This is a photo that the artist Yury Yarin sent me of him working on the Pantocrator mosaic that I commissioned around 5 years ago. This was one of those projects that literally seemed impossible but we made it happen anyways: 
Discussion
Love this. Bring back art commissions!
It’s a very delicate thing, because you have to let the artist do exactly what they want to do, but you also have to choose the right person for the job.
I was just over in Italy for 3 weeks and thought about this a lot. Lots of stories of artists and commissioners not seeing eye to eye.
Imagine going through all this trouble and expenses and then the patron hates the finished piece 😂 There’s certainly a risk of that happening, but I think the risk is minimized when you ask the artist to do whatever they think is right, and accept their decisions.
Agreed. That’s actually what happened with The David (not to be confused with the Nostr), but the commissioner came back to Michelangelo and told him he didn’t like it and wanted a few things changed. Michelangelo took it back, changed nothing, and then re-delivered it. The commissioner then said it was perfect.
Molto bello
I’m glad you like it! His other works are here: https://yuryyarin.com/MOSAICS
I made this video slowly panning over the entire work at the stage when it was 99% finished, from another photo by Yury. The dimensions are 4’ x 6’, or 122 x 183 cm:
Wow. Beautiful.
Wow... I'm not religious, but this is a stunning piece of work. Absolutely gorgeous, and you can tell it was an incredible amount of effort.
Me neither! I think it worked in my favor to be critical about who to work with purely on aesthetics and to have an outsider’s point of view.
Stunning! I wish there were more people today making art like this.
The way I look at it is that there is plenty of potential supply but almost zero demand.
This might be true. I suppose not many can afford this and there is so much new money out there that maybe not many these days appreciate it.
Nice work by Yury, well balanced.
Initially what I asked for was the background to be all gold like you would see on the ceilings of Chora Monastery, but Yury decided that at such a close distance from the viewer this would be inappropriate, so a matte stone was chosen, which took something like 5 months to source the material.