Praxiteles
Forum Replies Created
- Posts
I think we have to be careful with the use of the term ‘reviving’.
Certainly, the drive to re-descover classicism defines the renaissance, but in terms of architecture, it was the rules of classicism that preoccupied these 16th century Italian architects and architectural theorists.
They were not trying to replicate individual classical buildings, they set out to learn, understand and propagate the rules and the language of classical architecture and with that knowledge under their belts, they moved on from ‘mannerism’ and ushered in the high renaissance. The next generation, people like Bernini and Longhena [as discussed above], took it to the next level with Baroque.
Ad primum: agreed
Ad secundum: agreed iuxta modum. Certainly, the likes of Alberti, Serlio, Raphael, Palladio did set out to re-discover the principles of classical architecture. But, having done so all of these gentlemen applied them to building what they took to be buildings which could have been/or had been constructed according to the principles of Vetruvius. I do not think we are suggesting that they set out to copy classical buildings which would not have been very practical as prctically nothing existed to copy. And of course, it was to be expected that variant emphases would be found between different theorists and theorists in different generations – as we find in the representation of “reality” in renaissance mannerist and baroque painting. Clearly, the “gilded” reality of Raphael differes noticeably from the pretty awful and sometimes ghastly “reality” of Caravaggio.
A lot of people think that Meier should have stuck with rectangles.
This point is well borne out by his rectangular shelter built over the Ara Pacis. By far a much better product than the Tor Tre Teste expedition – but, having said that, it was unforgiveable to lob something like it on the Lungotevere not to mention outside of the main portals of San Gerolamo dei Croati.
Praxiteles does not share Appelles’ view on this one and believes this to be a disaster qua church. The only purpose it serves is to illustrate the dire necessity of re-discovering the principles of an ars aedificandi. This may as well be the Sydney opera house.
I think there is a fundamental difference. The great works of the renaissance, like those three examples, were completely new and innovative works, inspired by classical antiquity yes, but radical in their modernity too.
Diachronicastically, my reading of Leon Battista Alberti, Sebastiano Serlio and Andrea Palladio is that all three understood what they were doing in terms of “reviving” the architecture of the ancients.
Synchronistically, they undoubtedly generated something quite innovative which may have been facilitated by the absence of any significant constructions dating from antiquity with the excetions of the Maison Carée at Nimes, the Pantheon, and the Roman triumphal arches.
These gentlemen hail from the 19th century and their work is essentially pre-modernist, as well as being acknowledged to be utterly individualistic, I don’t think we can include any of them in a discussion on contemporary directions in church architecture, without slipping back into revivalism.
Surely, the quintessential hallmark of modern man?
Praxiteles is inclined to think that a plurality of approaches is possible and among them revivalism is a valid option. Indeed, one of the few canonical principles guiding church architecture in the Latin Church is that no style is canonised and hence all styles, with certain qualifications, are theoretically available for use in the construction of Latin Rite churches.
I think the point I would try to make is that Duncan Stroik and the ‘new classicists’ [I’m assuming Oxford is a Stroik?] in seeking to return church architecture to it’s classical tradition, misses the whole point about what the church’s tradition in architecture is.
The question of what the Church’s tradition in architecture (as far as style, etc) is concerned only arises in the Latin or Western Church.
Among the Orientals, the tradition of ecclesiastical architecture has long been closely defined and despite this and the revages of history, it continues to produce creative works of art.
Is it perhaps not time for the Latin Church to define matters more closely in matters of church architecture? At present, the few general norms that exist have, for a long period, often been completely ignored.
For the church to abandon that visionary role as patron and progenitor of great architecture and to slip to a retrospective comfort zone would not just dishonour all those who went before, but it would be powerfully symbolic that the church itself does not believe in the future.
Well, what do we make of the Salute in Venice, St. Peter’s in Rome, Santa Maria della Consolazione in Todi etc.?
Down the centuries, the church fostered the tradition of pioneering the most adventurous and innovative architecture ever contemplated, There was no guarantee that flying buttresses would work, or that Brunelleschi’s dome would stand up, and indeed there were numerous catastrophic collapses, but that didn’t stop the church from continuing to take enormous leaps of faith in creating the legacy of phenomenal buildings that came to symbolize medieval and renaissance Europe.
True, and precisely the reason why we must move beyond the “modernist” phasewhich has not produced much -at least in Ireland- of significance in terms of phenomenal buildings.
Stroik, as far as I am aware, is not the architect for the Oxford oratory chapel.
