Friday, April 16, 2010

The Daughter of Judah

A bit of a departure from the norm here. This was done as a contribution to the excellent Book of Genocide blog: wherein artists interpret and illustrate allocated passages from the Bible.





I got this, from the lamentaitons of Jeremiah;

The LORD hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the LORD hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.

I did a little research on Jeremiah and on the various interpretations of this passage.

Jeremiah is usually depicted as an old bearded man , hunched in a dungeon with a haunted, worried expression and this is what I had in mind when initially started sketching.

Then I read a little more

A few interpretations suggest the 'virgin daughter of Judah' is a either a city or the Jewish people- there is also an interesting story of Judah mistakenly having sex* and bearing twins with his daughter in law- whose bloodline eventually spawned a certain Jesus of Nazareth

Scandalous!

*well she was dressed as a harlot at the time, she was punished by burning, he got off scot free.

Anyway, here is the "daughter" being crushed as in a wine press by the lord



Friday, April 9, 2010

Website update

I've added a sketches section to my main website

have a look

http://www.pullingpictures.com/


Monday, February 15, 2010

Stuff Catholics like

Thanks to Pennycake for this great link:

Stuff Catholics Like~Patron Saints of Scary Stuff

This blog is about stuff Catholics like. Some of the stuff, like felt banners, Catholics shouldn’t like but do for reasons they will have to explain to God.

The purpose of this blog is to take a light-hearted look at Catholic things in a way that can be educational to Catholics and non-Catholics alike. If you tend to be easily "hurt" or "offended", this is a good place to get over it.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Saint Valentine

Though his death is not as bizarre or macabre as some of the others I've done I thought it appropriate to include St Valentine on this , his feast day.

St Valentines was not one but many martyred saints. There are at least eight bodies and one head that have all been recognised as the remains of Valentine.

The Valentine I've depicted was a priest in Rome, first mentioned in the Nuremburg Chronicle.
he was arrested and imprisoned by Claudius II for preaching Christianity. The story goes that Claudius took a liking to the prisoner until valentine made the mistake of trying to convert him to Christianity. He was ordered to be beaten(or stoned) to death. When this failed he was finally beheaded.


Reading up on him there are many suggestions as to the origins of the traditions associated with him.

Some versions of the story claim that as he faced the gallows Valentine wrote a note to the daughter of his jailer signing it "From your Valentine".

It's been suggested that the association of Saint Valentine with lovers is as a Christian replacement for the pagan Lupercalia and a medieval belief that birds chose their mates on this day.

He is often depicted with roses and birds, as I have done.

I painted this rather quickly when I remembered that today is his feast day.

I might have missed it, but I couldn't find any reference to expensive chocolates or teddy bears in any of his origin stories.