Icons from the holy land.(religious exhibition)

Geographically remote and with a forbidding climate that is scorching hot during the day and bitterly cold at night, Mount Sinai is one of the holiest places on earth. It is here that Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike believe Moses saw the burning bush, heard God, and received His commandments. By the sixth century, under the patronage of the Byzantine emperor Justinian, what is now known as the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine had been erected at the base of Mount Sinai. It is the oldest continuously operating Christian monastery in the world and houses one of the finest collections of religious icons anywhere, as well as a library that contains some thirty-five hundred manuscripts in nearly a dozen, mostly ancient, languages.

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An unprecedented loan of some forty-three icons, six manuscripts, and four liturgical objects from this religious center comprise an exhibition entitled Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai that is on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles through March 4, 2007. The works were commissioned by the monastery or acquired as gifts from pilgrims traveling to this holy place over the course of more than a thousand years. Three of the icons in the show are among the earliest known. Another includes the figures of Moses, the Virgin Mary, and Saint Catherine along with the burning bush. Long associated with Mary, the monastery adopted its affiliation ...