On Sundays, which are my days off from being a helper, I consistently find myself at the quaint Saint Anne’s Church across from the Wellcome on Stanley Village Road. It’s a rather odd place for a church, being adjacent to a police station. Perhaps God saw some irony in two forms of justice adjacent to each other. Saint Anne’s is unassuming– less architecturally eye-catching than the other buildings surrounding it. The walls are a pale yellow that’s turned dull with time and pollution, and there’s no big cross adorning it. There is some glass facing the street, but the window is cloudy and impossible to see through. If one were to stand outside the Church after mass, they would only be able to see the blur of the priest’s billowing white robes through the translucent glass– if it weren’t for that there’d be no signs that the place was a …show more content…
There aren’t any grand oak doors leading inside, like most churches. Instead, there is a weathered metal ramp with a humble door which is always ajar. I consider myself lucky that my work is only five minutes away from here. Yet, somehow, I am late to mass; the pews in the front are crowded, so I slyly scoot into the closest available seat. Although I try to focus on the priest’s sermon, my eye is caught by two kids fidgeting in their seat. The boy’s blond hair flops around as he pokes his sister, her giggle barely stifled as he does. Between them is a grey-haired father in a dark green and yellow patterned shirt that he wears every Sunday to the nine a.m. mass. With a gentle hand and some whispered words, the father calms the two kids down for a bit. I can’t explain why, but I’ve grown a fondness for this man who wears the same shirt every Sunday. As the mass continues, I find myself distracted by the interior design at the altar. Behind the priest giving his sermon is Jesus, great and omniscient. And behind Him is a wall of stained glass, refracting a kaleidoscope of colours onto the
At the top of the artwork the upper part of the cross extends beyond the altarpiece. The edge of John the Evangelist’s red robe on the left of the altarpiece and the edge of Mary Magdalene’s pale blue skirt on the right are cut off when the panel ends, giving the viewer the feeling that, rather than looking in on the scene, the viewer is actually taking part in the scene. This, added to the empathy invoked through the delicate, heart-wrenching rendering of the figures in the artwork, let the observer directly interact with the painting and places him/her within the narrative.
In “High Holy Days” by Jane Shore the idea of innocent youth awakening from a slumber for the first time is conveyed at a rate of infinite constancy from beginning to end. At the poem opens the tone of the speaker is childish and picayune. Throughout the eloquent stanzas filled with reminisces of the speaker, the tone becomes passionate and valiant. The writer, Jane Shore, awakens the speaker to her reality as a Jewish woman living in a world that does not condone her religion.
She closed her eyes slowly, tuning the harpies out. When she opened them, she gazed up at the ceiling, tracing the high, arcing beams that came together in a beautiful golden rosette. The church her mother-in-law had chosen for her departed son’s service was an old one, with timber walls, huge, multi-paneled stained-glass windows and enough golden gild that put together, could probably rival the weight of the Charging Bull on Wall Street.
... the Old Testament and the Virgin Mary as precursors or preparations for Christ. Statues of the Cathedral show narrative scenes of the Old Testament. “The use of color within the stained glass is also important. By using contrasting color, the images of the saints and other subjects in the Biblical oriented glass windows stand out against paler, less pronounced backgrounds.” (Melton.) “Stained glass served a myriad of purposes...the light that flowed into the cathedral through the various shades of colored glass inspired, invoked, and educated the masses that attended the service.” (Melton.) “The Cathedral, like a fortress, overlooks and controls the town...it seems to draw the town upward, as if to extend into the clouds its bridges, its mills, its tree-lined boulevard, its fortified gateway, and its churches...” (Branner, 115.)
The sanctuary was bare, and the pews hard. I mentally tallied a comparison between my own church's sanctuary and this. The two, I found, were similarly austere, but with theirs tending toward items of religious kitsch and our own tending instead towards polished brass. Both lacked stained glass in the windows. I suspected, however, that where our sanctuary was plain in token tribute to the long-dead strict streak of our Calvinist tradition, theirs was bare because it could not economically be otherwise. And the lack of air conditioning ! Memphis' summer heat is unbearable and pervasive, and a roof overhead does nothing against the big blanket of humid air.
It takes place at the back of the church as it signifies a journey in
Saint Basil Cathedral is a beautiful and huge building and I would love to see. The Cathedral standing high with its detail in beauty is alone neat. Colorful not just with its beauty but has a colorful history as well. This is a place that one day I hope to visit and explore not just in books and on line. This building’s creator was Ivan the forth, also known as “Ivan the Terrible.” The original name is actually Cathedral of Vasily the Blessed. It is also known as Cathedral of the Intercession of the most holy Theotokos on the Moat, by the people of Russia. In English it is known as Pokrovsky Cathedral. It was constructed in 1555-1561 by Ivan the 4th. It was the city’s tallest building until the completion of Ivan the Great Bell Tower
The Church was very beautiful, which big wooden doors at the entrance. The Church looked very modern from the outside with a cross on top of a circular roof top. Upon entering the Narthex, which is the room before you enter the Nave which is the place the mass is conducted, there were about ten pictures of Saints around the room. People were lighting candles around them and kissing their pictures. The Narthex was very dark and the only source of light was the candles. The Nave on the contrary was very well lit with natural light coming in through the glass windows on the ceiling. The Altar was behind a wall that had pictures of angels and saints. There was a giant chandelier known as a Horos. There was also a dome ceiling that around the edges was surrounded by more angels and saints, all of their names which were written in Greek, and then in the middle of the dome was Christ’s picture which they call the Ruler of the Universe. The focal point of ...
