My travels last month took me to Lviv, Ukraine, where I found this week's featured face of Jesus at an exhibit of recent works by Ulyana Tomkevych at the ICONART Contemporary Sacred Art Gallery. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic icon-maker offers us a striking contemporary variation in the round on an ancient prototype of a miraculous image of Jesus known…
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This Sunday marks the start of my next on-line art series, Faces of Jesus, featuring new portraits of Christ from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. During the next two months, we will be exploring how this foundational subject of Christian art has been redefined by a mix of international artists, working in styles modern and traditional. If you have…
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The universal church appears once more as a ship at sea offering salvation in this week's new artwork from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, the last nautical-themed piece I have to present for the month of June. It is a glazed tile in the cloisonne style from the famous De Porceleyne Fles earthenware factory in Delft, commemorating the First…
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As we journey by boat through the month of June, I have a second book plate print of Noah's Ark to present this week by another East European graphic artist. Serbian Printmaker Budimir Dimitrijevic shows us the famous biblical craft long after its landing on Mount Ararat. Serenely set in a garden where birds build their nests, the landlocked…
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As we continue our survey of nautical-themed images in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, I have a book plate from Ukraine to show this week, depicting the greatest sea-faring tale of them all: the story of Noah's Ark. In this culture-bending variation from Ukrainian Graphic Artist Sergey Kirnitskiy, Noah appears to have made a far-easterly detour on his way…
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With the summer season soon upon us, I have selected new images from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection for the month of June on the theme of Psalm 107:23 (KJV): "they that go down to the sea in ships." My first nautically-inspired artwork is another of Russian-Ukrainian Printmaker Konstantin Kalynovych's symbol-laden book plates, depicting two sailing vessels that are…
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My art festival of new Marian images for the month of May from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection comes to a close this week with a splendid new icon of the Madonna and Child by Ukrainian Greek Catholic Artist Lyuba Yatskiv. The icon-maker from Lviv in West Ukraine offers us a contemporary variation on the time-honored iconographic prototype of…
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In my series for the month of May on new Marian images in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, we travel east from Mexico to Puerto Rico this week to view two serigraphs by Puerto Rican graphic artists showing the Virgin of Monserrat, one of the most popular themes of the island's saint-making wood carvers. This manifestation of the Mother…
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My survey of new images of the Virgin Mary in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection takes us this week to the Mexican village of Xalitla and the Lorenzo Family, noted for their sacred artworks in acrylic on masonite panels resembling amate paper paintings. Lucas, the family patriarch, and his son, Jesus, offer us two variations in a naif folk…
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May is the time of year to remember the Virgin Mary. During the next four weeks, I will be presenting new images of the Mother of Christ from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection in an eclectic mix of styles and media by international artists, underscoring the global popularity of Marian-themed sacred art. My first offering is an image of…
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Mississippi Artist Carl Dixon created this week's new art offering from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection especially for the 2018 Lenten art exhibition, Exodus: Journeys of Liberation, at the gallery of St. Philip Episcopal Church in Columbus, Ohio. It brings together the themes we have been considering this month. At the center of his carved wood panel painting, Christ…
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Fifty years ago this month, American Civil Rights Leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee. To honor this fourth generation Baptist minister from Georgia who was inspired by his Christian faith to struggle for racial equality by non-violent means, I have two new color viscosity prints by American Graphic Artist Tyrus Clutter to present…
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On this second Sunday after Easter, I have a book plate print to show by Czech Graphic Artist Karel Musil, presenting the Resurrection of Christ in a way familiar to all Western Christians. In the earliest depictions of what happened on Easter Sunday like the Eastern-rite image of the Myrrhbearers we saw last week from Ukrainian Greek Catholic Iconographer…
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Christian is risen! He is risen, indeed! This traditional greeting can be heard this Sunday as Eastern Orthodox Christians around the globe celebrate Easter. The Gospel accounts of the Resurrection offer no real description of Christ rising from the dead. During the next two weeks, we will look at the differences in Eastern and Western imagery of the event…
