But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
—Romans 6:8–10
LOOK: Egg mosaics by Oksana Mas
Hand-painted wooden eggs are the primary material used by Ukrainian artist Oksana Mas in the past decade. She arranges them into colorful spheres or hemispheres or into monumental images, as she did for her Post-vs-Proto-Renaissance installation at the 54th Venice Biennale. This piece portrays segments of the van Eyck brothers’ Ghent Altarpiece [previously], whose two central scenes are (1) Christ (or God the Father, as some art historians argue) enthroned, and (2) the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, based on John’s vision in the book of Revelation.
The Biennale installation—inside the church of San Fantin—was only a portion of the full piece, which is a massive 92 by 134 meters in total, comprising 3,640,000 eggs. It featured panels of the enthroned deity, the slain but risen Lamb, and details of Adam and Eve.
Mas is inspired by the Ukrainian folk custom of Easter egg decoration called pysanky. Traditionally, pysansky are raw eggs that are dyed using a wax-resist method, the designs inscribed in beeswax. But for her art, Mas starts with wooden eggs, and color is applied with a paintbrush. For Post-vs-Proto-Renaissance, she distributed plain wooden eggs to people from all walks of life and across forty-two countries, asking them to paint them and return them to her. Having received hundreds of thousands of painted egg contributions, she assembled them like tesserae, affixing them to boards that are then placed into an architectural framework so that, when viewed from a distance, they form recognizable figures from the Ghent Altarpiece. When you get up close, you can see the diverse patterns and other designs painted onto the individual eggs.
View more photos at My Modern Met.
In May 2012, a different iteration of this piece was installed in Sofiyivska Square in Kyiv, which Mas called the Altarpiece of Nations.
As a traditional symbol of new life, eggs are often associated with Easter, and one could easily read Mas’s Ghent-inspired egg mosaics through that lens. In Venice, for example, you have Jesus in emblematic form as the sacrificial lamb, pouring out his blood at the altar, and then you have him exalted in majesty in his divine-human form, which together reference the death and resurrection narrative of the Gospels. Through that death and resurrection, we have been redeemed from the fall that’s alluded to in the wings—redeemed from sin and death, into life everlasting. It’s a very triumphal image, Mas’s. As is the liturgical artwork it’s based on, which shows all the redeemed in the new heavens and the new earth, gathered round “the Lamb at the center of the throne . . . [who] guide[s] them to springs of the water of life” (Rev. 7:17).
(Related post: “Egg Sketches by Autumn Brown”)
LISTEN: “Christus Resurgens,” Ireland, 12th century | Arr. Michael McGlynn, 2000 | Performed by Anúna on Cynara, 2000; compiled on The Best of Anúna, 2010
Christus resurgens ex mortuis, jam non moritur
Mors illi ultra non dominabitur
Quod enim vivit, vivit DeoAlleluia (×4)
English translation:
Christ has arisen from the dead, and dies no more
Death will no longer have dominion over him
In that he lives, he lives unto GodAlleluia (×4)
“Christus resurgens” is an Easter chant in Latin that originated in medieval Ireland, its text taken from Romans 6:9–10. It is arranged here by Michael McGlynn and performed by the Irish vocal ensemble Anúna, which he founded in 1987. Much of Anúna’s repertoire comes from McGlynn’s arrangements, resettings, and reconstructions of early and medieval Irish music, as well as his original compositions.
This song is on the Art & Theology Eastertide Playlist.
Art & Theology 