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 associated with the Crucifixon, including the Mocking of Christ, Christ Before Pilate (also known as "Ecce Homo") and the Man of Sorrows. Accompanying these head and partial torso studies of Jesus in Agony will be passages from Psalm 22, the Songs of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah, and other texts in the Hebrew Scriptures, considered by Christians to foreshadow the suffering and death of Christ on the Cross. My first offering is a book plate of the thorn-crowned Christ in profile by Hungarian Printmaker Antal Fery, just added to the East European Ex Libris page. This poignant image was created in 1940, when Europe--just as today--faced the spreading flames of war. (John Kohan)