My Mary in May art offerings this week are four contemporary variations of The Virgin of the Sign, one of the oldest types of Marian imagery, whose prototype can be found in 4th century Roman catacombs. The title of this portrait of Mary with a second image of Christ contained within a circle representing her womb is taken from…
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A devotional image of Mary, beloved around the world, is the Virgin of Tenderness, also known as "The Icon of Sweet Kisses," where the Virgin Mary rests her cheek against the cheek of the baby Jesus. This endearing portrait of mother and child is said to have been painted from life by the Apostle Luke. I'm presenting it in…
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May is the month traditionally devoted to the Virgin Mary. During the next four weeks, I'll be presenting images from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection representing four different types of Marian portraiture, beginning with one of the oldest and most revered depictions of the Mother of Christ, known as "The Virgin Who Shows the Way." Mary supports the Christ…
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CHRIST IS RISEN!
He is risen, indeed!
HAPPY EASTER!
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UKRAINIAN WAY OF SORROW
The Angel of Death
In memory of Mikhailo Movchan (b.1981),
killed in the battle for Bakhmut, July 14, 2023
“No one has greater love than this, to lay down
one’s life for one’s…
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UKRAINIAN WAY OF SORROW
Enshrouded
When they look on the one whom they have
pierced, they shall mourn for him as one mourns
for an only child and weep bitterly over him as
one weeps over a firstborn.
Zechariah 12:10 (NRSVue)
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UKRAINIAN WAY OF SORROW
Christ Attacked
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me,
from the words of my groaning?"
Psalm 22:1 (NRSVue)
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UKRAINIAN WAY OF SORROW
UKRAINIAN WAY OF SORROW
UKRAINIAN WAY OF SORROW more >>
UKRAINIAN WAY OF SORROW
"Father, if you are willing, remove this cup more >>
When Russian forces invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, few outside observers believed the Ukrainians would be able to hold off Putin's brutal war machine for long. To the astonishment of the world, three years later they continue to fight back, offering an inspiring example of true heroism in resisting tyranny. During this time so full of memories, it… more >>
The final new artwork I have to display from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, interpreting Christ's story about the Last Judgment in the 25th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, is the work of Ukrainian Greek Catholic Artist Ulyana Tomkevych who belongs to the new school of iconography in the West Ukrainian cultural… more >>
My reading of Christ's account of the Last Judgment in the Gospel of Matthew suggested visual motifs for a collage story box depicting Christ the Judge separating the sheep from the goats (who embod human types) based on whether those under judgment practiced six acts of mercy to "the least of these brothers… more >>
This week's art selection picks up where we left off last time with the account of the Last Judgment in the Gospel of Matthew, when the king, representing Christ, separates the sheep from the goats based on how they have treated "the least of these brothers and sisters of mine" with the sheep rewarded for their six acts of… more >>
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and… more >>
This charcoal drawing from Filipino-American Artist Wayne Forte was specially commissioned by the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection for the 2017 Advent art exhibition, Family in Flight, looking at the journey of Mary, Joseph, and the Baby Jesus to Egypt in the context of the strident debate at the time over who was welcome in America. I asked Wayne to… more >>
In Giotto’s depiction of the Flight into Egypt, the Italian Medieval Master shows the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child riding sidesaddle like a Queen and heir apparent in a royal procession. This image and countless like it down the centuries mask the grim reality of the story in the Gospel of Matthew, when an angel warns Joseph to… more >>
German-American Illustrator Fritz Eichenberg created the image I've chosen this week for the Feast of the Epiphany, a wood engraving of the Adoration of the Magi (with a difference) to commemorate the United Nation's International Year of the Child in 1979. Eichenberg has recast Joseph, Mary, and the Christ Child as Vietnamese boat people to draw attention to the… more >>
Find a place for "them" in your heart this Christmas season
The Sacred Art Pilgrim more >>
The story of Joseph, Mary, and the Baby Jesus taking to the road has special global resonance at a time when the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates there are close to 125 million "forcibly displaced" people around the world. This Advent Sunday, I'm presenting six pieces on the Flight into Egypt by international arts and crafts workers in… more >>
Man. Woman. Child. Animal. These four universal motifs all come together in art about the Flight into Egypt, offered in two contrasting styles in my picks this week on the theme from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. Cypriot Icon-maker Charalambos Epaminonda presents the post-Christmas story in a neo-Byzantine manner where the donkey looking… more >>
There was no question what my choice of a subject would be this year for the Advent and Christmas seasons, given the bitter and defamatory debate over "illegal aliens" during the election campaign. Beginning this Sunday and into the first weeks of 2025, I will be posting images from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection of the Flight into Egypt,… more >>
