The "Moskovia" depicted in this pilgrim icon painted in 1865. (Photo ZZ/L'Orient Today)
The idea of sacred art as a spiritual journey rather than simply a painting requires a state of fervor akin to transcendence for its creation, with tradition dictating that the iconographer be a monk or, at least, a particularly devout person. This idea could also apply to the recipients of such artworks. Especially to the pilgrims of past centuries who, at the end of their journey across the Holy Land, would bring back "iconographic paintings" that, through a sort of illustrated map of Gospel scenes, documented the different stages of their pilgrimage on the soil once trodden by Jesus. For some more recent history The Vatican, Arabs and the unarmed prophet’s diplomacy These so-called "pilgrim icons," relatively rare pieces found in the private collection of Lebanese-Palestinian banker and patron Rami el-Nimer,...
The idea of sacred art as a spiritual journey rather than simply a painting requires a state of fervor akin to transcendence for its creation, with tradition dictating that the iconographer be a monk or, at least, a particularly devout person. This idea could also apply to the recipients of such artworks. Especially to the pilgrims of past centuries who, at the end of their journey across the Holy Land, would bring back "iconographic paintings" that, through a sort of illustrated map of Gospel scenes, documented the different stages of their pilgrimage on the soil once trodden by Jesus. For some more recent history The Vatican, Arabs and the unarmed prophet’s diplomacy These so-called "pilgrim icons," relatively rare pieces found in the private collection of Lebanese-Palestinian banker and patron Rami...