As we begin the month of May, the time of year traditionally devoted to the Virgin Mary, I have a final print of the Passion of the Christ to present this week, serving as the perfect transition piece from the art of Easter to the next theme we will be exploring in my year-long survey of works on-line from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection: images of the Mother of Christ. This unusual Pieta, where Mary cradles the body of her son in what appears to be a farmyard, is the work of Czech Artist Bohuslav Reynek. He represents a generation of East European intellectuals who knew few periods of political freedom in their lives, which included the two World Wars and authoritarian Communist rule. One of the best modern poets from Bohemia, he was also an accomplished artist, who spent the last years of his life, working as a shepherd on what had once been his family’s estate during the day, making prints like this one in the kitchen at night, often by candlelight. Reynek's art mixes the sacred and the everyday in wonderfully whimsical ways. A mouse finds shelter from a cat in the folds of the Virgin's robe in his hand-colored drypoint of this much-loved genre of Marian imagery. (John Kohan)