Icons at KOCM

Today was a rainy and cold, more Fall-ish than Spring (Summer is just around the corner). Richard is battling a cold or something and just wanted to watch the Tribe on the tube.

So the conditions were ripe for me to go to the Knights of Columbus Museum to catch a lecture on "The Iconography of the Mother of God." It was part of the museum's latest exhibit, Windows into Heaven: Russian Icons and Treasures.  Richard and I visited it a couple of weeks ago, which is how I knew about the lecture.

St. Luke Writes the First Icon of the Mother of God

The lecture was given by Marek Czarnecki, a local iconographer from Meriden, CT. This lecture was an examination of the most popular subject in iconography: Mary, the Mother of God (Greek: Theotokos). The lecture began with a detailed description of the icon (above) "St. Luke Writes the First Icon of the Mother of God." Note the angel (at the left) "helping" St. Luke do the icon. Because there was no Russian verb for painting, they termed it "writing" an icon.

He talked about how the early church councils decided it was proper to call Mary, the Mother of God rather than the Mother of Christ or the Mother of Jesus.  He then went through various slides of icons and other artwork from the earliest legends about Mary, the non-canonical The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary through the Biblical events of her life (Immaculate Conception, Annunciation, Birth of Jesus, Presentation of Jesus, Finding Jesus in the Temple, the Wedding Feast at Cana, Jesus' Crucifixion, Pentecost, and the Assumption). He then showed various Mary icons associated with different themes and places.

Our Lady of the Signs.

Our Lady of Kazan.

The lecture lasted more than an hour. Afterwards, I went to the exhibit and read some of info boards that I skipped the first time.  Then I looked more carefully at the section of the exhibit dedicated to the iconography of Mary. There is so much to see, so many icons (225+).

The next lecture (3rd of 3) is scheduled to be held June 29th. Hope I can be there. Fortunately, the exhibit continues into 2014 (see poster above). And I like that it is free and has free parking.