What’s New

Artist in Profile: Michel Fingesten (1884-1943)

September 24, 2023

Artist in Profile: Michel Fingesten (1884-1943)

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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Pictures in Focus: Two Book Plates by Jan Konupek and Antonin Kamenik

September 17, 2023

Pictures in Focus: Two Book Plates by Jan Konupek and Antonin Kamenik

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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Artist in Profile: Helena Bochorakova-Dittrichova (1894-1980)

September 10, 2023

Artist in Profile: Helena Bochorakova-Dittrichova (1894-1980)

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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Picture in Focus: St. Peter and the Fish by Bohuslav Reynek

September 3, 2023

Picture in Focus: St. Peter and the Fish by Bohuslav Reynek

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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Pictures in Focus: Two Prints by Jaroslav Vodrazka

August 27, 2023

Pictures in Focus: Two Prints by Jaroslav Vodrazka

 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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Picture in Focus: The Martyr by Jaroslav Vodrazka

August 20, 2023

Picture in Focus: The Martyr by Jaroslav Vodrazka

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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Picture in Focus: The Sermon on the Mount by Elsie Anna Wood

July 23, 2023

Picture in Focus: The Sermon on the Mount by Elsie Anna Wood

 

              

                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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Donkeys of the Bible: The Prints of Sadao Watanabe

July 16, 2023

Donkeys of the Bible: The Prints of Sadao Watanabe

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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Donkeys of the Bible: The Triumphal Entry

July 9, 2023

Donkeys of the Bible: The Triumphal Entry

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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Donkeys of the Bible: The Flight into Eqypt

June 25, 2023

Donkeys of the Bible: The Flight into Eqypt

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…

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Donkeys of the Bible: The Nativity

June 18, 2023

Donkeys of the Bible: The Nativity

"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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Donkeys of the Bible: Balaam's Ass

June 11, 2023

Donkeys of the Bible: Balaam's Ass

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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Picture in Focus: Christ Stopped at Eboli by Grzegorz Marszalek

June 4, 2023

Picture in Focus: Christ Stopped at Eboli by Grzegorz Marszalek

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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Picture in Focus: Descent of the Holy Spirit by Kateryna Kuziv

May 28, 2023

Picture in Focus: Descent of the Holy Spirit by Kateryna Kuziv

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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Pictures in Focus: Christ the Ruler of All and the Virgin of the Sign by Hlafira Shcherbak

May 21, 2023

Pictures in Focus: Christ the Ruler of All and the Virgin of the Sign by Hlafira Shcherbak

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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Picture in Focus: The Ascension by Kateryna Shadrina

May 14, 2023

Picture in Focus: The Ascension by Kateryna Shadrina

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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Picture in Focus: The Mother of God by Ivan Dashko

May 7, 2023

Picture in Focus: The Mother of God by Ivan Dashko

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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Picture in Focus: The Mother of God of Sambir by Roman Vasylyk

April 30, 2023

Picture in Focus: The Mother of God of Sambir by Roman Vasylyk

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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Picture in Focus: Noli me tangere by Andriy Vynnychok

April 23, 2023

Picture in Focus: Noli me tangere by Andriy Vynnychok

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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Picture in Focus: The Harrowing of Hell by Kateryna Shadrina

April 16, 2023

Picture in Focus: The Harrowing of Hell by Kateryna Shadrina

                          

                            Khrystos voskres!
                            Voistynu voskres!

                               Happy Easter!

                               Pray for peace!

                            

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Picture in Focus: The Resurrection by Anton Kaminski

April 9, 2023

Picture in Focus: The Resurrection by Anton Kaminski

                                        

                       Christ is risen!
                    He is risen, indeed!

                         Happy Easter
                        Pray for Peace!

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Picture in Focus: The Crucified Christ by Louis Jou

April 2, 2023

Picture in Focus: The Crucified Christ by Louis Jou

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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Picture in Focus: Divine Mercy II by Martinus Sumbaji

March 26, 2023

Picture in Focus: Divine Mercy II by Martinus Sumbaji

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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Picture in Focus: Mountblow by Peter Howson

March 19, 2023

Picture in Focus: Mountblow by Peter Howson

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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Picture in Focus: Ecce Homo by Michael Vargas

March 12, 2023

Picture in Focus: Ecce Homo by Michael Vargas

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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Picture in Focus: Theater Poster for Ewangelia by Robert Czerniawski

March 5, 2023

Picture in Focus: Theater Poster for Ewangelia by Robert Czerniawski

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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Picture in Focus: Christ with Crown of Thorns by Ulyana Tomkevych

February 26, 2023

Picture in Focus: Christ with Crown of Thorns by Ulyana Tomkevych

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…

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Picture in Focus: Christ with Crown of Thorns by Antal Fery

February 19, 2023

Picture in Focus: Christ with Crown of Thorns by Antal Fery

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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Picture in Focus: The Flight into Egypt by Brian Whelan

February 12, 2023

Picture in Focus: The Flight into Egypt by Brian Whelan

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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Out & About: "Icon Saves Lives-Ukraine" Charity Auction in Washington, DC

February 5, 2023

Out & About:

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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Picture in Focus: The Rest on the Flight into Egypt by Milan Entler

February 4, 2023

Picture in Focus: The Rest on the Flight into Egypt by Milan Entler

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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Picture in Focus: The Flight into Egypt by Ostap Lozynsky

January 29, 2023

Picture in Focus: The Flight into Egypt by Ostap Lozynsky

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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Picture in Focus: The Flight into Egypt by Michael Vargas

January 22, 2023

Picture in Focus: The Flight into Egypt by Michael Vargas

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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Picture in Focus: The Flight into Egypt by Charalambos Epaminonda

January 15, 2023

Picture in Focus: The Flight into Egypt by Charalambos Epaminonda

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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Picture in Focus: Felicidades by Eduardo Vera Cortes

January 6, 2023

Picture in Focus: Felicidades by Eduardo Vera Cortes

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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Picture in Focus: Nativity by Kateryna Shadrina

December 25, 2022

Picture in Focus: Nativity by Kateryna Shadrina

 

                                      Merry Christmas
                                      Happy New Year
                                  Pray for Peace in 2023!

