Sandro Botticelli was an Italian painter from the early Renaissance. He was a true master. Botticelli’s best known works are The Birth of Venus and Primavera. In both masterpieces the lighting is ambient (coming from all directions). Shadows, for the most part, are absent. This gives the sense that the subjects in the […]
Hieronymous Bosch is a fascinating creator of Christian Mandalas. He was a Dutch painter born around 1450, and died in 1516. Only one year before Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses. Not a lot is known about Bosch, from a biographical standpoint. We do know that he was a member […]
Jakob Böhme was a Lutheran, born about a century after Martin Luther himself. While Böhme worked as a shoemaker, he also expressed his Christian faith using mandalas. He’s a strange, but interesting dude. Böhme had divine visions, as did Hildegard von Bingen (still not saying where she is on the […]
Herrad of Landsberg was an amazing woman from the 12th century. She was a very well-educated abbess, and her community resided at the Hohenburg Abbey in Eastern France. She’s allegedly the first woman to write an encyclopedia. Herrad was born about 30 years after Hildegard of Bingen, another woman who is […]
One of my favorite artists, M.C. Escher is a Dutch artist and print maker. He created motifs which, when repeated, fill the printed page. Escher also created roughly two dozen prints with Biblical themes. One finds him returning to specific Biblical themes over the course of his life, rendering them […]
The Hour of Monarchy was painted by Salvador Dalí, and is currently located in Barcelona, Spain, in the Palacio Albeniz. Dalí was one of the best known painters of the Surrealist movement, and became a Christian later in life. Looking back on Dalí’s paintings, and antics, before 1949, they illustrate […]
In this series we are going to cover the Top 10 Christian Mandala creators. The requirements to make it into this list of Top 10 are as follows: The individual created at least one Christian Mandala They were, or are, Christians You wouldn’t peg some of the people on this […]
The image shown is entitled, The Penitent Thief. The lower hand is that of the penitent criminal in Luke 23. This criminal, crucified next to Jesus, is sometimes referred to as Dismas. The middle hand is that of the second thief crucified next to Jesus. Finally, the topmost hand is […]
The first image shown is entitled The Prodigal Son in the Tavern, aka, The Prodigal Son in a Brothel. It is a depiction of the artist Rembrandt and his wife Saskia in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Yes, this is the same Rembrandt that painted The Return of the […]
In the surreal Prodigal Son image I have inserted numerous references to Christ. Last week, we discussed the reflection of Christ in the pool of water. Christ can also be found in the unusual rock that dominates the scene. (Please see the July 30th, 2017 blog for the full image.) […]
