The last in my curious quartet of holy men in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection is Roch, a 14th century saint who is patron of invalids and the ailing, apothecaries and gravediggers, dogs and dog-lovers, the falsely accused and imprisoned, and bachelors. The son of the governor of the French city of Montpelier, Roch was marked from birth with…
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The saint known as Anthony of Padua was born as Fernando to a wealthy Portuguese family in Lisbon. He entered an Augustinian monastery at 15 but was drawn to the evangelical fervor of the Franciscan Order, where his intellectual prowess and rhetorical gifts soon made him one of the new movement’s most eloquent preachers and teachers. The personal sanctity…
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The story of Isidore the Farmer illustrates how saintliness has not so much to do with martyrdom or feats of self-denial but with honoring God in the workaday world with simple acts of devotion. Born around 1070 to devout Spanish peasants, Isidore lived out his life as a day laboror for a wealthy land-owner with an estate near Madrid.…
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The Gospel accounts of the Crucifixion tell of an unnamed Roman Centurion, so moved by what he witnessed at the foot of the Cross he proclaimed the dying Christ to be “the Son of God" (Matthew 27:54). Later apocryphal narratives identify him as Longinus, a name probably derived from the Greek word for the lance he thrust into the…
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Western Christians celebrate All Saints' Day on November 1st, honoring those holy men and women whose lives of devotion to God and service to humanity have earned them the special regard of the Church. Looking for images of the saints has not been a goal of mine in collecting contemporary sacred art with the exception, perhaps, of a few…
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My series on Czech artists in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection comes to an end this week with a tribute to the Prague-based artist, David Nebesky, who, I recently learned, died after a brief illness in the fall of 2022. Working under the pseudonym of David Wojkowicz, he produced new media prints on biblical themes like these digital images…
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Czech Graphic Artist Jan Hisek occupies a special niche among the East European small format printmakers in my collection. Entering his imaginative world is like voyaging twenty thousand leagues under the sea. In his monochrome mezzotints, biomorphic shapes gleam against backgrounds of black, resembling phosphorescent sea creatures lured out of sunless ocean trenches. They shape-shift into surreal scenes we…
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Czech Graphic Artist Jaroslav Dajc is the best represented book plate maker in my East European ex libris collection with over fifty small format works in my listings. His fertile imagination comes up with ever new visual interpretations of stories from the Bible and classical mythology in prints both moody and mystical, whimsical and witty. You might find the…
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Czech printmakers are the largest national group in my ex libris collection. With over 30 artists in my listings, I've selected two book plates this week with Christ portraits from two women artists of two different generations working in two different styles. Born in 1912, Ludmila Jirincova is known as "The First Lady of Czech Graphic Art," creating over…
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In a week when Jews around the world mark Yom Yippur, the Day of Atonement, my featured artist is Michel Fingesten, a creator of bookplates, born in the Habsburg Empire to a Czech-Jewish father and Italian-Jewish mother, whose life followed the tragic course of East European Jews of his generation. Fingesten studied art in Vienna and traveled the globe…
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Graphic artists from Czechia have long excelled in the arcane art of making owner tags for books. The two most senior ex libris artists in my collection are both Czechs born in the 1880s in the Austro-Hungarian Empire who were most active in the independent Czechoslovakia of the interwar period. Jan Konupek was steeped in turn of the 19th…
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Czech Artist Helena Bochorakova-Dittrichova was a contemporary of my featured printmakers, Jaroslav Vodrazka and Bohuslav Reynek, blazing her own trail on the modern art scene as "The First Woman Graphic Novelist." When she was studying art in Paris in the 1920s, she discovered wordless book-making, an art form dating back to the woodblock devotional tracts of the Middle Ages,…
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If Bohuslav Reynek had not been a gifted printmaker, he would still be honored by Czechs as one of their most important poets of the modern era. Like Jaroslav Vodrazka, the artist-poet's life was determined by history. A recognized author in his homeland, Reynek settled for a time in France, married a French writer, held his first public art…
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Jaroslav Vodrazka belongs to a special "lost generation" of Czech artists who were born under Austro-Hungarian rule, witnessed the break-up of the Empire in World War I, enjoyed national freedom in the interwar period, endured Nazi Occupation in World War II, then, Soviet domination in the post-war years. A few lived to experience the all too brief Prague Spring.…
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August 21, 1968 will be remembered as a day of infamy by the Czechs and Slovaks. Fifty-five years ago this week, Warsaw Pact forces led by the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovaka to bring a brutal end to reforms by the country's Communist government during the "Prague Spring" aimed at creating "socialism with a human face." Czech Graphic Artist Jaroslav…
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The Sacred Art Pilgrim is taking time off to
"consider the lilies of the field" and will be
back on-line in August.
