There are legends that just live in European culture for centuries, since ancien Times till nowadays. There are motifs that keep coming back. One of those motifs – especially in Christian culture – is a story about a man who sold his soul to the devil. Source of inspiration for…
Our Lady of the Sinners
One of my favourite manuscripts is so called Taymouth Hours, dating back to the second quarter of the 14th century (British Library,Yates Thompson MS 13). Its name comes from Taymouth Castle in Scotland, where the manuscript was kept in the Early-Modern times (and also, it contains notes in Scots dialect…
Molested Christ
Recently I have been studying iconography of St Mary Magdalene, so this post starts with her. After his resurrection, Christ appeared to Magdalene and that scene is called Noli me tangere (earlier I wrote about this scene HERE). Those are words he said to her – nowadays it is translated…
Our lady of the Plague
Almost obligatory decoration for market squares in the former Habsburg monarchy is so called Plague Column, in most cases late-baroque. They were erected after plagues, and we may find a many examples of such monuments in Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, or Silesia (in Poland) and most of them date…
“…with the moon under her feet”
In my last post I have published a drawing depicting Bishop Zbigniew Oleśnicki venerating Madonna with Child (post is available HERE) and perhaps some of you noticed a small detail: apparently Virgin has a crescent Moon under her feet! That motif was very popular in late-medieval art and also later,…