View allAll Photos Tagged ChristChild
and in a constant state of awakening Everlong
with glimpses sometimes of crystal clarity
and other times wondering
and wandering
The choir of the Moritzkirche in Augsburg, the interior of which was redesigned by John Pawson from 2008 to 2013.
The church was almost completely destroyed in the night of bombing from February 24 to 25, 1944, and then only provisionally rebuilt. The minimalist redesign by the British star architect John Pawson is somewhat controversial, but also an attraction for tourists and photographers.
www.johnpawson.com/works/moritzkirche
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Moritz_(Augsburg)
Im 1. Österreichischen Weihnachtsmuseum in Steyr gibt es eine Erlebnisbahn. Die Fahrt war ähnlich abenteuerlich wie auf der Hochschaubahn ! ;-) Die Sessel legten sich in den Kurven plötzlich nach hinten oder auch nach vorne... Dafür bekamen wir Weihnachtsszenen mit Puppen zu sehen, die Weihnachten in verschiedenen Ländern zeigten, singende Engel, die himmlische Back- und Bastelstube...
At the 1st Austrian Christmas Museum in Steyr there is an adventure rail. The ride was similar like a ride on a rollercoaster ! ;-) In the curves the chairs moved suddenly backwards or forwards... We got to see Christmas scenes with dolls, which showed Christmas in different countries, singing angels, the heavenly bakery and workshop...
photo rights reserved by Ben
In the heart of Skopje, near the Old Bazaar, stands the Church of the Ascension of Jesus Voznesenie Hristovo. From the outside it looks simple and modest, but inside awaits a world full of devotion and art. The church was built in the 16th century and has been restored several times after earthquakes and fires. The most impressive feature is the monumental iconostasis, a masterpiece of 19th-century local Orthodox woodcarvers. Within the richly carved wooden frame shine icons of Christ, saints, and above all the Mother of God holding the Christ Child. This particular icon radiates tenderness and strength, with a golden background symbolizing the heavenly light. The icons, framed by delicate woodcarving, tell a story of faith, art, and history. Together with the gilded cross above the iconostasis and the angel frescoes on the ceiling, the interior forms a mystical space of silence and prayer. In the garden of the church rests the national hero Goce Delčev, a symbol of the Macedonian struggle for independence, giving this sanctuary not only religious but also national significance. In this photo, the intensity of the Marian icon is beautifully captured: an image both tender and powerful, emphasizing the hidden jewel character of the Ascension Church.
Inside the Church of the Ascension of Jesus in Skopje, the Mother of God with the Christ Child shines from the richly carved iconostasis. Surrounded by golden light and framed by intricate woodwork, this sacred image reflects both tenderness and power — a true hidden jewel of Macedonian faith and tradition.
In het hart van Skopje, vlak bij de oude bazaar, ligt de Church of the Ascension of Jesus Voznesenie Hristovo. Van buiten eenvoudig en bescheiden, maar binnen wacht een wereld vol devotie en kunst. De kerk werd in de 16e eeuw gebouwd en herhaaldelijk gerestaureerd na aardbevingen en branden. Het meest indrukwekkende element is de monumentale iconostase, een meesterwerk van lokale orthodoxe houtsnijwerkers uit de 19e eeuw. Tussen het rijk versierde houtsnijwerk schitteren iconen van Christus, heiligen en vooral Maria met het Christuskind. Dit specifieke icoon toont de Moeder Gods die haar Zoon liefdevol vasthoudt, omgeven door een gouden achtergrond die symbool staat voor het hemelse licht. De iconen, omlijst door fijn houtsnijwerk, vertellen een verhaal van geloof, kunst en geschiedenis. Samen met de vergulde kruis boven de iconostase en de engelenfresco’s op het plafond vormt dit interieur een mystieke ruimte van stilte en gebed. In de tuin van de kerk rust bovendien de nationale held Goce Delčev, symbool van de Macedonische onafhankelijkheidsstrijd, waardoor dit heiligdom niet alleen religieuze maar ook nationale betekenis draagt. Op deze foto komt de intensiteit van de Maria-icoon prachtig naar voren: een beeld dat tegelijk teder en krachtig is, en dat de verborgen juweel-sfeer van de Ascension Church onderstreept.
To our mothers .... the divine mother, our earthly mother, all those who have been and are yet to come. We honour you.
