And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord,
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden:
For, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
(Luke 1:46-48, KJV)
May is the month of the Virgin Mary. The Mother of Christ has…
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Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. (John 20: 27-28, KJV)
We have the Apostle known as Doubting Thomas to thank for the…
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And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. (Luke 24: 30-31)
Two grieving followers of the Crucified Christ are returning from Jerusalem to their home in Emmaus,…
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Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away, Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.… more >>
And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is… more >>
A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not. (Jeremiah 31:15, KJV)
This passage from the Hebrew Scriptures, cited in the Nativity narrative of the Massacre of the Innocents in the Gospel…
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And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46, KJV)
It is hard to find a more heart-rending passage of Scripture than this outcry from the Crucified Christ, one of his Seven Last…
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Mississippi Visionary Artist Carl Dixon has been a longtime friend of the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. In the more than ten years I have known Carl, he has created close to thirty commissioned works for me in a whimsical folk art style on topics as intriguingly diverse as spiritual warfare in the heavens and the earthbound journeys of liberation…
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Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that… more >>
Then he said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it." (Luke 9:23-27, NRSV)
Taking Up the Cross is a…
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And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt… more >>
He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our… more >>
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good… more >>
To mark the Feast of Epiphany in Eastern Orthodox communties in northern climes, brave believers commemorate the Baptism of Christ by taking a freezing plunge through cross-shaped holes cut into ice-covered bodies of water. The biblical event is seen as a celebration of the Trinity, where God the Father in a voice from heaven reveals the divine sonship of…
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For the next two weeks, I will be showing art for the Feast of the Epiphany from the Eastern Churches, where the holy day celebrates the revelation of Christ as the Messiah and second person of the Trinity, when he was baptized by John in the Jordan River. This new icon from the Life of Christ cycle of Cypriot…
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We return this week to Puerto Rico for a second artwork on the epiphanic theme of the Adoration of the Magi, different in focus from last week's poster adverting seasonal events. One major goal of the state-sponsored information programs, which enlisted artists on the Caribbean island to do cultural promotion work, was instilling pride in traditional Puerto Rican arts…
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In the opening days of the new year, Christians celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, commemorating the revelation of Christ to the world, a holy day drawing on different biblical narratives in the Eastern and Western Churches. During the next few weeks, I will showcase new images from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection ilustrating these two Epiphany traditions. Western…
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Charalambos Epaminonda is a longtime friend of the Collection and I'm delighted on this third Sunday in Advent to add a new icon of the Birth of Christ by this Cypriot painter to the gallery of his profile page in the Sacred Artists section. The image belongs to a cycle of contemporary icons…
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As we count down the days to Chrstmas, I have a new Nativity scene to add to the on-line Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection by German Artist Otto Schubert with all the visual delights of the Advent calendars for which his homeland is famous. While a Virgin Mary of robust peasant stock nurses the…
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On this first Sunday in Advent, we conclude our series on art about prophets in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection with a final image of John the Baptist, who prepared the way for the coming of Christ. We see three views of the Baptizer and his ministry in this triptych icon from Lyuba Yatskiv, a leading representative of a…
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John the Baptist, the last prophet in my series on images of "speakers-of-truth-to-power" in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, saw himself as the forerunner of the Messiah whose role would decrease once Christ appeared on the scene. The Baptizer is still the dominant actor in this painting on leather from an unknown Ethiopian artist showing his encounter with Jesus…
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As we approach the season of Advent, a time when Christians await the coming of Christ, I'm concluding my series on images of prophets in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection with a trio of portraits of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus. John is presented in the Gospels as the fulfillment of the prophecy in… more >>
Mississippi Folk Artist Carl Dixon presents another view of a modern day prophet in this week's featured artwork from the Sacred Art Pilgirm Collection, the mixed media on sculpted wood panel piece, The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness. The "wilderness" in this visual commentary on the well known passage from Isaiah 40:30 is a typical Ameican church,…
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On the eve of one of the most important presidential elections in U.S. history, I am presenting a new charcoal sketch from Filipino-American Artist Wayne Forte of a modern-day prophet willing to speak truth to power. Messengers of God have never had it easy in calling people to repent. At a time when…
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We look this week at a "speaker-of-truth-to-power" of the modern era, whose assassination in March 1980 was a chilling replay of the 12th century martyrdom of Thomas Becket. Like the medieval “meddlesome priest," Oscar Romero, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Salvador, set himself on a collision course with El Salvador’s right-wing military junta by issuing calls in weekly…
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In our continuing survey of art about prophets in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, we travel this week from biblical times to the Christian era to view a contemporary print of a 12th century English saint and speaker of truth to power, who was murdered for defending the rights of the church in a standoff with secular authority. Thomas…
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Jonah does not fit the typical image of a biblical prophet. In fact, he does everything possible to sabotage his mission of bringing repentence to Israel's enemies in Nineveh. He sets sail in the opposite direction until a violent storm at sea and three days spent in the belly of a great fish bring about a change of heart.…
