28 Photographs, RELIGIOUS ART - Photography from the Bible, with footnotes, 1

Mario Nunes Vais (1856-1932)
Lyda Borelli posing as Oscar Wilde's Salomè

Lyda Borelli (22 March 1884 – 2 June 1959) was an Italian actress of cinema and theatre. She was born in Genoa, and died in Rome. Her career in theatre started when she was a child, acting on stage with Paola Pezzaglia in the French drama I due derelitti. More

Mario Nunes Vais ( Florence , 1856 - Florence , 1932 ) was a Italian photographer. Mario Nunes Vais, the greatest Italian photographer of the early twentieth century, was born in Florence in 1856. His father hoped for him to launch a career in finance, but the young artist had a passion for photography. He enrolled in the Italian Photographic Society and worked with the Alinari company. At a resident of Florence, Nunes Vais received important guests over the years.

He became the official photographer of the House of Savoy and in 1908, he ‘immortalized’ the protagonists of the X ° Socialist Congress, including Filippo Turati and his wife Anna Kuliscioff. Nunes Vais was not only a great celebrity portraitist, he also captured collective scenes featuring realistic, everyday life in the cities and countryside of Tuscany and Italy. The photographer died in Florence in 1932 and his enormous archive (including more than 70,000 negatives) was donated to the National Photographic Archives in Rome, while other negatives are now deposited at the Alinari Museum. More

SALOME (1953)
Actors: Rita Hayworth, Stewart Granger, Charles Laughton, Judith Anderson, Sir Cedric Hardwicke
Directors: William Dieterle

Salome is an early-'50s release about King Herod's sensuous and provocative dancing stepdaughter, Salome, who requested the head of John the Baptist from her stepfather. 

Plot Summary. In the reign of emperor Tiberius, Gallilean prophet John the Baptist preaches against King Herod and Queen Herodias. The latter wants John dead, but Herod fears to harm him due to a prophecy. Enter beautiful Princess Salome, Herod's long-absent stepdaughter. Herodias sees the king's dawning lust for Salome as her means of bending the king to her will. But Salome and her lover Claudius are (contrary to Scripture) nearing conversion to the new religion. And the famous climactic dance turns out to have unexpected implications... More

Katarzyna Widmanska
Matka Boska Zielna, Madonnas
Model Nela Ly

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Latin. Assumptio Beatissimae Mariae Virginis in caelum - the object of faith concerning the taking into heaven body and soul of Mary at the end of her earthly life. Dogma is regarded in the Catholic Church. According to the theology of the Catholic Mary is the power of God was taken up to heaven like Enoch and Elijah. More

The images that make up the photo series Madonnas by Katarzyna Widmanska, a photographer based in Warszawa, Poland, are visually striking. Inspired by the historical and religious artworks revolving around Mother Mary and Baby Jesus, models Nela Ly, Alicja Sułek and Joanna Grabska take on the role of the former for a powerful photoshoot that will speak to people on many different levels.

Although clearly a fashion photoshoot, Madonnas by Katarzyna Widmanska is so beautifully executed that it is sure to resonate with more than just fashionistas. Nevertheless, it showcases the costume designs of Katarzyna Konieczka. Captured in studio against various curtained backdrops, each image is full of emotion and reverence. The looks were perfected with flawless faces by makeup artists Kasia Świebodzińska and Magda Moniczewska and hair by Wojtek Kasprzak. More

Niccolo Cosme
Mater

Our Lady of Sorrows, the Sorrowful Mother or Mother of Sorrows, and Our Lady of Piety, Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows or Our Lady of the Seven Dolours are names by which the Virgin Mary is referred to in relation to sorrows in her life. As Mater Dolorosa, it is also a key subject for Marian art in the Catholic Church.