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As we begin Holy Week, my Lenten series on new images from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection illustrating seven moments from the Passion of Christ comes to end with an abstract expressionist image of the Crucifixion by French Master Printmaker Alfred Manessier. This color lithograph is the fourth plate in a suite of seven prints Manessier created in 1949…
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American Graphic Artist Tyrus Clutter created this week's new image from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, recalling a moment in Christ's journey to Calvary not found in the Gospel accounts of the Crucifixion but commemorated in the Roman Catholic devotion of the Stations of the Cross. At the sixth "stop" in this traditional cycle of fourteen prayers remembering the…
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We travel this week to the San Blas Archipelago off the Caribbean Coast of Panama for our next new Lenten image from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, depicting the fifth of seven moments from the Passion story, when Christ takes up the Cross to follow the Way of Sorrow to Calvary. This image of Jesus struggling under his heavy…
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We turn this week to Frank Brangwyn, another modern British master of sacred art, for the fourth in our series of new works from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection depicting seven moments from the Passion of Christ. The multi-talented, Belgian-born, Roman Catholic artist created this hand-colored lithographic reproduction of a chalking drawing he made in 1912, combining two popular…
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British Artist Peter Howson created this week's new illustration in pastel from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection of the third of seven moments from the Passion of Christ, which we will be considering during the Lenten Season. A master of the mob scene, the Glasgow-based draughtsman gives us a timeless variation on Christ's arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane,…
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As we make our way through the Season of Lent, looking at new works from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collectin, depicting seven moments in the Passion of Christ, my art offering this week from Cypriot Iconographer Charalambos Epaminonda shows Jesus praying in Gethsemane, a theme known in Western religious art as the Agony in the Garden. Epaminonda is a…
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The Season of Lent begins this week on Ash Wednesday. During this traditional 40-day period of reflection leading up to Easter, I will be presenting new images from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection by international artists depicting seven key moments from the Gospel narratives of the Passion of Christ. We begin this Sunday with a metal sculpture of the…
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I have two suitably somber-toned small format prints of the Flight into Egypt by Czech Artists in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection to display as we move from the post-Epiphany period into the season of Lent. Czech printmakers Emilie Tomanova and Jaroslav Dajc make masterful use of chiaroscuro effects to heighten the drama of the perilous escape of Joseph,…
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I have two small format prints from Czechia to display this week, unique in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. They are color lithograph greeting cards from a father and daughter depicting the Flight into Egypt. Czech Painter and Printmaker Karel Oberthor offers us a whimsical version of the Holy Family on the road. Joseph holds the flowering staff that…
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In the days leading up to the Season of Lenten, I will be presenting new images from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection depicting a Gospel narrative that comes as a postlude to the Nativity stories--the Flight into Egypt. Once a staple of sacred art, this harrowing tale of the Holy Family's escape from the Slaughter of the Innocents by…
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On this freezing first Sunday after Epiphany, we're staying on the balmy island of Puerto Rico to look at another new image of the Wise Men from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. As Matthew 2:12 (KJV) tells us, the Magi "departed into their own country another way," after being warned in a dream not to reveal the whereabouts of…
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The Christmas season draws to a close with the Feast of the Epiphany, celebrating the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child. The Three Kings play a prominant role in holiday festivities in the Hispanic world, since gifts are traditionally given on January 6th, El Dia des Reyes (The Day of the Kings). I've selected a new art…
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With Christmas only a week and a day away, I have a new Nativity-themed piece from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection to display this Sunday, illustrating the second narrative of the Birth of Christ, found in Matthew 2:12, when seekers of wisdom from outside of Palestine find their way to the Holy Family, guided by a special sign in…
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As we look at episodes from the Christmas Story in new artworks from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, we come this week to the moment in the narrative when the news of the coming of the Messiah goes "viral" and a host of angels announce Christ's birth to shepherds "abiding in the field, keeping watch over… more >>
Joseph joins Mary in adoring the new born Christ Child in a new Christmas-themed artwork from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection for the first Sunday in the Season of Advent. This tender image of the Holy Family in acrylic on canvas board is the work of Self-taught Alabama "Visionary" Artist Myrtice West, who believed she received a special calling…
