Saint Barbara – Handmade Pyrography

Description

Handmade Pyrography with the Depiction of Saint Barbara

An exceptional image created using the technique of pyrography, depicting Saint Barbara. This particular image has been entirely handmade.

Saint Luke, who was canonized in May 1996 by the Russian Orthodox Church, was a Russian archbishop and a professor-surgeon.

Archbishop Luke was born on April 27, 1877, in Kerch, on the easternmost part of Crimea. From a young age, he showed an interest in helping those suffering around him. For this reason, he chose to study medicine, viewing it as a field of social service. He married nurse Anna Vasilyevna, with whom he had four children, but at the age of 38, he lost his wife to tuberculosis. He never remarried and often visited her grave.

He worked tirelessly, deeply committed to his dream: to continuously save more lives, alleviating human pain and suffering. In his efforts, he often reached exhaustion, but never gave up, drawing strength from long hours of prayer and his devotion to Christ.

As a physician, Saint Luke published forty scientific works. One of his classic works, published in 1934, is the book “Essays on the Surgery of Pyogenic Infections,” which laid the foundation for an entire medical specialty. His work continues to be used in the medical field to this day. In 1946, he was awarded the Stalin Prize, the highest scientific award in pre-war Russia, for all his scientific publications. However, he refused to accept it (an unimaginable reaction at that time) and donated the monetary award to the poor.

Saint Luke was a devout Christian. He never missed a divine service and stood throughout all night vigils and matins on Saturdays, Sundays, and Orthodox feast days. In the operating room, he always had an icon of the Virgin Mary, before which he would pray for a few minutes before each surgery. Then, with a cotton swab soaked in iodine, he would make the sign of the cross on the patient’s body at the site of the incision. Only after this would he officially say, “The scalpel.”

He endured tremendous suffering, imprisonments, exiles, and persecutions because of his deep faith and unwavering confession of the Orthodox faith before judges or state officials. He reposed in the Lord on June 11, 1961, and his body was placed for public veneration.

Pyrography: Characteristics

Pyrography is an art that attracts many creators due to the stunning results that can be achieved. It is a painting technique where the two primordial elements of Nature, wood and fire, are used. With patience and attention to detail, monks create pyrography images, giving great attention to errors since they cannot be corrected as with pencil drawings.

This particular image combines the art of engraving with pyrography, giving an excellent relief effect.

The image is available upon request.