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Elijah ranks second to Moses among the prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures. He spoke words of truth with such power to King Ahab that the weak-willed ruler denounced him as the “troublemaker of Israel." Elijah triumphed over the priests of the Canaanite God Baal in a bloody competition to bring the nation back to faith in Yahweh. Both prophet…
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The subject of this week's featured image from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection is Moses, the greatest prophet of the Hebrew Scriptures. Born into slavery in Egypt, he was found drifting in a basket on the Nile by the daughter of Pharaoh and raised in the Egyptian royal court. After striking a blow for the subjugated Children of Israel,…
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During the next few weeks we will be looking at artistic studies of biblical prophets in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. The fate of those who spoke truth to power in the Hebrew Scriptures is a theme that features prominently in the work of Ben-Zion, an East European-born Jewish American artist who evolved an expressionistic style of art, peopled…
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Canadian Cartoonist David Hayward certainly fits the bill of a contemporary artist-prophet. He considers himself to be "The NakedPastor"with a ministry “to bare my soul for everyone to see" and encourage honesty about faith issues. Hayward works with cartoons and satirical sketches like “a graffiti artist on the walls of religion.” He takes us with our shoes on onto…
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We journey north this week from Georgia in the Caucasus Mountains on the southern rim of the former USSR to Lithuania on the Baltic Sea to encounter another artist whose work challenged the atheistic Communist regime of the old Soviet Empire. Antanas Kmieliauskas is known as the Lithuanian Michelangelo for his skill in a wide variety of mediums. During…
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As we consider the topic of the artist as prophet, we travel through history this week from Hitler's Third Reich to the Soviet Empire, where artists posed a challenge to atheistic Communist regimes by making sacred art. Irakli Parjiani was a native son of Svaneti, a rugged Northwestern region of the Caucasus Mountain republic of Georgia, once part of…
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The modern day job description of a prophet can be summed up in four words: speak truth to power. In the weeks leading up to the American presidential election and the season of Advent, I will be featuring works from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, depicting prophets, old and new, and consider the theme of the artist as prophet.…
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It is encouraging to find artists around the globe who are working during the pandemic, making their images available on the internet. So far this year, Czech New Media Artist David Wojkowicz has posted ten "abstract biblical illustrations" on his website, adding to the 94 he has created since 2015. A student of theology, Wojkowicz came to digital art…
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We travel this week to Bulgaria to meet Nikola and Milen Litchkov, a father and son with a small family gallery in the capital city of Sofia who make sacred art. Father Nikola’s sculptures combine the raw expressiveness and rounded solidity of the French early modern masters, Auguste Rodin and Aristide Maillol, with the Socialist Realism in which he…
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It has not been possible during the pandemic to organize artistic events in my local community but the time spent in lockdown has given me the chance to reach out on the internet to art-makers around the world and get a glimpse of different genres of sacred art in the global village. In the coming weeks, I will be…
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In my final essay on artworks in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection made for a popular audience, we travel to Poland to look at the country's world-renowned school of contemporary poster art. The product of a mutually-beneficial arrangement between artists and state cultural agencies in the early years of the Communist regime in Post-World War II Poland, this innovative…
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My second essay on religious art created for a popular audience showcases works in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection from an intrepid group of artist-illustrators who travelled to Palestine at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the modern era in search of local color to give greater authenticity to illustrations intended for Bibles and other…
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The past few weeks in lockdown have given me an opportunity to delve more deeply into art history in preparing three new essay-length entries for the Schools of Sacred Art section. They showcase works in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, which were created specifically for a popular audience, ranging from posters and satirical prints to illustrated Bibles and Sunday…
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My series on images of Jesus the Healer in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection comes to an end this week with a painting depicting one of the greatest miracles in the New Testament, the raising of Lazarus from the dead in the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of John. After hearing his close friend, Lazarus, is dying, Jesus delays…
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Christ sets aside Jewish customs on social distancing to cure the ailing servant of a Roman centurion in this week's feaured image of Jesus the Healer from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. In Matthew's account of the miracle, the gentile army officer comes directly to Jesus to beg for help. In Luke's version of the story, Jewish intermediaries plead…
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We turn this week to an image of Jesus the healer from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, illustrating a miracle story in two of the Synoptic Gospels, which has long perplexed New Testament scholars, where Christ is rudely dismissive of a non-Jewish woman who appeals to him to exorcise her demon-possessed daughter. The writer of Mark describes her as…
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Next in our series on images of Jesus the Healer in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection is a wood engraving from German-American Graphic Artist Fritz Eichenberg, depicting one of the most dramatic stories in the Gospels, when Jesus exorcises a legion of evil spirits from a demon-possessed man and casts them into a herd of swine, which throw themselves…
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The Gospels record two occasions when Jesus healed people suffering from leprosy. Jesus cures a lone leper with his touch in violation of Jewish laws about contact with the "unclean." Ten lepers call out to him and he heals them with an authoritative command. In this week's featured work on the theme of Jesus the Healer, American Artist Edward…
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This week's image of Jesus the Healer from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection illustrates one of the more intriguing accounts of his ministry of restoration, found in all three of the Synoptic Gospels. Jesus is making his way through a crowd to bring life to the daughter of Jairus, when he comes to a sudden halt. He senses "power…
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