Patrick Comerford
This icon, The Nativity of Christ by Juliet Venter, which is my choice of Art for Christmas this morning [Christmas Day, 25 December 2013], appears on this year’s Christmas Card from the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge.
This icon is a beautiful modern interpretation of a traditional theme in Byzantine iconography.
Juliet Venter was educated at Saint John’s College, Cambridge (BA, English Literature, 1986), and she has lived and worked in South Africa and England. She now lives in Letchworth, Hertfordshire.
Her icons and illuminations are original works, painted with authentic earth and mineral pigments, egg tempera and real gold leaf in the traditional mediaeval, Byzantine manner of writing icons. She also works on creative hand-embroidered vestments and textiles.
She includes among her interests “all things Byzantine and Romanesque,” and her work reflects her interest in the Pre-Raphaelites, Klimt and Rennie Mackintosh, in Moghul miniatures and woodcuts, and in the Stroganov embroideries and metal thread work. Her musical interests include Tallis, Byrd, Victoria, Sibelius, Mahler and Arvo Part.
You can order her cards, icons and vestments directly for her website.
If I have been too late in sending you a Christmas card this year, I’m sorry; if I missed sending you a Christmas card this year, I’m sorry; I am weak at keeping lists, but strong and whole-hearted when it comes to wishing you a Happy Christmas this year, and happy New Year for 2014.
Thank you for being a faithful reader.
Happy Christmas.
Tomorrow: Art for Christmas (2): ‘Saint Stephen’ by Giotto di Bondone.