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In my series on new art pieces in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection inspired by episodes in the Christmas story, we come this week to the pivotal moment in the Nativity narrative, when the Virgin Mary "brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger (Luke 2:7, KJV)."… more >>
Modern biblical scholars have cast doubts on the traditional reading of this next episode from the Christmas story, illustrated in a new work from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. Those of us who grew up hearing the King James Version of the Nativity narrative in the second chapter of Luke 2 can recite by heart the passage about the…
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As we continue our artistic countdown to Christmas, looking at new artworks from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection presenting different episodes in the story of Christ's birth, I have another image to present this week of the Annunciation. It is a tempera on gessoed wood panel painting of the Angel Gabriel's appearance to the Virgin Mary, announcing she will…
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The Birth of Christ is one of the most important motifs in religious art, depicted by countless artists down the centuries. With many new pieces from the Sacred Art Pilgrim to display on the theme of the Incarnation, I'm beginning a new series this month, presenting images of different events in the Christmas story by international artists in a…
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My series on new images of St. Francis of Assisi in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection by folk artists of the Americas comes to an end this week with a wood panel painting made in La Semilla de Dios Workshop in La Palma, El Salvador. This village in the mountainous north of the Central American nation has become identified…
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We return to the American Southwest for this week's new Franciscan-themed image from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, a shadow box by New Mexican Saint-maker Johnny Salas, showing the Saint from Assisi embracing the Crucified Christ. The Albuquerque-based artisan uses this popular folk art form from South of the Border to create highly decorated images, almost 3-D-like in appearance,…
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Franciscan missionaries first brought Christianity to the northern frontiers of Spain's New World Empire at the end of the 16th century, and St. Francis remains a popular subject today for Hispanic folk artists in the American Southwest. This week's new art offering from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, depicting the Saint from Assisi, is the work of Angelica Lopez,…
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We celebrate the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi on the fourth of October. In honor of this much-loved saint, who is especially revered for his love of Creation, I will be offering Franciscan-themed pieces this month from the Sacred Art Collection made by artisans of the Americas, working in both traditional and new folk art forms. My…
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My series on contemporary icons in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection comes to an end this week with a profile of a woman icon-maker, following the sacred art tradition of the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church, a faith community formed in the early years of Christianity in Alexandria, which followed a different path from the Byzantine Church after a 5th…
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As we seek out new icon-makers represented in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, we will stay on this week in Greece to look at the work of a young iconographer you are more likely to find up a ladder with a paint bucket and brush making street art than hunched over a wooden panel in a studio. Whether working…
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In my continuing survey of new icons and iconographers represented in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, we travel this week into the heart of the Byzantine world to meet mother and daughter icon-makers on the island of Crete. In a workshop in the capital of Heraklion, Eka and Eri Fragiadaki have dedicated themselves to creating quality, hand-crafted holy images…
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The Sacred Art Pilgrim took to the road this summer in search of a new style of icon-making centered in the West Ukrainian city of Lviv and found examples in plenty at the ICONART Contemporary Sacred Art Gallery in the city's old Armenian Quarter. The new iconographers from this historic crossroads on the border of East and West belong…
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We normally think of icons as tempera paintings on wood panels specially prepared with glue and plaster. This week's new piece from the contemporary icon holdings of the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection represents another style of icon-making much favored by folk artists in parts of Central and Eastern Europe because of the cost and availability of the material on…
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Four new scenes from the Life of Christ, painted on parchment, have just been added to the Ethiopian Icons gallery in the Schools of Art section. I don't know the name of the artist who created these beautiful pieces, but they are clearly by a different hand than the other sacred images in my Ethiopian art collection. This folk…
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