While attending the American Academy of Art in Chicago in the early 1970s, Ron DiCianni shared with an instructor his burning desire to use his artistic talents in the Christian community. The instructor warned that DiCianni would never find success in that genre, which had regressed to near extinction since the Renaissance.
DiCianni ventured into commercial art first but continued to pursue his dream with a passion.
Today DiCianni, 46, is a prominent Christian artist who illustrates biblical principles in a contemporary format because he believes Scripture is as relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago.
Sometimes people cry as they stand before DiCianni’s paintings, works such as the young man wearing tattered jeans in “The Prodigal” or the businessman in “The Servant.”
Margo Grayson, gift buyer for the Trinity Bookstore in Deerfield, thinks DiCianni has an incredible gift for capturing human expression and emotion in his paintings.
“If you have a piece of his art in your home, you have a silent partner in both the artist and the Lord,” Grayson said.
Added Lea Weatherred, gift buyer for the Christian Gift Center in Spokane, Wash., “Ron’s work is anointed.”
DiCianni’s paintings, limited-edition prints and other collectibles such as ornaments, figurines and greeting cards are distributed all over the world through fine-art dealers, art galleries and Christian bookstores. In addition, he has co-authored numerous devotional books through Crossway Books of Wheaton and Tyndale House of Carol Stream.
“I love what I do and believe this is what I was born to do,” said DiCianni of Buffalo Grove. “I believe it is important and necessary for me to use art to reintroduce Christian principles and values into a sight-and-sound generation that has lost its moral footing.
“My paintings are direct and powerful. I don’t feel I am called to paint flowers, trees or landscapes and put a verse with the painting, but to illustrate specific passages from Scripture. Norman Rockwell said when you illustrate a story, the illustrator must be completely faithful to the author’s words. The Bible is the source of my work, and I have to be true to what it says. This is not a mission about money; this is a mission about preaching the Gospel–a mission supporting those who are ministering in the name of Christianity.”
As an independent commercial illustrator for nearly 20 years, DiCianni had seen firsthand the power of visuals.
“While the world artfully bombards us daily with images and messages designed to manipulate our lifestyles, the church has done very little to visually reinforce its life-giving message,” DiCianni said. “It is my desire to do nothing more than represent a visual interpretation of Scripture. If Baxter can use visuals to sell drugs and McDonald’s to sell hamburgers, I can use art to communicate the words of the great communicator to the world. Statistics tell us that for every book a college-age student reads, he sees 25 movies. We’re getting more learning from what we see than what we read or any other form of learning.”
Though the message is more important than the medium for DiCianni, excellence also is characteristic of his work.
Fellow Christian artist Morgan Weistling of Canyon Country, Calif., who worked for many years as a movie poster illustrator, sees DiCianni as the father of a whole new realm: Christian fine-art prints, not the low-cost art often associated with Christian arts in the past.
“I totally respect Ron’s vision in using the arts for Christ, and he really inspired me to take my talents and share the message of Christ with the world. He had a good thing going with his own prints, but he encouraged other Christian artists to share in the new happening. . . . He inspired us all instead of keeping it a niche for himself.”
DiCianni received national recognition for his work with such clients as NBC, ABC, McDonald’s, Keebler, United Airlines, Kellogg’s and the U.S. Olympic Committee while working in commercial art, but he said that even while growing up in Chicago, he had a desire to use his artistic talent in the Christian community.
Throughout his commercial career, however, whenever DiCianni had tried to use art in a religious context, there was little interest, he said.
So for several years it seemed that the art instructor had been right, but eventually DiCianni’s persistence paid off.
In 1990, DiCianni teamed with Day Spring, an inspirational card company that shared his vision and marketed his limited-edition Christian prints. That was his Genesis. He also founded his own publishing company, Art2See, to produce his works.
He worked with Day Spring as his distributor until 1997.
Now, though his work has sold hundreds of thousands of prints through Christian bookstores, Art2See is focusing on a broader distribution for DiCianni’s works, said Caesar Kalinowski of Elgin, DiCianni’s business partner and a former music producer.
“Surveys say that almost 20 percent of Christians or regular church attendees shop at Christian bookstores,” Kalinowski said. “Therefore, 80 percent of their potential market is out there shopping elsewhere.”
Dicksons of Seymour, Ind., a manufacturer and distributor of books and giftware for Christian and religious bookstores throughout the world, now distributes DiCianni’s artwork (his prints go from $29 to framed versions in the $300 range).
“I desire Ron’s work because it’s good for our business, but more important, because we believe in what his art says, and we believe in him,” said Jim Potts, president of the company. “People all over the nation have a great appreciation for DiCianni’s work. How often do you see a painting that has such deep meaning that it touches your heart and soul?”
Steve Hite, owner of Red Balloon Gallery in Elkhart, Ind., summed up why DiCianni is so successful: “You don’t have to be a Bible scholar to understand his work.”
DiCianni’s success seems to be coinciding with renewed interest in spiritual art.
“It’s a very small segment of the market, but it’s a segment that is getting larger and larger,” said Sabra Gilbert, editor of U.S. Art Magazine, which conducted a recent reader survey. “The biggest genres are wildlife and Western landscape. That never changes. But what changes are the little niches, and we have never seen this kind of increase in inspirational art before.”
In its January 1998 issue, the magazine featured DiCianni along with 13 other artists. “We thought he was someone worth mentioning in the magazine,” Gilbert said. “Even though Christianity is the prevalent element in his work, I think it kind of transcends that and is something that anyone can relate to no matter what. His paintings are universal enough that you can picture yourself as the person he portrays. It seems like the whole country is sort of going through a spiritual awakening, and this limited-edition artist (DiCianni) seems to reflect that.”
DiCianni’s job lets him work at his home studio, where he can stay in close touch with wife Patricia and their sons, Grant, 18, and Warren, 15.
“Having Ron work at home has helped strengthen our marriage as we’re able to watch and help each other through our day-to-day experiences,” Patricia said. “It has joined us closer as a family as we have shared in the raising of our children.” They attend the Northwest Assembly of God Church in Mt. Prospect.
Professionally, “it will be fun to see where Ron finally ends up because he’s gone so far and has so many multimedia ideas that go beyond painting,” Weistling said. “He has a very wide scope of possibilities.”
His latest accomplishment is multimedia: a made-for-television feature called “Resurrection.” It was based on the 1992 devotional book “Tell Me the Story,” written by Max Lucado of San Antonio and DiCianni. The book, in turn, had been inspired by a DiCianni painting called “Resurrection Morning.” Produced by Impact Productions of Tulsa, the hourlong film explains the Resurrection from the point of view of a guard who fell asleep at Jesus’ tomb. It was syndicated nationally.
In 1996 DiCianni experienced one of the most poignant moments of his new career. While in Woodstock at a book signing for a series of devotional illustrated Christian books, he looked up into the eyes of a man he recognized as the instructor from the American Academy of Art two decades earlier.
DiCianni didn’t have to say, “I told you so.”
“A little choked up, we both embraced,” DiCianni said.
