The Divine Mercy Art Print

Original Divine Mercy Image

In 1934, in the city of Vilnius, Father Sopocko entrusted the painting of the Divine Mercy Image to artist Eugeniusz Kazimirowski. Saint Faustina visited the painter’s studio to relay to the artist the details of how the image should look. Father Sopocko also did his best to assist the artist in painting the image according to Saint Faustina’s description. Saint Faustina wept in utter disappoint when she saw the artist’s representation and cried out to the Lord,

“Who will paint You as beautiful as You are?” In reply, she heard the words, “Not in the beauty of the color nor of the brush lies the greatness of this image, but in My grace” (Diary note 313).

The Vilnius image illustrated here is the before, during, and after of the 2003 restoration. The numerous restorations and repainting carried out over time affected (negatively) the appearance of the image. In addition, the paraffin coat applied by conservators to protect the picture against humidity simultaneously changed the intensity of its original colours. In fact, what is widely propagated today as the “original image” doesn’t look exactly the way it did when it was first painted. One of the oldest photographs of the original image illustrates this.

The Hyla Divine Mercy Image

The Hyla Divine Mercy image is a rendition that was painted by Adolph Hyla. He made the painting as a votive offering to God for saving his family during the war in Poland. The Hyla image remains one of the most reproduced renderings.

The Miraculous Image on the Shroud of Turin

In addition, I examined extensive studies of the imprinted face of Jesus on the Shroud of Turin and kept it as a close reference for the development of the face. As my perception of what the face of Jesus would have looked like changed with a deeper understanding of the Shroud, so did each version I painted look different from the previous one. My work as a 3D modeler and animator for an engineering firm helped me further see the miraculous nature of the image on the Shroud.
As I did the texture and bump mapping for my 3D objects and characters, I learned that the face on the Shroud would be distorted if it was simply a stain from a corpse because the Shroud would have followed the curvature of the face. As a result of a natural imprint we would have seen a highly distorted image as you see illustrated here. The further you get from the center of the face the greater distortion–notice the placement of the ears (the image illustrated on the right).

Shroud of Turin Face Comparision

It has been said that the artist Eugeniusz Kazimirowski, who painted the Vilnius Divine Mercy Image, used the Shroud of Turin as a model for the face. Of course, we know that many artists have used it as a foundation for painting the face of Christ and he may have. In fact, I too, have used the Shroud as a foundation for my painting the face of Christ.