The window was cold to the touch. The glass shimmered as the specks of sunlight danced, and Blake stood, peering out. As God put his head to the window, at once, he felt light shining through his soul. Six years old. Age ceased to define him and time ceased to exist. Silence seeped into every crevice of the room, and slowly, as the awe of the vision engulfed him, he felt the gates slowly open. His thoughts grew fluid, unrestrained, and almost chaotic. An untouched imagination had been liberated, and soon, the world around him transformed into one of magnificence and wonder. His childish naivety cloaked the flaws and turbulence of London, and the imagination became, to Blake, the body of God. The darkness lingering in the corners of London slowly became light. Years passed by, slowly fading into wisps of the past, and the blanket of innocence deteriorated as reality blurred the clarity of childhood.
...entrance door and archway, that had and overwhelming impact on me, these over exaggerated entrance doors, were built to awe and act as the gateway to salvation, they succeeded. Upon entering the church, the saints were lined up and down either side of the church and were lustrously painted and adorned, the cathedral with its stained glass also elumeminated the church with bright sunlight that gave the church a peaceful and serene atmosphere. While viewing the church from the outside, you tend to fixate on the towers, and you tend to divert your view skyway. The massive Gothic church, really humbles you, the enormity and size are truly overwhelming. The ornamental gargoyle sculptures placed around and throughout the rooftops of the church, really feel as if they were alive and guarding the church.
In New York, a young boy wakes up on beautiful Sunday morning. He puts on his Sunday’s best- blue polo, freshly ironed khakis, new suede shoes- and heads to the neighborhood church to hear the daily sermon. He sits on the wooden bench and is quickly mesmerized as the pastor takes him on a religious journey. After taking his communion and hearing the choir, the young boy leaves church feeling morally rejuvenated. He recognizes he is leaving church motivated for his math test this week, feeling compassion for his friend who just lost his grandmother, and notices his clear moral compass.
After walking inside and trying to first experience, the church, and all its beauty and ornateness, I began examining the floor plan and elevations of the cathedral. Grace Cathedral was build in a gothic style, which it represents in its architecture inside and out. There were three huge rose windows. One at the very top of the main entrance and one on either end of the transept. There wer...
It was magnificent. The first thing to catch my eye was a monstrous chandelier that hung from the 50 foot ceiling. It was awe inspiring. As my eyes surveyed the room, it was hard to miss the antique maple pews that provided seats for approximately 300 people. Plush emerald green carpet was the grounding to the room. It's path led directly up to the stage which was home to a variety of items. The band, pulpit, arid baptismal were the most obvious. Above the stage was a huge dome, it was colored in shades of blue, mauve, white, and several other soft accents. A bright light was right in the center of its point. Our gazing was soon interrupted when the official greeter returned. This time she was quick and to the point. She collected our cards and informed us that service was about to begin. Within a matter of minutes, a middle-aged man stepped up to the pulpit and asked us to stand.
He drew upon the fundamentals of light, space, and colour using theatrical tactics to create a bel composto. In the Cornaro Chapel light, space, and colour play a pivotal role, creating a divine space that acts as a stage for the scene to unfold. Bernini redirected natural light from a window cleverly hidden by the pediment above the Ecstasy, using yellow stained glass to create a golden ‘halo’ effect around the central sculpture, a technique he first used in the Raimondi Chapel (Fig.5) in the years prior. This light descends from the approximate location of the Holy Spirit, represented as a dove on the ceiling fresco above (Fig.4). The light of Holy Spirit extends not just to the Ecstasy but to the floor below, where skeletal figures seem to rejoice, perhaps a symbolic reminder of resurrection and redemption that extends into the grave. As a worshipper came into the light, they would typically come to rest on their knees, making them eye-level to a relief of the last supper – another reminder of redemption given through God’s love and mercy. Bernini uses illusions to create a sense that the chapel is larger than it is, extending the perceived space into chambers behind the Cornaro Cardinals on the opposing walls using nothing more than a sculpted relief to appeal to the intended angle from which it would be viewed. These Cardinals, seated behind what may be prayer desks, appear in animated discussion over the Ecstasy – though if they can actually see it themselves is a matter of debate. The use of multiple colours of highly veined marbles adds baroque accents to classical traditions of marble sculpture and architecture and causes the stark white of the sculptural groups to stand apart from their environment in a way that is almost visionary itself. These techniques ‘include us in a religious drama’ and make us active participants in the scene that unfolds before us. No
In the early summer mornings, when the sunshine is young and playful, inside the church another realm is born. Sitting in the back rows one can see a heavenly mist flowing though the windows and filling the sleepy altar with life and hope. It is a different dimension in the breast of an unsuspecting world. Moments such as these bring you joy and reassurance and also show you that there really is someone out there: your soul is elevated, your mind is thirsty for new experiences and your body is strengthened.