A Dynamic Art

From Greece to Częstochowa to... Norway

From the time I started out as an iconographer in the mid-1980s until now, I have witnessed a great change in attitude towards the visual arts in different denominations. The majority church in Norway, where I grew up, is the Evangelical -Lutheran Church. This particular Protestant church never rejected paintings as a way to educate people in the faith. However, reading Scripture, singing psalms, and preaching had much higher status in the Lutheran tradition. And although Martin Luther had a deep devotion to the Mother of the Lord, his later followers did not. So, practically speaking, Mary disappeared from sight. She lived on in folklore, songs, and even in the names of flowers. Just today, for example, I saw growing outdoors many of the small yellow flowers known here as “the golden shoes of Mary” as I walked my dogs. Mary did not play much of a role in the church that nurtured me except as being a necessary figure at Christmas. I can say this from personal experience: Mary was not part of the story of salvation. There were no hymns about her that I can remember, although she would be part of a Nativity scene. And she was depicted standing under the cross. The painters gave her that.