The Seven Sorrows of Mary are a popular Roman Catholic devotion. In common religious Catholic imagery, the Blessed Virgin Mary is portrayed in a sorrowful and lacrimating affect, with seven daggers piercing her heart, often bleeding. Devotional prayers that consist of meditation began to elaborate on her Seven Sorrows based on the prophecy of the Rabbi Simeon. Common examples of piety under this title are Servite rosary, or the Chaplet of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady and the Seven Joys of Mary and more recently, "Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary". More

Katarzyna Widmanska
Czarna Madonna/Black Madonna 
costume design Katarzyna Konieczka
model Anita Sayior

The Black Madonna was painted by St. Luke the Evangelist; and it was while painting the picture, Mary told him about the life of Jesus, which he later incorporated into his gospel. The next time we hear of the painting is in 326 A.D. when St. Helen found it in Jerusalem and gave it to her son and had a shrine built for it in Constantinople.

During a battle, the picture was placed on the walls of the city, and the enemy army fled. Our Lady saved the city from destruction. The picture was owned by many other people until 1382 when invading Tartars attacked a Prince Ladislaus' fortress, where the painting was located. A artar's arrow lodged into through the throat of the Madonna. The Prince transfered the painting to a church in Czestochowa, Poland. More

Hussites stormed the Pauline monastery in 1430, plundering the sanctuary. Among the items stolen was the icon. After putting it in their wagon, the Hussites tried to get away but their horses refused to move. They threw the portrait down to the ground and one of the plunderers drew his sword upon the image and inflicted two deep strikes. When the robber tried to inflict a third strike, he fell to the ground and writhed in agony until his death. Despite past attempts to repair these scars, they had difficulty in covering up those slashes as the painting was done with tempera infused with diluted wax.

Another legend states that, as the robber struck the painting twice, the face of the Virgin Mary started to bleed; in a panic, the scared Hussites retreated and left the painting More

Katarzyna Widmanska

Matka Boska Śnieżna/ Lady of the Snow

During the pontificate of Liberius, the Roman patrician John and his wife, who were without heirs, made a vow to donate their possessions to the Virgin Mary. They prayed that she might make known to them how they were to dispose of their property in her honour. On 5 August, at the height of the Roman summer, snow fell during the night on the summit of the Esquiline Hill. In obedience to a vision of the Virgin Mary that they had the same night, the couple built a basilica in honour of Mary on the very spot that was covered with snow.  More

Miles Aldridge

Immaculee #1

Model: Alana Zimmer

Lambda print

2007

53 x 33 cm | 101 x 66 cm | 152 x 100 cm

Miles Aldridge (born 1964, London) is a fashion photographer and artist. Born in North London to graphic designer Alan Aldridge, Miles grew up inured to celebrity. When he was a kid, he posed with his father for Lord Snowdon. At the age of 12, Alan Aldridge moved to Los Angeles where he formed a new family. Miles stayed in London with his mother Rita, a housewife, and his sister Saffron Aldridge. His other two sisters Lily Aldridge and Ruby Aldridge are also models. He studied Illustration at the Central St Martins to follow his father's steps, afterwards briefly directed pop videos before moving into photography by chance. He sent some photos of an aspiring model girlfriend to an agency and fell into fashion when British Vogue called him as well as her. By then he'd hung out on shoots with his sister and travelled to New York in the mid-nineties where he started working almost immediately.

Initially Aldridge shot covers of the American monthly fashion magazine W, then he worked for Numéro, Teen Vogue, Vogue Nippon, The New York Times Magazine, GQ, The New Yorker, The Face, Paradis and Harper's Bazaar. For many years he has been an important contributor for Vogue Italia, building a solid friendship with Franca Sozzani.