To Queen Elizabeth II who departed this earthly plane on this day, in remembrance of the qualities that you radiated.
Rest in Peace.
Nahe Steyr in Oberösterreich liegt Christkindl mit seinem Postamt, das zugleich auch ein Hotel ist. Im Postamt kann man seine Weihnachtspost mit einem Sonderstempel versehen lassen.
Near Steyr in Upper Austria is Christkindl (Christ Child) with its post office, which is also a hotel. At the post office your Christmas post can be stamped with a special postmark.
Stars o'er the lake shine so bright,
The forest reflects holy light,
The Christchild is coming tonight!
GROUP: MACRO MONDAYS
THEME: TRADITION
SUBJECT: MANGER
(not quite 2.5" horizontally)
TRADITION
from Fiddler on the Roof
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRdfX7ut8gw&t=5s
Christmas decorations are done on the weekend after Thanksgiving EXCEPT for the Creche. This happens on the evening a week before Christmas Eve (last night) accompanied by the singing of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.
MERRY CHRISTMAS MY FRIENDS!
The Kaiserkapelle of the grand Imperial Castle overlooking Nürnberg has an austere romanesque architecture graced by a beautiful Crucifix (perhaps by Veit Stoß [c.1447-1533]). Contemplating it, I thought, too, of the pretty Daisy Fleabane, Erigeron sp., I'd just photographed at the foot of the Castle. Its purity - white as the Crucifix - especially in the Renaissance often took the place of Our Lady's famous Lily and it also signified the pureness of the Christ Child. In this photo it's being visited by a flower wasp. And that brought to my mind the first descriptor in 1791 of a Polistes wasp (www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/35569194160/in/photoli...) and an expert on wasps generally, Johann Ludwig Christ (1739-1813).
PS Internet connection in my hotel is quite bad, so please bear with me.
Misión San José del Cabo is a twin spire Jesuit mission church founded in 1730 and built in 1840 on the corners of Hidalgo and Zaragoza streets in San Jose del Cabo Mexico. San José del Cabo is a colonial town with the flavor and colors of Old México located in southern Baja California Sur state twenty miles northeast of Cabo San Lucas. Print Size 13x19 inches. HFF.
This 14th Century madonna and child in Salisbury Cathedral was disposed of during the inconoclasm at the time of the Reformation and lost for centuries, before being found again during renovation works in the 1980s. It has reintroduced in the Trinity Chapel at the east end of the Cathedral since.
There is visible damage on the head of the Christchild, somehow a profound statement of the reality of the Incarnation; God made human in every respect as we are, subject to the travails and wounds of the world.
Misión San José del Cabo is a twin spire Jesuit mission church founded in 1730 and built in 1840 on the corners of Hidalgo and Zaragoza streets in San Jose del Cabo Mexico. San José del Cabo is a colonial town with the flavor and colors of Old México located in southern Baja California Sur state twenty miles northeast of Cabo San Lucas. Print size 8x10 inches.
This is a closer shot fresco or mural on a cave-wall of Virgin Mary enthroned, for whom archangels Michael and Gabriel show respect, as she holds Christ Child in her arms. The fresco lies outside and to the East of the sanctuary of a Virgin Mary’s very old church, nested within a cave 164 ft (50 m) above ground, on a lofty rock formation. The church dates back to 1328 or 1362 A.D., when it was part of an abbey (monastery). It is located 4½ miles (7 km) to the North of the village Vlachava near Meteora, Greece, at a position called Palaeócastro (Greek for Old Castle). Steps were carved out of the rock in 1937.
The name of the church is “Virgin Mary In A Cave” (Panaghía ē Spēlaeōtissa) or “Virgin Mary at Mēkanē” (Παναγία ἡ Σπηλαιώτισσα ἢ τῆς Μήκανης), but the locals simply call it Palaeopanayiá (Palaeopanaghiá, Παλαιοπαναγιά). Palaeopanayiá is dependent on St. Stephen’s monastery (Meteora).
Meteora is the name of the group comprising many impressive and lofty rock formations: The height of the sandstone megaliths ranges between 1,000-2,067 ft (300-630 m). The rock masses which were formed 60 million years ago are geologically unique and listed in UNESCO world heritage sites.
