Black Madonna of Czestochowa

The most revered icon in the Polish catholic faith. Legend states the painting helped defeat a Swedish invasion on the monastery and struck down a Hussite dead that tried to damage it. Some believe it was painted by St. Luke and pillaged from Jerusalem in 326 by Constantine the Great’s mother, St. Helena. Then subsequently it was stolen from the Hungarians and then the Ukrainians, but as of the last 600 years it has become the symbol of Polish Catholicism.

It also served as source material for the below work:

Black Madonna (Pandemic (Protoapocalypse)), 2020

Digitally manipulated  jpeg

2,074 x 1,824 px (1.6 MB)