My fifth biblical diorama offers a modern reading of Psalm 148 aimed at climate change deniers. Each verse in this paean to God is matched with images of the ways humanity has despoiled and destroyed these wonders of Creation that praise their Maker in the ancient text. While God looks down in grief… more >>
The Puritans came to the New World to found what their leader, John Winthrop, using the words of Jesus, called “A City on a Hill,” a model society for all to follow based on Christian values. In my fourth collage story box, we fast forward to the… more >>
Growing up in a Fundamentalist church, I came to know by heart moral tales in the Bible like the Old Testament story of how the ravenously hungry Esau gave his birthright away to his trickster brother, Jacob, for a bowl of soup—called “a mess of pottage.” My third collage box is directed at Evangelical Christians who have compromised their… more >>
The assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 must never be forgotten, doubly disturbing for me because of the pictures of Christ carried by the rioters Donald Trump instigated to “Save America” and overturn the presidential election results by violent means. My second collage story box contrasts this event with a… more >>
Regular visitors to the website who know of my passion for the contemporary sacred art of Ukraine will not be surprised to learn the theme of my first collage story box in fifteen years is the tragic human cost of Ukraine's struggle against Russian invaders. Inspiration came from a sticker of "Saint Javelin"… more >>
While reorganizing my art collection recently, I took a closer look at three “found object” artworks in display boxes I made over 15 years ago. A lot has changed since then.Thousands of images can be downloaded on the internet, all kinds of unusual objects can be picked up from on-line sources, and there is no shortage of boxes from… more >>
On this day honoring the hosts of heaven, I've selected six images by international artists in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, depicting angelic activities in heaven and on earth. The top row shows angels praising God in heaven. French Printmaker Jacques Beltrand offers the most classical view of angelic music makers. An unknown Haitian metalworker has cut out two… more >>
My final "Angel Artist"in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection is Russian-Ukrainian Printmaker Konstantin Kalynovych, best known for his exquisite book plates with borrowings from the works of Great Masters of Art like Bosch, Durer, and Rembrandt. Kalynovych describes these detailed pastiche pieces as “winter dreams,” where the meanings are “murky, like a dream on a foggy winter night.” He… more >>
My third featured "Angel Artist" in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection is Benton Spruance, a Philadelphia-based printmaker who can rightly be called the lithographer's lithographer for his innovative use of this stone slab graphic art technique. Spruance had no great love for organized religion but was drawn to the great themes of the Bible. He was especially interested in… more >>
We return to Georgia this week to meet the second major "Angel Artist" in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection--Rudolph Valentino Bostic, the self-taught painter from Savannah who created illustrations of Bible stories with house paint on recycled cardboard. Bostic was a visionary artist who depicted what he saw with the eye of his imagination rather than copying from life,… more >>
Western Christians celebrate Michaelmas on September 29th, the feast day commemorating the Archangel Michael and All Angels. In this month devoted to the hosts of heaven, I'll be highlighting four "angel artists" in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection who have often depicted these divine emissaries in their art. Howard Finster, the preacher-folk artist… more >>
In this week's tribute to James Quentin Young, I have two newly acquired artworks by the late Minnesota assemblage artist to add to the gallery of his biosketch page, revealing the ingenious ways he transformed odds and ends of found objects into strikingly different cross images. Young expressed his lifelong fascination with roadside… more >>
One of the first artworks to be added to the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection was the beautifully minimalist assemblage cross, From His Side, by James Quentin Young, won in a silent auction at a 2009 Christians in the Visual Artists conference. It would be followed in the years since then by other "found object" cruciform pieces by the Minnesota… more >>
So we thy people and sheep of thy pasture will give thee thanks for ever: we will shew forth thy praise to all generations.( Psalm 79:13, KJV) more >>
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for… more >>
I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not… more >>
What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours,… more >>
He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. (Isaiah 40:11, KJV)
Before you head off on a summer search for still waters and green pastures, I've selected art from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection with… more >>
My series on Marian art for the month of May from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection comes to end this Sunday with a depiction in ceramics of an image of Mary from Mexico that has found particular favor among Roman Catholics around the globe: the Virgin of Guadalupe. According to tradition, the Virgin appeared to the Aztec peasant, Juan… more >>
For Pentecost Sunday in this Marian month, I'm featuring artworks of the Virgin Mary and the Disciples at the descent of the Holy Spirit by two 20th century French artists in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. We see her depicted as the central figure amid Christ's followers at Pentecost in her role as Mother of the Church, a title… more >>
Ukrainian Crucifixion
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not perish
but may have eternal life.