Aldridge worked as an advertising photographer for Longchamp, MAC Cosmetics, Sergio Rossi, Carolina Herrera, Lavazza and Mercedes E-Class, among the others. He shot for noted fashion designers such as Karl Lagerfeld, Giorgio Armani, Yves Saint Laurent e Paul Smith. More

Miles Aldridge is famous for his decadent colour-saturated fashion photography in magazines such “Pictures for Photographs” as Vogue and Numéro, but the sensual sketches that inform his photographic work are scarcely known. Pictures for Photographs addresses this descrepancy by exploring the delectable relationship between the sketches and photographs. More

Miles Aldridge

Immaculee #2, Mater Dolorosa, Our Lady of Sorrows

Model: Alana Zimmer

Lambda print

2007

53 x 33 cm | 101 x 66 cm | 152 x 100 cm

Mater Dolorosa, Our Lady of Sorrows, see above

Published in 2007, in the magazine Numéro issue 83 in May, the editorial Immaculée is a work of photographer Miles Aldridge with model Alana Zimmer, a representation of the Virgin Mary, that is, the Immaculate. Like a wax statue, Alana is the ecstasy of a holy and pale to receive the divine message, making the pictures partly macabre in sacred part, as well as the baroque images. A really astonishing working climate capture and color, expressions and effect achieved with the lighting and makeup, making artificial model while alive. More

Miles Aldridge
Immaculee #3
Model: Alana Zimmer
Lambda print
2007

53 x 33 cm | 101 x 66 cm | 152 x 100 cm

This picture would be portraying Saint Mary of Egypt. Blue dress and one sleeveless shoulder.

Mary of Egypt,  (ca. 344 – ca. 421), was a desert ascetic who repented of a life of prostitution. She lived during the sixth century, and passed away in a remarkable manner in 522. She began her life as a young woman who followed the passions of the body, running away from her parents at age twelve for Alexandria. There she lived as a harlot for seventeen years, refusing money from the men that she copulated with, instead living by begging and spinning flax.

One day, however, she met a group of young men heading toward the sea to sail to Jerusalem for the veneration of the Holy Cross. Mary went along for the ride, seducing the men as they traveled for the fun of it. But when the group reached Jerusalem and actually went towards the church, Mary was prohibited from entering by an unseen force. After three such attempts, she remained outside on the church patio, where she looked up and saw an icon of the Theotokos. She began to weep and prayed with all her might that the Theotokos might allow her to see the True Cross; afterwards, she promised, she would renounce her worldly desires and go wherever the Theotokos may lead her.

After this heart-felt conversion at the doors of the church, she fled into the desert to live as an ascetic. She survived for years on only three loaves of bread and thereafter on scarce herbs of the land. For another seventeen years, Mary was tormented by "wild beasts—mad desires and passions." After these years of temptation, however, she overcame the passions and was led by the Theotokos in all things.

Following 47 years in solitude, she met the priest St. Zosima in the desert, who pleaded with her to tell him of her life. She recounted her story with great humility while also demonstrating her gift of clairvoyance; she knew who Zosima was and his life story despite never having met him before. Finally, she asked Zosima to meet her again the following year at sunset on Holy Thursday by the banks of the Jordan.

Zosima did exactly this, though he began to doubt his experience as the sun began to go that night. Then Mary appeared on the opposite side of the Jordan; crossing herself, she miraculously walked across the water and met Zosima. When he attempted to bow, she rebuked him, saying that as a priest he was far superior, and furthermore, he was holding the Holy Mysteries. Mary then received communion and walked back across the Jordan after giving Zosima instructions about his monastery and that he should return to where they first met exactly a year later. When he did so, he found Mary's body with a message written on the sand asking him for burial and revealing that she had died immediately after receiving the Holy Mysteries the year before (and thus had been miraculously transported to the spot where she now lay). So Zosima, amazed, began to dig, but soon tired; then a lion approached and began to help him, that is, after Zosima had recovered from his fear of the creature. Thus St. Mary of Egypt was buried. Zosima returned to the monastery, told all he had seen, and improved the faults of the monks and abbot there. He died at almost a hundred years old in the same monastery. More

Miles Aldridge
Immaculee, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa 
Model: Alana Zimmer
Lambda print
2007

53 x 33 cm | 101 x 66 cm | 152 x 100 cm

Saint Teresa of Ávila, also called Saint Teresa of Jesus, original name Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada   (born March 28, 1515, Ávila, Spain—died October 4, 1582, Alba de Tormes; canonized 1622; feast day October 15). St. Theresa of Avila was a Spanish nun, mystic and writer during the Counter-Reformation. Some sources suggest that as a girl, Theresa was willful and spoiled, and chose to enter the Carmelite sisterhood instead of marrying a wealthy hidalgo based on the mistaken belief that as a nun she would be afforded more freedom.

