Pictures in Focus: Two Color Etchings of the Flight into Egypt by Jaroslav Dajc and Emilie Tomanova

February 4, 2018

Pictures in Focus: Two Color Etchings of the Flight into Egypt by Jaroslav Dajc and Emilie Tomanova

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, Mary, and the Baby Jesus from King Herod's Slaughter of the Innocents. In the Tomanova color etching, the Holy Family appear as hunched, ghostly forms passing through a nocturnal wood in varying shades of blue and black. In Dajc's variation on the theme (left), the rising sun dangerously exposes the fleeing trio as they emerge from the sheltering darkness into the blinding light of day. These two new small format Czech prints of the Flight into Egypt can now be viewed on the East European Ex Libris page in the Schools of Sacred Art section. (John Kohan)