Misión San José del Cabo is a twin spire Jesuit mission church founded in 1730 and built in 1840 on the corners of Hidalgo and Zaragoza streets in San Jose del Cabo Mexico. San José del Cabo is a colonial town with the flavor and colors of Old México located in southern Baja California Sur state twenty miles northeast of Cabo San Lucas. San Jose was the southernmost of the Jesuit missions established during the colonial period in the Baja Californias. Print Size 13x19 inches.
Maybe Poppy will bring the presents...? 👼 🎄 🌟 🎁
By the way, I am already at day 24 because I have started on the 29th of November which was the 1st Advent Day. 😊
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This is a fresco or mural on a cave-wall of Virgin Mary enthroned, for whom archangels Michael and Gabriel show respect, as she holds Christ Child in her arms. The fresco lies outside and to the East of the sanctuary of a Virgin Mary’s very old church, nested within a cave 164 ft (50 m) above ground, on a lofty rock formation. The church dates back to 1328 or 1362 A.D., when it was part of an abbey (monastery). It is located 4½ miles (7 km) to the North of the village Vlachava near Meteora, Greece, at a position called Palaeócastro (Greek for Old Castle). Steps were carved out of the rock in 1937.
The name of the church is “Virgin Mary In A Cave” (Panaghía hē Spēlaeōtissa) or “Virgin Mary at Mēkanē” (Παναγία ἡ Σπηλαιώτισσα ἢ τῆς Μήκανης), but the locals simply call it Palaeopanayiá (Palaeopanaghiá, Παλαιοπαναγιά). Palaeopanayiá is dependent on St. Stephen’s monastery (Meteora).
Meteora is the name of the group comprising many impressive and lofty rock formations: The height of the sandstone megaliths ranges between 1,000-2,067 ft (300-630 m). The rock masses which were formed 60 million years ago are geologically unique and listed in UNESCO world heritage sites.
A detailed view of a richly decorated Baroque altar within the Wallfahrtsbasilika St. Georg in Walldürn, Germany. The altar is constructed from polished reddish-brown and black marble with intricate gold detailing and fluted columns. At its center is a large, arched painting depicting the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child, surrounded by other figures. Above the painting, a silver-colored wreath with golden rays forms a halo-like motif. Two white statues of angels with golden wings are positioned on either side of the altar. On the altar table, several white candles are arranged alongside small potted green plants and a wooden statue of a saint, possibly a bishop, holding a staff. A small sign with text is also visible. The floor in the foreground transitions from a wooden parquet to a patterned tiled floor. The overall style is ornate and religious.
The Baby Jesus Surrounded by Poinsettias
Im Augsburger Dom | In the Cathedral of Augsburg
Ich wünsche Euch allen einen guten Rutsch und ein glückliches Neues Jahr!
I wish you all a happy New Year!
Misión San José del Cabo is a twin spire Jesuit mission church founded in 1730 and built in 1840 on the corners of Hidalgo and Zaragoza streets in San Jose del Cabo Mexico. San José del Cabo is a colonial town with the flavor and colors of Old México located in southern Baja California Sur state twenty miles northeast of Cabo San Lucas. San Jose was the southernmost of the Jesuit missions established during the colonial period in the Baja Californias. Photo by my wife Barb, print Size 13x19 inches.
Seated Infant Christ, Mechelen, ca. 1520. At an exhibition in Catharijne Convent, Utrecht.
Late Gothic sculptures of the Christ Child are numerous and exist in various forms. They owe their existence to the increasing veneration of the Christ Child by the Franciscan and Dominican orders in the thirteenth century.
A very Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year to all my Flickr friends!
Taken at Newport Cathedral (St Woolos Cathedral)
Two young women pose with the images of Baby Jesus they have brought to church to be blessed by the priest.
(This is the one-year anniversary of this image. I thought I would bring it around again. This image is my most popular, and probably my most favorite, too. Since I posted it, it has been featured in a variety of places including websites and magazines. The latest magazine to feature this image is a publication produced by a group of monks in Malta.
With no further ado, I present this image and its sentiments to all my Flickr friends, and to those friends that I have never met.)
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There is this lovely Christmas song about an orphan girl named, Maria, who finds a bird with a broken wing, It's called, "The Gift."
Maria uses the little money she has to care for the damaged bird, and then on Christmas eve, she brings the bird as her offering to the Christ child's manger at her church. But she sneaks in so no one can see her pitiful offering, "for her gift was unworthy of Him," according to the song's lyrics.