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Picture in Focus: Nativity in Tete by Camordino Mustafa Jetha

December 18, 2022

Picture in Focus: Nativity in Tete by Camordino Mustafa Jetha

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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Picture in Focus: Trumpeting Angel by Unknown Haitian Metalworker

December 11, 2022

Picture in Focus: Trumpeting Angel by Unknown Haitian Metalworker

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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Picture in Focus: Nativity Mola by Unknown Kuna Artist

December 4, 2022

Picture in Focus: Nativity Mola by Unknown Kuna Artist

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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Picture in Focus: Miracle of Jesus by Unknown Peruvian Textile Artist

November 27, 2022

Picture in Focus: Miracle of Jesus by Unknown Peruvian Textile Artist

We stay in the Americas this week, moving from Mexico to the Andes region to look at an arpillera cloth art piece (Spanish for “burlap.") The coarse fibered fabric serves as the backing for these elaborately embroidered, story-telling panels in cloth of many colors that bear its name, stitched together with bits of…

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Picture in Focus: Pieta Holy Water Basin by Moises Rodriguez

November 20, 2022

Picture in Focus: Pieta Holy Water Basin by Moises Rodriguez

The last featured ceramic piece in my series on folk art in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection takes us back to the Americas--a holy water basin molded out of clay by Mexican Potter Moises Rodriguez from the ceramic-making center of Tonala, near Guadalajara. Rodriguez is known for his “burnished” pottery pieces. He uses a stone to polish and smooth…

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Picture in Focus: Westraven Cloissone Tile of Saint George

November 13, 2022

Picture in Focus: Westraven Cloissone Tile of Saint George

My featured artwork this week is a ceramic tile from a European nation famed for its fine porcelain ware: The Netherlands. Founded in 1635, the Royal Delft (De Porceleyne Fles) factory has been known down the centuries for its blue-and-white pottery and smooth-surfaced glazed tiles, often on biblical themes, used as decorative borders. In the first decades of the…

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Pictures in Focus: Stories of the Bible from the Jerusalem Pottery workshop

November 9, 2022

Pictures in Focus: Stories of the Bible from the Jerusalem Pottery workshop

We move from works on glass to ceramic art objects this week, traveling to the Holy Land to see a quartet of tiles on biblical themes from the Jerusalem Pottery workshop of the Karakashian family. They are descendants of Armenian ceramic artists who were invited to Palestine when the British controlled the region in 1918 to restore tiles in…

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Picture in Focus: The Mystical Wine Press by Adriana Vasile

October 30, 2022

Picture in Focus: The Mystical Wine Press by Adriana Vasile

There is one more sacred folk art treasure to be found in Eastern Europe before we move on to other parts of the globe. We have looked, so far, at artisan pieces on wood, leather, and various types of paper. This week's featured work from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection is an icon painted on a sheet of glass…

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Picture in Focus: The Vladimir Mother of God Triptych by Yu. Maleev

October 23, 2022

Picture in Focus: The Vladimir Mother of God Triptych by Yu. Maleev

We travel to Russia this week to view a folk art piece of serene beauty at odds with the savagery of that country's war with Ukraine. It is a reproduction of Russia's much revered icon of the Vladimir Mother of God with a surface appearance of highly polished wood, made from lacquered layers of compressed paper by an artisan…

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Picture in Focus: Jesus Proclaims the Kingdom of God by Roman Sledz

October 16, 2022

Picture in Focus: Jesus Proclaims the Kingdom of God by Roman Sledz

We travel north from the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine to the Lublin region of Poland to find this week's example of wooden art, now on view on the East European Wood Carvings page in the Schools of Sacred Art Section. The painted carved wood sculpture, Jesus Proclaims the Kingdom of…

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Picture in Focus: Ukrainian Greek Catholic Crucifix by Unknown Hutsul Woodcarver

October 9, 2022

Picture in Focus: Ukrainian Greek Catholic Crucifix by Unknown Hutsul Woodcarver

In my survey of art objects made from wood in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, we turn now to a traditional example of woodcarving, one of the oldest forms of folk art, created by an unknown artisan from the Hutsul people, a Slavic ethnic group who mostly live on the southern slopes of the eastern Carpathian mountains in what…

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Picture in Focus: The Last Supper from La Semilla de Dios workshop

October 2, 2022

Picture in Focus: The Last Supper from La Semilla de Dios workshop

My survey of arts and crafts in the on-line Sacred Art Pilgrim collection has looked at folk art made with paper and leather. This week, we view the first of several pieces in my listings made from wood. We journey to La Palma, a town in the mountainous north of the Central American nation of El Salvador, famed since…

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Picture in Focus: The Ascension by Kateryna Shadrina

May 14, 2022

Picture in Focus: The Ascension by Kateryna Shadrina

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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