Pantocrator

Country: Spain

Manufactory: Lladro

Date of establishment: 2012

Sculptor: Joan Coderch

Size (cm): 59*20

Limited Series

Porcelain Story

There are porcelain works that are simply beautiful. They are fantastically beautiful and unique - thanks to a rare technique, the skill of the author, a small number of copies, and so on. And there are works that you want to pray for - in the full and figurative sense of the word. And at the same time they are beautiful, and rare, and unique ...

This is the kind of job you are looking at right now. Some time ago I was lucky enough to visit the Italian island of Sicily. Of course, with the family. And, of course, with many excursions. I'll just tell you about one - because it really shocked us. Seven kilometers from the capital of Sicily, Palermo, there is a small town of Monreale. In this town is the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Huge, incredibly beautiful. A unique example of Arab-Norman architecture. It was built almost a thousand years ago during the reign of William II the Good. Why this king was kind, I don't know for sure. Maybe because the previous one was called Wilhelm the First Evil... This is not about that now.

In the temple, which makes an absolutely incredible impression on everyone, there are unique mosaic frescoes with an area of ????(just think about it) 10 thousand square meters! So, the central place in these mosaic paintings is given to Christ the Almighty in his heavenly glory. Spas Pantocrator or the Almighty is generally the central image in iconography. But such an amazing embodiment of it, as in the Sicilian cathedral, I have not seen anywhere else. Except, perhaps, in ... my collection!

I understood this later, upon my return to Kyiv, when I once again carefully looked at this beautiful porcelain work, which had been standing in our house for five years already. I also ask you to carefully look at the porcelain image of Pantocrator. He is truly amazing. He is not immediately known. He is like the embodiment of His gaze fixed on our souls... Probably, the master who created this work managed to achieve such an effect not only due to the absolute historical accuracy of every detail of the image, but also due to impeccability in not crossing the border of creative imagination and the generally accepted canon. It may be too abstrusely said, but, believe me, that is exactly how I felt it.