Upon entering the convent aged 19, Theresa became seriously ill (she has now become a patron saint for the infirm), possibly depressed and subjecting her body to self-mutilation.

By the time she reached her forties, Theresa had settled down to her new spiritual life, when one day, while praying and singing the hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus," she experienced the first of the episodes that would accompany her for the rest of her life: a rapture.

In her writings, Theresa describes how she would feel suddenly consumed by the love of God, feel the bodily presence of Christ or of angels, and be lifted to an exalted state of ecstasy. Although in her own lifetime Theresa was sometimes ridiculed for such claims, or even accused of communing with the devil, she became a prominent figure in the church. Theresa was one of only three female church doctors and was finally canonized in 1622.

More

Miles Aldridge
Immaculee
Model: Alana Zimmer
Lambda print
2007

53 x 33 cm | 101 x 66 cm | 152 x 100 cm


Pierre et Gilles (French)
La Madone au coeur blessé - Lio , 1991–1991, Madonna of the wounded heart
168 x 130 cm. (66.1 x 51.2 in.)

Mater Dolorosa, Our Lady of Sorrows, Madonna of the wounded heart, see above

Pierre Commoy, the photographer, was born in 1950 in La Roche-sur-Yon. Gilles Blanchard, the painter, was born in 1953 in Le Havre. In the early 1970s, Blanchard took a degree at the École des Beaux-Arts in Le Havre, while Commoy studied photography in Geneva

Pierre et Gilles’s hand-painted photographs are both highly revered—the likes of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Exquisitely colorful and perversely naïve, the French artists’ dreamlike portraits capture the intensity of their subjects, who include Andy Warhol, Iggy Pop, Madonna, Marc Jacobs, and Catherine Deneuve. “Their images are iconic, yet none of their sitters look robotic,” says shoe designer Christian Louboutin, a friend since the late 1970s. “That’s because everything is done by hand and they don’t use a computer, which can rub out the character of the face.”

Their first professional portrait was of Andy Warhol for Façade magazine. Their second cover portrait was of Iggy Pop. Their reputation quickly attracted the attention of designer Thierry Mugler and led to their creating his invitations for three years. They also began to work with Jean Paul Gaultier and to take pop-world portraits, ranging from Sylvie Vartan to Madonna. More

Katarzyna Widmanska
Madonnas
Model: Ewa Galon


Ivascu Cristina 
Designer: Nifty By Josephine Accessories
Model: Romina Pasculovici
Inspired by the work of Kasia Widmanska


Katarzyna Widmanska
Tricheirousa, Mother of God, “Of the Three Hands”
Model Meghan Young
Hauntingly Surreal Photography

The Icon of the Mother of God, “Of the Three Hands”: In the eighth century during the time of the Iconoclasts, St. John of Damascus (December 4) was zealous in his veneration of holy icons. Because of this, he was slandered by the emperor and iconoclast Leo III the Isaurian (717-740), who informed the Damascus caliph that St. John was committing treasonous acts against him. The caliph gave orders to cut off the hand of the monk and take it to the marketplace. Towards evening St. John, having asked the caliph for the cut-off hand, put it to its joint and fell to the ground before the icon of the Mother of God. The monk begged Our Lady to heal the hand, which had written in defense of Orthodoxy. After long prayer he fell asleep and saw in a dream that the All-Pure Mother of God had turned to him promising him quick healing.