John 3:16 (NRSVue)
The Wartime Watercolors of Danylo Movchan III
March 16, 2025
The Road to Golgotha
Bear one another’s burdens, andThe Wartime Watercolors of Danylo Movchan II
March 9, 2025
The Man of Sorrows
He was despised and rejected by others; a man
of suffering and acquainted with infirmity, and
as one… The Wartime Watercolors of Danylo Movchan I
March 2, 2025
Prayer
from me, yet not my will but yours be done."
Luke 22:42 (NRSVue)Artists in Profile: New Iconography of Lviv III
February 22, 2025
Picture in Focus: Love Your Neighbor by Ulyana Tomkevych
February 16, 2025
Picture in Focus: The Last Judgment by John Kohan
February 9, 2025
Picture in Focus: Sheep and Goats by Brian Whelan
February 2, 2025
Picture in Focus: The Holy Family by David Hayward
January 26, 2025
Picture in Focus: Holy Family Immigration by Wayne Forte
January 19, 2025
Collage Story Box: Families in Flight by John Kohan
January 12, 2025
Picture in Focus: The Year of the Child by Fritz Eichenberg
January 5, 2025
Picture in Focus: Nativity by Kreg Yingst
December 21, 2024
And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in
swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there
was no room for them in the inn. (Luke 2:7, KJ)
… Pictures in Focus: The Flight into Egypt by Six International Artisans
December 15, 2024
Pictures in Focus: The Flight into Egypt by Charalambos Epaminonda and Brian Whelan.
December 8, 2024
Picture in Focus: The Flight into Egypt by Lyuba Yatskiv
December 1, 2024
Collage Story Box: Voices in the Wilderness
November 27, 2024
Collage Story Box: Psalm 148 in a Modern Reading by John Kohan
November 10, 2024
Collage Story Box: "A City on a Hill" by John Kohan
November 3, 2024
Collage Story Box: A Mess of Pottage by John Kohan
October 27, 2024
Collage Story Box: "My Name is Legion" by John Kohan
October 20, 2024
Collage Story Box: Ukrainian Pieta by John Kohan
October 13, 2024
Collage Story Boxes from the Sacred Art Pilgrim
October 5, 2024
Other Angel Artists Celebrating the Feast of Michaelmas
September 29, 2024
Angel Artists: Konstantin Kalynovych (b. 1959)
September 22, 2024
Angel Artists: Benton Spruance (1904-1967)
September 15, 2024
Angel Artists: Rudolph Valentino Bostic (1941-2021)
September 9, 2024
Angel Artists: Howard Finster (1916-2001)
September 1, 2024
Pictures in Focus: Black Forest Cross and Scroll Cross by James Quentin Young
August 25, 2024
Artist in Profile: James Quentin Young (1936-2022)
August 16, 2024
Picture in Focus: Streams of Living Water by Natalya Rusetska
June 30, 2024
For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears. (Revelation… Picture in Focus: The Good Shepherd by Natalya Rusetska
June 23, 2024
Picture in Focus: The Good Shepherd by Kateryna Shadrina
June 16, 2024
Picture in Focus: The Good Shepherd by Andriy Vynnychok
June 9, 2024
Picture in Focus: Christ the Good Shepherd by Ivan Dashko
June 2, 2024
Picture in Focus: The Virgin of Guadalupe by Juana Ponce
May 26, 2024
Pictures in Focus: Pentecost by Charles Plessard and J. Frederic Loisel
May 19, 2024
Picture in Focus: Nativity by Kateryna Shadrina
December 25, 2022