But the Lord accepts her gift like none other, and as a result, Maria is treated to "the vey first Nightingale's song."
The song makes me weep every time I hear it. For how often do we give a gift that is either denied, or is badly accepted? Like our love?
The song has been whispering about in my head for days, and I wanted to shoot an image that would portray its poignancy.
I asked my 11-year old granddaughter if she would help me capture the spirit of Maria. She loves drama, so she played along.
We lit a fire, set up some lights, and put my Canon 50D up on my tripod. She pulled on an April Cornell petticoat and dress, and we tied a headscarf around her hair.
All we had for a bird was this creamy dove ornamanet, so it had to do. But with the bird in her hands, she couldn't hold the deflector to glance light into her face, so we hollered for her younger brother; he's 8.
"Do you want to be our lighting assistant?" we asked. He studied the situation for a moment, grabbed the deflector, and in spite of the heat from the fire, he went straight to work. He even became somewhat of a pro, as he watched for and eliminated shadows. He is now very proud to call himself a lighting assistant.
And my granddaughter, the love of my life (well one of them) is so pleased with this image. You should have seen her smile.
I dedicate this image of my heart to my grandkids, and to grandkids the world over, especially those who have never been allowed to spend time with their grandparents.
Unfortunately, there are many situtaions like that, and how sad it is for both grandchild and grandparent to be denied the joy of togetherness; a togetherness that only a grandchild and grandparent can know. Some refer to it as the "living death."
I thank the Lord every day for the time I get to spend with at least some of my wonderful grandchildren.
To me, they are as precious as the bird Maria offered to the Lord.
"For her gift was unworthy of Him."
Here is a link to the song's lyrics: www.oldielyrics.com/christmas/the_gift.html.
And thanks to my most thoughtful friends, Bill (Pixellie by Flickr name) and Jill, here is a link to the song as sung by Aselin Debison. uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XODganqCxB8
Wishing all of you a very peaceful Christmas. May you know the joy of giving and receiving, acceptance and of love.
May you experience the joy of little Maria as you offer your gift, no matter how humble, to the Lord.
Merry Christmas!
Italian Renaissance sculptor Andrea della Robbia (1435-1525) was the nephew and disciple of sculptor Luca della Robbia (1400-1482), who is noted for his colorful, tin-glazed terracotta statuary, a technique that he invented and passed on to his nephew Andrea. Among Andrea’s earliest iconic creations, thie 'Virgin and Child' (created 1490-1495} shows the Virgin Mary tenderly supporting the Christ Child, who solemnly raises his hand in blessing. Modeled in high relief with palpable naturalism, the lifesize figures seem to share our physical space while God the Father and a host of angels look on from heaven.
Andria carried on the production of the enamelled reliefs on a much larger scale than his uncle Luca had ever done; he also extended its application to various architectural uses, such as friezes and to the making of lavabos, fountains and large retables.
"Putti" are representations of chubby, often winged, infant boys, primarily in Renaissance and Baroque European art. Derived from ancient classical mythology, they initially symbolized spirits or deities like Cupid, but were revived in the Renaissance to represent innocence and serve in decorative roles, sometimes with Christian meanings like angels.
Willow Tree 2022
Every year our hearts are warmed as we decorate our home with the Nativity. Purchased over a number of years our collection has grown and is admired by many. We love it.
St Peter, Walpole St Peter, Norfolk
St Peter is one of the dozen most famous parish churches in England. Alec Clifton-Taylor thought it was the best. Of course, claims can made for many big churches; but St Peter is not just special for its size. It is indeed magnificent, but also infinitely subtle, the fruit of circumstance and the ebb and flow of centuries. There is a sense of community and continuity as well; this is no mere museum, and it is not simply St Peter's historic survivals that attract its champions. This is a building to visit again and again, to delight in, and always see something new.
Be in no doubt that St Peter is a big church. At 160 feet long it dwarfs other East Anglian giants like Southwold, Blythburgh, Cley and Cawston. Only Salle gives it a run for its money. It is also a welcoming church, as all great churches should be. But even if it were kept locked, there would still be so much to see here that it would be worth the journey.