Having awakened from sleep, St. John saw that his hand was unharmed. In thankfulness for this healing St. John placed on the icon a hand fashioned of silver, from which the icon received its name “Of Three Hands.” More

Katarzyna Widmanska
Mater Dolorosa, Our Lady of Sorrows
Model Joanna Grabska

Mater Dolorosa is one of the Latin titles of the Madonna, which means "Sorrowful Mother" or "Mother of Sorrows." She is the patron of Apulia, Italy. September 15 is the feast day honoring the Madonna as Mater Dolorosa or La Donna de Dolorosa. According to Sicilian tradition, mothers who are born on September 15 are especially blessed as healers or are said to have the healing touch.

In Catholic iconography, Mater Dolorosa is often represented with a sword piecing her heart and with an expression sadness or tears. More

Katarzyna Widmanska
Madonna and Child
Models Iwona Cieniawska, Franio Skawiński 


Sylwia Makris
Model: Angelique Lang
Location: Rabenstein Castle, Zwiesel

Sylwia Makris was born in 1973 in Gdynia, Poland. She worked as a sculptor before finding her way to photography in 2007. Today she lives in Munich as freelance photographer. The Photo-Artist was first specialized in Portraits but later on shifted her interest also on reportage and fashion-photography. She had many Publications in Art- and Photogrphic-Magazines and there exists a row of Novels with her Pictures on the Cover. More

Katarzyna Widmanska
Madonnas, The White Madonna
Model Catherine Świebodzińska 
.

The White Madonna. As the story goes, during the French occupation in 1399, Portovenere, Italy,  was being devastated by a plague. Lucciardo, a local devout man, was praying in front of an image of the Virgin Mary asking for his village to be freed from the terrible disease when, suddenly, the colors of the painting lit up, gleaming. The plague disappeared after this miraculous event.

Prior to the miracle – still according to pious tradition – the painting was a faded hand-drawn parchment that had washed ashore on Portovenere inside a log with other relics in 1204. Following the transformation, the painting was kept in the Church of San Lorenzo for it to be worshiped. More

Katarzyna Widmanska
Madonnas
Model Angela Olszewska

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary,  the object of faith concerning the taking into heaven body and soul of Mary at the end of her earthly life. Dogma is regarded in the Catholic Church. According to the theology of the Catholic Mary is the power of God was taken up to heaven like Enoch and Elijah.

Edwin Bower Hesser

Kathryn Stanley as Salome (1926)

“Thou rejectedest me. Thou didst speak evil words against me. Thou didst bear thyself toward me as to a harlot, to me, Salome, daughter of Herodias, Princess of Judaea!"

"Well, I still live, but thou art dead, and thy head belongs to me.”

-Oscar Wilde

Kathryn Stanley by Edwin Bower Hesser - Lost Hollywood Collection (c.1926). Still (9.5" X 13.5"). Glamour shot of Kathryn Stanley, a Mack Sennett bathing beauty who appeared in numerous short films. Stanley apparently plays the role of Salome contemplating the severed head of John the Baptist, in an image that would certainly have gotten much media play in the pre-Hays Code era. More

Frantisek Drtikol

Salome, 1919

František Drtikol (3 March 1883, Příbram – 13 January 1961, Prague) was a Czech photographer of international renown. He is especially known for his characteristically epic photographs, often nudes and portraits. From 1907 to 1910 he had his own studio, until 1935 he operated an important portrait photostudio in Prague. Drtikol made many portraits of very important people and nudes which show development from pictorialism and symbolism to modern composite pictures of the nude body with geometric decorations and thrown shadows, where it is possible to find a number of parallels with the avant-garde works of the period. These are reminiscent of Cubism, and at the same time his nudes suggest the kind of movement that was characteristic of the futurism aesthetic.