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My summer series on Donkeys of the Bible comes to an end this week with a selection of works by the artist with the most images of our beast of burden in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection--Sadao Watanabe, the foremost Japanese Christian artist of the 20th century. Depictions of donkeys bearing poets, priests, sages and samurai warriors are a…
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Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. (Zechariah 9:9, KJV)
The donkey's finest hour in the Bible comes in Christ's Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. This reference to…
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The angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and… more >>
"An ox knows its owner, an ass its master's crib: Israel does not know, my people takes no thought." (Isaiah 1:3, The Jewish Study Bible)
The ox and ass are such a traditional part of Nativity art it may come as a surprise to learn they are not mentioned in the New Testament account of the Bethlehem birth.…
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Then the Lord opened the ass's mouth, and she said to Balaam, "What have I done to you that you have beaten me these three times?" Numbers 22:28 (The Jewish Study Bible)
In the only miracle of its kind recorded in the Bible, a donkey actually speaks in the story of Balaam's ass in the Hebrew Scriptures. What…
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Setting aside the Chinese lunar calendar, there is a good reason to consider 2023 as the Year of the Donkey. Unaccustomed to the limelight, these humble beasts of burden played starring roles in two films nominated this year for Academy Awards in the Best Picture and Best International Feature Film categories. It was a real coup for these less…
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My series on new Marian images from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Ukrainian Collection comes to an end this week with an icon celebrating the Feast of Pentecost on May 28th. The Book of Acts tells how Mary was gathered with the followers of Christ when the Holy Spirit descended upon them in a mighty gust of wind with tongues…
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This week's new Marion image from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Ukrainian Collection by Ukrainian Greek Catholic Artist Hlafira Shcherbak offers a contemporary variation on the ancient Byzantine prototype of the Virgin of the Sign, where the Virgin Mary reveals the infant Jesus in her womb. The image is paired here with an icon of Christ the Ruler of All…
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The Feast of the Ascension falls this year on May 18th. The New Testament narratives of how Jesus was taken up into heaven do not mention the Virgin Mary among the eyewitnesses gathered on the Mount of Olives, but the account in the Book of Acts does include her among Christ's followers gathered in the Upper Room after the…
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This week's new Marian image from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Ukrainian Collection is a contemporary variation on the historic Byzantine iconographic prototype of the Virgin Who Shows the Way by Ivan Dashko, an artist from the new school of Ukrainian Greek Catholic icon-making in the West Ukrainian city of Lviv. Dashko parts company with fellow art-makers who are experimenting…
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May is the time of year traditionally devoted to the Virgin Mary. We return to the the West Ukrainian cultural center of Lviv for this week's image of the Mother of Christ by Ukrainian Art Educator and Icon-maker Roman Vasylyk, the first in a month-long series of new Marian art offerings from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Ukrainian Collection. Vasylyk…
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To round out the Easter season, I have an icon by Ukrainian Artist Andriy Vynnychok to present this week of Christ's first post-Resurrection appearance to Mary Magdalene, when he asks her not to touch him, since he has yet not ascended to his Father. The scene is often depicted in European art under the Italian title, Noli me tangere…
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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 in bitterness for his firstborn. (Zechariah 12:10, KJV)
As we enter Holy Week, I've selected an image for Good Friday of the Crucified Christ by…
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Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:4-5. KJV)
Indonesian Artist Martinus Sumbaji redefines Passion…
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But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. (Psalm 22:6-8, KJV)
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He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. (Isaiah 53:7, KJV)
The Latin words, "Ecce Homo," in the title of this week's portrait of Christ by New Mexican Artist…
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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. (Isaiah 53:3, KJV)
