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

Website update

I've added a sketches section to my main website

have a look

http://www.pullingpictures.com/

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.

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.

Lucy in Bizarre Magazine

Meant to post this a while ago

I've only got eyes for you

Here's an interesting one.


This painting of St Barabra/Paraskevi of the Greek Orthodox Church's is so similar to that of traditional depictions of Saint Lucy that I wonder if somewhere along the way their stories got blurred. Although their histories are quite different, both refer to their imperviousness to pain and torture and it's not everyday you see a girl with a pair of eyes on a serving dish...


St Barabra








St Lucy

St Bartholomew

St Bartholomew one was of The 12 Apostles of Jesus.

He preached in India and in Greater Armenia, where he was flayed and beheaded by King Astyages.
In India, which was considered the end of the world, he lived in a temple to an Indian idol apparently and the idol was possessed by a demol, Astaroth.

Another devil described Bartholomew as:

"And the devil said to them: He hath his hairs black and crisp, his skin white, eyes great,
his nostrils even and straight, his beard long and hoar a little, and of a straight and seemly
stature. He is clad in a white coat, and a white mantle, which in every corner hath gems of purple
and precious stones therein. And it is sith twenty-six years that his clothes never waxed old ne
foul."

Unwashed clothes- that seemingly never got dirty..which is just as well for his beautiful nostrils.

He is often depicted wrapped in his flayed skin or holding his skin in his hands.

Christian traditional has three stories about Bartholomew's death: "One speaks of his being kidnapped, beaten unconscious, and cast into the sea to drown. Another account states that he was crucified upside down, and another says that he was skinned alive and beheaded in Albac or Albanopolis, near Bashkale, Armenia." ^[13]

The account of Bartholomew being skinned alive is the most represented in works of art, and consequently Bartholomew shown with a large knife, holding his own skin (as in Michelangelo's Last Judgment), or both. Bartholomew is also the patron saint of tanners.

More information on his martydom here