A Pilgrim's Progress

amanda | 26 | quaker | etsy got my little boots and my waterskin and i'm just walking. the more i walk, the closer i am to fine.

[apilgrimsprogress]

"Beloved, I hope you are prospering in every respect and are in good health, just as your soul is prospering."~ 3 John 1:2, NABRE

[classic-art-favourites]

Visitation by Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1491.

[portraitsofsaints]

Saint Mary Magdalen de Pazzi

1566-1607

Feast day: May 25 (New), May 29 (Trad)

Patronage: against bodily ills, against sexual temptation, against sickness, sick people, Naples

Saint Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, called the “ecstatic saint” had many highs and lows in her lifetime. At 16 she entered the Monastery of St. Mary of the Angels, a Carmelite Cloister that receive daily communion, unusual for that time. She wanted a hidden life but her ecstasies prohibited that and she humbly accepted it. She received many visions and ecstasies but also desolation, temptations and dryness. Her continuous physical sufferings and severe spiritual trials were a great burden but she was enriched by God with extraordinary graces. Her response to suffering was to show love and gratitude for the gift of suffering.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase. (website)

[artandthebible]

The Meeting of David and Abigail

Artist: Guido Reni (Italian, 1575-1642)

Date: ca. 1615-1620

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia, United States

Description

In this Old Testament scene, Abigail visits David’s camp to apologize for her husband who had insulted David and his soldiers. Pale and bowed with her eyes downcast, Abigail’s remorse is apparent. Even her donkey droops apologetically. David stands proud in his shiny armor and red flowing cape, but his face suggests tenderness - perhaps alluding to the end of the story when David and Abigail wed after her wicked husband dies.

1 Samuel 25:32–33

And David said to Abigail, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodguilt and from working salvation with my own hand!

[everettpatterson]

“The First Stone” (2023) Private commission.

“They said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground.” - John 8

[lionofchaeronea]

Elijah Taken Up in a Chariot of Fire, Giuseppe Angeli, ca. 1740-55

[thyateira]

Job and his Three Daughters, William Blake (1805).

[artandthebible]

Samson and the Lion

Artist: Francesco Hayez (Italian, 1791–1882) 

Date: 1842

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Galleria d'arte Moderna, Florence, Italy

Samson was the last of the judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Book of Judges (chapters 13 to 16) and one of the last leaders who “judged” Israel before the institution of the monarchy.

The biblical account states that Samson was a Nazirite and that he was given immense strength to aid him against his enemies and allow him to perform superhuman feats, including slaying a lion with his bare hands and massacring a Philistine army with a donkey’s jawbone after offending groomsmen at his wedding to one. The cutting of Samson’s long hair would violate his Nazirite vow and nullify his ability.

Samson is betrayed by his lover Delilah, who, sent by Philistine officials to entice him, orders a servant to cut his hair while he is sleeping and turns him over to the Philistines, who gouge out his eyes and force him to mill grain at Gaza City. While there, his hair begins to grow again. When the Philistines take Samson into their temple of Dagon, Samson asks to rest against one of the support pillars. After being granted permission, he prays to God and miraculously recovers his strength, allowing him to bring down the columns – collapsing the temple and killing both himself and the Philistines.

Samson and the Lion

“Samson went down to Timnah together with his father and mother. As they approached the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion came roaring toward him. The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. But he told neither his father nor his mother what he had done.” Judges 14:5-6 (New International Version)

[xtheredwitchx]

Eve — 1855, oil on canvas

— Anna Lea Merritt (Britain, 1844 - 1930)

[artandthebible]

Joseph, Overseer of Egypt

Artist: Balthasar Beschey (Flemish, 1708-1776)

Date: 1744

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, Belgium

Joseph, Overseer of Egypt

"From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the LORD blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the LORD was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field." (Genesis 39:5)

[artandthebible]

Daniel Interpreting to Belshazzar the Writing on the Wall

Artist: Benjamin West (English, born America), 1738–1820

Date: 1775

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, Missouri, United States

Description

This painting tells a dramatic biblical story from the 6th century BCE. Babylonian king Belshazzar, in blue robes, committed an act of sacrilege by using sacred Jewish vessels during a lavish feast. When mysterious writing appeared on the wall, the prophet Daniel, clad in brownish-red robes, interpreted the message to foretell the downfall of the king’s empire. Within hours, Belshazzar was dead.

[laclefdescoeurs]

The Prodigal’s Return, 1869, Edward John Poynter

[artandthebible]

King Ahasuerus Sentences Haman to Death

Artist: Anton Petter (Austrian, 1781-1858)

Date: 1835

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: The Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Viena, Austria

Description

As described in the Book of Esther, Haman was the son of Hammedatha the Agagite. After Haman was appointed the principal minister of the king Ahasuerus, all of the king’s servants were required to bow down to Haman, but Mordecai refused to. Angered by this, and knowing of Mordecai’s Jewish nationality, Haman convinced Ahasuerus to allow him to have all of the Jews in the Persian empire killed.

The plot was foiled by Queen Esther, the king’s recent wife, who was herself a Jew. Esther invited Haman and the king to two banquets. In the second banquet, she informed the king that Haman was plotting to kill her (and the other Jews). This enraged the king, who was further angered when (after leaving the room briefly and returning) he discovered Haman had fallen on Esther’s couch, intending to beg mercy from Esther, but which the king interpreted as a sexual advance.

On the king’s orders, Haman was hanged from the 50-cubit-high gallows that had originally been built by Haman himself, on the advice of his wife Zeresh, in order to hang Mordecai. The bodies of Haman’s ten sons were also hanged, after they died in battle against the Jews. The Jews also killed about 75,000 of their enemies in self-defense.

[lionofchaeronea]

A stylized depiction of the Holy Spirit descending upon the Apostles at Pentecost. Miniature illumination on parchment from the Sacramentary of Saint-Étienne, executed by an unknown 12th-century artist in Limoges for the Saint-Étienne Cathedral in Toulouse. Now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

[constanzarte]

The Festival of Esther, Edward Armitage

[vent-art-af]

Hi continuing my bible poem series. If you want to follow the series click here. Thanks! This one is called "Eve" (2/16/25)

"Does anyone think of Eve when they think of the  most moral woman who ever lived? The thirst to know the difference between good and bad despite the consequences before fruit even touched her lips She told God the snake duped her But did it? Or did she feel the need to  feel good to see good to know good To be good? Or maybe just because you know right from wrong doesn’t mean you choose it"

[rosieandthemoon]

Saint Margaret by Ksenia Dronova