This part of the county has a character more commonly associated with Cambridgeshire, and of course we are only a couple of miles from the Nene which forms the border between the two counties. Walpole St Peter is closer to Peterborough and Cambridge than it is to Norwich. Indeed, it is closer to Leicester than it is to Great Yarmouth at the other end of Norfolk, a reminder that this is a BIG county. Today, the Norfolk marshland villages tend to be rather mundane, apart from their churches of course. In this curiously remote area around the Wash delineated by Lynn, Wisbech and Boston, there is an agri-industrial shabbiness accentuated by the flat of the land. But you need to imagine the enormous wealth of this area in the late medieval period. The silt washed by the great rivers out of the Fens was superb for growing crops. East Anglia, with the densest population in England, provided a ready market, and the proximity of the great ports gave easy access for exports. And then there was the Midlands and the North which could be accessed by the east coast ports.
The landowners and merchants became seriously wealthy, and according to custom bequeathed enhancements to their parish churches to encourage their fellow parishioners to pray for their souls after they were dead. This was nothing to do with the size of the local population; in England's Catholic days, these buildings were not intended merely for congregational worship. The fixtures and fittings of the parish churches reflected the volume of devotion, not just the volume of people. In areas where there was serious wealth, the entire church might be rebuilt.
But here at Walpole St Peter there was another imperative for rebuilding the church. In the terrible floods of the 1330s, the church here was destroyed, apart from its tower. Before it could be rebuilt in the fashionable Decorated style, the Black Death came along and took away fully half of the local population. However, the economic effects of the pestilence would turn out to be rather good for East Anglia in the long term, and by the early-15th century churches were being rebuilt on a grand scale all over Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. Walpole has two late medieval churches - St Andrew on the other side of the village is very fine, but St Peter is the one that puts it in the shade.
The nave came first, the chancel following a few decades after. Eventually, the tower would also have been rebuilt, in a similar scale to the rest of the church. How amazing it might have been! We only need to look a few miles over the border to Boston to see what could have been possible. But the English Reformation of the 16th century brought an end to the need for bequests, and so the late 13th century tower remains in place to this day.
The vast church sits hemmed in to the north and east by its wide churchyard. The battlemented nave and chancel are a magnificent sight, most commonly first seen from the village street to the north. Rendering accentuates the reddishness of the stone, and the finest moment is probably the conjunction between nave and chancel; spired roodstair turrets rise to the gable, and at the apex is a glorious sanctus bell turret. The stairway on the north side is supported by a small figure who has been variously interpreted as the Greek god Atlas, the Fenland giant Hickathrift, or as anyone else I suppose.
The chancel is beautiful, but its most striking feature is the tunnel that goes beneath its eastern end. One of the features of the late medieval English Catholic church was liturgical processions, but when this chancel was extended in the 15th century it took the building right up to the boundary of consecrated ground. To enable processions still to circumnavigate this building, the tunnel was placed beneath the high altar. Such passageways are more common under towers, and there are several examples of this in Norfolk, but that option was obviously not possible here.
There are lots of interesting bosses in the vaulting. It isn't just the medieval past that has left its mark here. The floor of the tunnel is flagged, and there are horse-rings in the wall from the 18th and 19th century when it served the more mundane purpose of stabling during services.
Views of the south side of the church are hindered by a vast and beautiful copper beech, but there is no hiding the vastness of the south porch, one of the biggest and finest in Norfolk. The parvise window is as big as nave windows elsewhere; the keys of St Peter decorate the footstool of one of the niches.
And here are some of the finest medieval bosses in Norfolk. The two main ones are the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and the Last Judgement. There are characterful animals in the other bosses. Figures in niches include a Pieta, a Madonna and child, and a pilgrim with a staff, pack, and shell on his hat. Also in the porch is a sign reminding you to remove your patens, the hardy wooden clogs common to 19th century farm workers.
So much to see, then, even before you come to push open the original medieval door! And then you do, and the birdsong and leaf-thresh of the summer morning outside falls away, and you enter the cool of a serious stone space. The first impression is of height, because the vista to the east is cut off by an elegant 17th century screen, as at nearby Terrington St Clement. The unifying of nave and tower, almost a century apart, is accomplished by sprung buttresses high up on the west wall, each carved with a figure. Here are the Elizabethan communion table, a hudd ( the sentry box-like device intended to keep 18th century Rectors dry at the graveside) and the perpendicular light through the west windows.
And then you step through the pedimented entrance through the screen into the body of the church, and the building begins to unfold before you. Your journey through it begins.