Christ raises his hand to shield himself from the blows of his persecutors in this week's variation of what appears to be…
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I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting. (Isaiah 50:6, KJV)
This week's featured image by a painter from the new school of iconography in the West Ukrainian city of Lviv belongs to a genre of Passion portraiture known… more >>
Ash Wednesday falls this year on February 22nd. To mark the season of Lent, I'm beginning a new series this week that will continue to Easter Sunday, featuring images of Christ in his Passion by international artists in a variety of styles and mediums. These up-close-and-personal views of Jesus during his Holy Week ordeal, represent a variety of themes…
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This week's featured work on the Flight into Egypt is a mixed media painting by Brian Whelan, a London-born Irish artist now living in Connecticut. Whelan is known for his unusual renderings of biblical narratives, combining the cosmic with the comic, and his depiction of the post-Christmas story is no exception! Mary and the Baby Jesus are incidental players,…
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In a modern spin on the biblical theme of turning swords into plowshares, the ICONART Contemporary Sacred Art Gallery in Lviv, Ukraine, recently asked 20 local artists to create icons on panels taken from ammunition crates. The recycled wood pieces are now up for auction at the Icon Saves Lives-Ukraine fund-raising exhibition in support of the “Always Ukraine” Charitable…
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The terse narrative of the Flight into Egypt in the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew was embellished down the centuries with apocryphal stories of what happened to the Holy Family on their way to the land of the Nile. Pagan idols were said to fall to the ground as they passed, and a date palm bowed down…
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This week's featured icon of the Flight into Egypt was made by Ostap Lozynsky, a Ukrainian Greek Catholic artist from the city of Lviv in West Ukraine who belonged to a new school of icon-makers, using contemporary and traditional folk art motifs to revitalize this ancient sacred art form. His version of the…
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This week's featured image of the Flight into Egypt, where we see the Holy Family taking to the road with Salome, the legendary nurse of Jesus, comes from Michael Vargas, who counts among the Hispano saint-makers of the American Southwest. They have revived a form of sacred imagery, dating back to the Spanish…
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The plight of refugees in Ukraine has been much on my mind as we begin the New Year. The Holy Family also had to take to the road as refugees in a grim postlude to the Christmas story, when an angel warned Joseph in a dream to flee with Mary and the Baby Jesus to Egypt and escape the…
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Happy New Year! My first art offering in 2023 closes out the holiday season with a poster from Puerto Rico celebrating the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child. The Three Kings play a prominant role in New Year festivities in the Hispanic world, since gifts are traditionally given on January 6th, El Dia des Reyes (The Day…
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My survey of arts and crafts pieces in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection by international artisans comes to a close one week before Christmas Day with a whimsical new addition to the Nativity Sets and Scenes page by a woodcarver from Mozambique. In Nativity in Tete, Camordino Mustafa Jetha ("Dino") offers us an…
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Hark! The herald angels play the trumpet to announce the birth of Christ in this festive metal sculpture from Haiti. The delightful heavenly being with embossed wings and spiralling dreadlocks is the creation of an unknown metalworker from the Noailles district of Croix-des-Bouquets, where artisans hammer used oil drums from the harbor of the Haitian capital of Port-du-Prince into…
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As we enter the holiday season, this week's featured work of textile art is a reverse applique stitched cotton panel with a Nativity scene by an unknown artist from the Kuna People who live in the San Blas Archipelago off the northeastern coast of Panama. These embroidered pieces, intertwining brilliantly colored geometric patterns with imagery drawn from nature, native…
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The Feast of the Ascension falls this year on May 18th. The Gospel narratives about how Jesus was taken up into heaven do not specifically mention the Virgin Mary being with the disciples who looked on when Christ disappeared from their sight, but we know from the account in the Book of Acts she was among the followers of…
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