He began using paper cut-outs in a period he called "photopurism". These photographs resembled silhouettes of the human form. Later he gave up photography and concentrated on painting. After the studio was sold Drtikol focused mainly on painting, Buddhist religious and philosophical systems. In the final stage of his photographic work Drtikol created compositions of little carved figures, with elongated shapes, symbolically expressing various themes from Buddhism. In the 1920s and 1930s, he received significant awards at international photo salons. More

Frantisek Drtikol

Salome, 1920

Frantisek Drtikol

Salome

6.69 X 5.28 in (17 X 13.4 cm)

Vintage silver print, Bromografia

Creation Date:  Circa 1925

Frantisek Drtikol

Salome

11.22 X 8.62 in (28.5 X 21.9 cm)

vintage gelatin silver print

Creation Date:  1919


Frantisek Drtikol
Femme crucifiée, 1913
8.66 X 6.46 in (22 X 16.4 cm)
gelatin silver print on bromide paper

As I have searched the internet to find religious photographs with themes of love and religion within them, I came across these images; dark and with shadows or, in black and white. Here are just a few I found. (More)

Giovanni Squatriti

Ora Pro Nobis' (Pray For Us

model Joanna Augusciuk.

The December 2010 issue of Kurv magazine features this religious themed editorial 'Ora Pro Nobis' (Pray For Us) by Italian photographer Giovanni Squatriti, featuring model Joanna Augusciuk. 

The photographer Giovanni Squatriti explains, "The omnipresent Madonna has inspired not only the faithful but also the artistic. This shoot is a respectful, yet bold tribute to the blessed Virgin Mary. I represent the pain of the stigmata, the tears of blood, the Annunciation plunged into blue, and a black Mary, inspired by the most ancient testimonies of Christian iconography, where Madonna was portrayed with dark skin."  More

Giovanni Squatriti, is from Calabria, South Italy, and - like his fellow countryman - Gianni Versace evokes the iconographic images from his hometown through his work. Blue skies, breathtaking architecture, and classic statues all awaken the photographic inspirations behind Squatriti’s images, as he revives the freshness of the Magna Grecia with his color explosion photography. They evoke a sense of beauty very similar to the classic style, with poses and three dimensional sense study probably also owed to his birth country " More

Sebastian Faena
"Nun Head"

Sebastian Faena (born September 15, 1980 in Buenos Aires) is a fashion photographer and film director. He has photographed celebrities and models including Cindy Crawford, Celine Dion, Sky Ferreira, Milla Jovovich, Lady Gaga, Ashley Olsen, Irina Shayk, Daria Werbowy and Kate Upton. Faena has worked with Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele, Katie Grand, Miuccia Prada and Carine Roitfeld. He has photographed campaigns for BCBG Max Azria, Blumarine, DVF by Diane von Furstenberg, Georg Jensen, Lord & Taylor, Mavi Jeans and Sam Edelman. Faena has photographed covers for Pop, V, Vogue Turkey, and six international versions of Harper's Bazaar. Several of his editorials have been publicized for their controversial themes. More

Sebastian Faena
"Nun Head"


Sebastian Faena
"Nun Head"


Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott
Model: Lara Stone

Mert and Marcus is the working name of two fashion photographers (Mert Alaş and Marcus Piggott) who work together on a collaborative basis. Their work and style is influenced by the photographer Guy Bourdin and have pioneered the use of digital manipulation within their field. They were both born in 1971. More

Alas in Turkey and Piggott in Wales. The pair met in 1994 in England. At the time Piggott was a photographer’s assistant and Alas was a fashion model, and the two quickly built a rapport and decided to work together. Their joint abilities were clear from the beginning. The first photos the duo submitted to Dazed & Confused made the cover. More

Marc Hom
Models: Jessica Hart and Lydia Hearst

Marc Hom was born in 1967 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He studied photography at the Københavns Tekniske Skole in Denmark and moved to New York City in 1989. After completing over a year of freelance work with established New York-based photographers, he was commissioned to do a photo book for the Vienna Ballet. Hom spent the next six months in Vienna photographing the ballet's principal dancers and directors and compiled a book of 80 images. Upon completion of the assignment, he returned to New York and began working with the late Liz Tilberis and Fabien Baron of Harper's Bazaar. This marked his introduction into the world of fashion photography and his establishment as a renowned photographer in the fashion world. More

Marc Hom

Model: Lara Stone for Vogue Paris, January 2010