Some huge churches impose themselves on you. St Peter doesn't. It isn't Salle or Long Melford. But neither is it jaunty and immediately accessible like Terrington St Clement or Southwold, nor full of light and air like Blythburgh. St Peter is a complex space, the sum of its parts, like Cley, and yet more than them, with a sense of being an act of worship in itself.
One of the delights of Walpole St Peter is that many of the furnishings reveal the hands of local craftsmen; the roodscreen dado Saints, for example. There are twelve of them, their naive character reminiscent of Westhall. The six outer saints are women, the inner ones apostles. The two sets are clearly by different hands, and the late Tom Muckley wondered if they were, in fact, from two different screens.
On the north side are St Catherine, the rare subject of the Blessed Virgin and Christchild, St Margaret (the processional cross with which she dispatches the dragon is unfinished), St John, St James and St Thomas. On the south side are St Peter, St Paul, St Andrew, St Mary of Magdala, St Dorothy and St Barbara. I was pleased to be asked recently for the use of my photographs for the information board which explains it.
The nave has a feel that is at once ancient and vital, not so much of age as of timelessness, of continuity. It's the sheer mixture of woodwork that impresses - silvery oak broods in the white light from the high windows. The best of the medieval work is in the south aisle, where the benches are tiered and face inwards. A massive dark wood pulpit and tester broods over the north side. Above all this rises the pale cream of the arcades, topped by the gold of the hanging candelabras, and the towering, serious early 17th century font cover. The font is clearly one of the Seven Sacraments series; but, as at the great churches of Blythburgh and Southwold in Suffolk, the panels have been completely erased. A dedicatory inscription is dated 1537.
As well as wood, metal. The candelabras provide a focus, but there is also one of the latten medieval lecterns familiar from elsewhere in Norfolk, the little lions perky at its feet. The south aisle chapel has a lovely parclose screen with a spiked iron gate. In the north aisle, the chapel has been neatly furnished for smaller scale worship.
And then you step through into the chancel, and this is something else again. Here is true grandeur. This immense spaces rises fully twenty-one steps from nave floor to high altar. Here is the late medieval imagination writ large, compromised in the years since, but largely restored by the late Victorians. You step from subtlety to richness. Niches and arcading flank the walls leading the eye east, their blankness becoming sedilia. In the high niches where once were images, 17th and 18th century worthies have their memorials. Everything leads the eye to the great east window, where excellent 19th century glass completes your journey through the Queen of the Marshlands.
Simon Jenkins, in the often-maligned England's Thousand Best Churches, tends to cast a cold and even sardonic eye on most buildings as he passes by, but at Walpole St Peter even his breath was taken away: it is a place not of curiosity but of subtle proportion, of the play of light on stone and wood. If English churches were Dutch Old Masters, this would be St Pieter de Hooch.
This Summer the North-Holland city of Alkmaar is caught up in religious throes. Among the slogans are 'Climb to Heaven', gracing the St Laurentius Church, and 'Pilgrimage (Bede-vaart)', a series of sculptures placed on the former bulwarks of the city.
So we took the train up to Alkmaar from Amsterdam - a mere half hour or so - to look at Maarten van Heemskerck's (1498-1574) altarpiece (1538-1542) in the Church.
In the wake of Alkmaar turning Protestant 1570/1572 there was no longer need for such a Romish thing. But the city's purse-minded Calvinist government couldn't bear destroying good money, so the artwork was sold to Sweden in 1581. Now the cathedral of Linköping has seen fit to allow the St Laurentius Church to display what was once its own masterpiece.
I've long been an admirer of Van Heemskerck, and I was utterly 'blown away' by this amazing art. But it would be tiresome for Flickr to allow me to wax on...
Anyway, here in the inset is a Shepherd on that altarpiece clothed in perhaps a wolf's skin to signify he saved his sheep. He's bending solicitously over the Christchild, a Sheepsaver-to-be...
And then on those bulwark's 'Pilgrimage' is this fabulous Eva (2018) by Elisabet Stienstra (1967-). The connection is clear, at least in my mind. The Virgin, whose Issue our Shepherd is admiring, in Biblical Lore is an immediate descendant of Eve. In this photo she's directly gazing at Wolfkiller Shepherd who's admiring her Fruit. And let's not even speculate on her Broomstick!
Ah! religious mysticism!