centers of learning in Europe. He taught future bishops and statesmen, and many of them carried his lessons for the rest of their lives.
It seemed that the road ahead for Bruno pointed clearly toward power and recognition. People expected he would soon become a bishop himself—a high-ranking leader in the church. His career, at least in the eyes of others, appeared bright and secure. And yet, that kind of life did not appeal to him.
What unsettled him was not just the burden of authority but the corruption he saw in some church leaders of the time. The eleventh century was not simple or pure. Bishops sometimes bought their offices. Church posts were handed out through politics, not faith. Bruno watched all this, and instead of chasing after that same power, he began to turn away from it.
Leaving Ambition Behind
At one point, Bruno was offered the powerful position of Archbishop of Rheims. Most men of the time would have seized it eagerly, but he refused. Stories say he had already decided that his heart did not belong in palaces or councils. Instead, he longed for quiet.
This decision was not easy. Turning away from power meant turning away from a comfortable and admired life. But Bruno was not interested in winning arguments or climbing ladders anymore. He wanted space for prayer, for study, for listening to God away from endless debate. So he left.
Searching for Silence
With a small group of companions who felt the same call, Bruno traveled to Grenoble in southeastern France. The local bishop there, Hugh of Châteauneuf, welcomed them and led them into a wild, mountainous valley called Chartreuse. It was remote, with forests bending under snow in winter and streams running cold and clear.
This is where Bruno and his friends built their settlement—simple huts of wood and stone, each small enough for one man to live alone. At the center was a chapel where they gathered for worship. This was the beginning of the Carthusian Order, a community unlike most others.
While other monasteries were lively places, with shared meals, big libraries, and fields filled with monks working together, Bruno’s idea was different. He wanted solitude and community—each man alone with God most of the time, yet coming together for prayer. It was a delicate balance between stillness and connection.
The Carthusian Way
The Carthusian monks lived lives of fasting, silence, and prayer. Their food was plain—bread, vegetables, water, perhaps a little wine. They avoided meat. They owned nothing personally. Days were spent mostly alone, reading or praying in their cells, though they gathered for worship several times a day and night.
This rhythm was demanding. It required discipline, but it also gave freedom: the freedom to live with clear focus, without distractions. Bruno’s monks did not write down detailed rules the way some other orders did. Their order instead grew slowly, shaped by the simple lifestyle he began in Chartreuse.
Today, nearly a thousand years later, Carthusian monks still follow this quiet pattern of life. Their homes are still called charterhouses, after the valley of Chartreuse. Compared to the noise of modern life, their way may seem strange. But to those who feel drawn to it, the silence is not emptiness—it is fullness.
Rome Calls
Bruno’s years in Chartreuse did not last uninterrupted. Pope Urban II, who had been one of his former students, called him to Rome. The Pope wanted his help as an adviser, particularly during tense times when the church clashed with secular rulers over authority. Bruno could not easily say no to a former pupil who was now Pope.
So he left his quiet valley and, for some years, worked within the heart of church politics. But though Bruno helped Urban, his heart never settled in Rome. He was careful, practical, and wise, yet the noise of city life pressed on him. He longed to return to the hidden places.
Eventually, with the Pope’s blessing, he left for southern Italy, where he founded another small hermitage in Calabria. There, in the hills, he spent the last years of his life, more at peace than he ever had been in Rome. He died there in 1101.
One of the striking things about Saint Bruno is how little was written about him compared to other saints. He did not perform famous miracles. He did not leave thick collections of writings. What survives is mostly the testimony of those who knew him—a man of quiet faith, thoughtful and steady, serious but not harsh.
In art, he is often painted in the white robes of the Carthusians, his face calm, sometimes holding a skull as a reminder of life’s brevity. He is not portrayed as fiery or grand, but as reserved, focused inward.
The Carthusian motto, often repeated, is Stat crux dum volvitur orbis—“The Cross stands while the world turns.” It reflects the spirit Bruno left behind: a sense of stability in the middle of change. While centuries have passed, with wars, kingdoms rising and falling, and revolutions reshaping societies, the Carthusians have stayed mostly the same—quiet men praying in their cells, choosing silence in a restless world.
This choice has sometimes been admired, sometimes criticized. Some find it wasteful that talented men live hidden away instead of serving actively in the world. Others argue that silence, too, is a form of service, a reminder that not every contribution needs to be visible to have value.
Ordinary and Extraordinary
It is tempting to see Bruno as extraordinary. After all, he gave up power and influence to live in obscurity. But another way to see him is this: he was simply a man paying attention to what his heart told him. He chose honesty over ambition, prayer over politics. Many people face similar choices, in smaller ways—whether to keep striving for what others expect, or to turn aside and listen to what feels truer, even if it seems less grand.
That thought might be why his story endures. Not because it is dramatic, but because it is relatable. He wrestled with the noise of success and stepped away. He was, in that sense, a man not of show, but of substance.
Saint Bruno is remembered on October 6th each year. In Cologne, where he was born, and in Calabria, where he died, his memory is still honored. Around the world, Carthusian monks live by the path he first walked.
For most people, his quiet way of life will always remain distant. Few of us would choose a cell in the mountains over the clatter of daily living. But in a smaller way, Bruno’s lesson can slip into ordinary lives: the reminder that sometimes stillness is needed; sometimes walking away from noise and ambition is its own kind of strength.
His story tells us that faith does not always roar. Sometimes, it whispers.
