Saint Lucy


 Saint Lucy


Today, December 13, is the Feast of Saint Lucy, another saint who has become associated with the Christmas season.  Here Lucy is the subject of one of my Christmas themed paintings.

Saint Lucy, or Santa Lucia, was a Sicilian martyr.  In her hagiographic tradition Lucy was punished for rejecting a pagan bridegroom by defilement in a brothel.  In later  legend her resistance to the betrothal was also met by having her eyes gouged out.  She is shown in medieval art and elsewhere blinded and, as shown in the painting, holding her eyes in a cup, but her vision was miraculously restored.  Her association with vision and light is corollary to the presumed derivation of her name from the Latin lux, light.  The coincidence of her feast day, December 13, with the Christmas season, and its proximity to the winter solstice and its association with Nordic pagan solar rebirth festivities has led to Lucy’s seasonal celebration in the Scandinavian countries, especially Sweden.  The painting incorporates elements of the modern Swedish Sankta Lucia observance  and her name is displayed in Runic characters.  The lamp and votive candles refer to the solstice return of light, and thus, vision.  The painting is labeled with a gold  symbol representing Lucy’s eyes.

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