San Giovanni Battista at exit Fierenze Nord on the A1 and A11
All information is available on the Italian site and an abbreviated version of the English page
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiesa_dell%27Autostrada_del_Sole
Exterior
This particular piece always moves Praxiteles to move on!
“The fact is however that these extreme positions are not the full story. Some architects have made the leap to modernity and created striking contemporary church architecture that does evoke the valuable connection with tradition”.
Allowing for the difference between “modernity” and “contemporary”, and suggesting that the connection with “tradition” is an essential, Praxiteles would agree that some fine churches have been built in the modern idiom. That point we have made several times (we have mentioned Plecnik; Wagner; Barry Byrne; Gaudi). However, these examples are more the exception than the norm and I do not think that much of what is around in Ireland is anything more than imitative and deficient dross.
And a perusal of this book might be an illumination on how to produce non-porous buildings:
George Myers: Pugin’s Builder
Patricia Spencer-Silver
George Myers was one of the great Master Builders of the Victorian Age, and the rock on which Augustus Welby Pugin built the Gothic Revival. Myers executed many of Pugin’s finest buildings, such as the cathedrals in Birmingham, Newcastle, Nottingham and Southwark and the Medieval Court for the Great Exhibition of 1851. He undertook work for nearly 100 architects, including the original camp at Aldershot, Broadmoor Hospital and restoration at the Tower of London. Following recent discovery of forgotten family papers this critically acclaimed biography has been fully revised and updated.
978 085244 184 8 320 pages Illustrated £20.00A must for bodies such as the Cloyne HACK – it even has a glossary of terms (i.e. a list of explained hard words) for the hypereducated :
By Denis McNamara, a professor at the Liturgical Institute in Mundelein, Catholic Architecture and the Spirit of the Liturgy
Here is the publisher’s description:
This unique book delves into the deep meanings of liturgical art and architecture, and by association, the Sacred Liturgy itself. It is meant to help pastors, architects, artists, members of building committees, seminarians, and everyone interested in liturgical art and architecture come to grips with the many competing themes which are at work in church buildings today. The object of Catholic Church Architecture and the Spirit of the Liturgy is help the reader to drink deeply from the wells of the tradition, to look with fresh eyes at things thought to be outdated or meaningless, and glean the principles which underlie the richness of the Catholic faith.
* Part one presents an emerging area of study: Architectural Theology
* Part two introduces the readers for the first time to the scriptural foundations of church architecture
* Part three focuses on the classical tradition of architecture
* Part four examines iconography as eschatological flash and
* Part five concludes with a discussion of the Twentieth Century and where we are now in the Age of the Church.Catholic Church Architecture and the Spirit of the Liturgy is a foundational sourcebook for studying, designing, building, and renovating Catholic churches, this book is intended to find the middle of the road between differing and sometimes conflicting theories of liturgical architecture. It will give architects and building committees the theological language and tools to understand the elements of church design by examining past architecture and will help decision makers link these principles to their current building projects.
And here we have another exaple of the two angles on the arms of the Cross representing the Old and New Testaments.
This time the image is that of the west face of Muiredach’s Cross ay Monasterboice in Co Louth and dating from c. 850
And here are those two angles again representing the two Testaments, this time on a bronze plaque from Clonmacnois dating to around 1100 -despite the absence of the figures of Our Lady and St John and the continuing the earlier tradition of St Longinus and Stephaton alotted to their traditional placed beneath the Cross. The garment worn by Christ is typically Byzantine and, once again, four nails are used . On the basis of the iconography, this plaque is either earlier than thought or something of an old fashioned piece when made.
Codex Sangal. 51, foglio 266 the Quattor Evangelia from about 750
Here we have the earliest Irish representation of the Crucifixion and the Sol et Luna motive is explicit in that two angels hold the two testaments:
@apelles wrote:
The Sun and Moon representing day and night are also clearly visible on Raphael’s – Mond Crucifixion or Crocifissione Gavari from 1502–3.
At the foot of the cross is the inscription RAPHAEL/ VRBIN / AS /.P.[INXIT] (“Raphael of Urbino painted this”) in silver letters.
Interestingly, Our Lady is depicted at the side of the New Testament, Christ’s right hand side, while St John is depicted on the left hand side, the Old Testament side, apparently because he was the one who remained outside of the tomb on Easter morning awaiting the arrival of St Peter who was first to enter.
@pandaz7 wrote:
:confused:
Go with what Jesus would have done and write in a language that people understand.
Unless Praxiteles has missed something, we have no record that Jesus wrote anything, except in the case of the woman caught in adultery and in that case what he wrote, and the language in which he wrote, have not survived since it was written in the sands. So, whence the monitum?
