28 x 9-FOOT TALL STAINED-GLASS SLIDING PANELS ALONG CHAPEL’S SOUTH ELEVATION
This landscape visualizes two stories:
The following table describes the above stories, the way they relate to each within the context of the four panels:
|
|
Story |
Panel 4 |
Panels 2 & 3 |
Panel 1 |
|
Biblical |
“ The Baptism and the Temptation of Jesus” |
“Then, the Devil left Jesus and Angels came and helped him” |
“The spirit led Jesus into the desert to be tempted by the Devil. After spending forty days and nights without food, Jesus was hungry. Then the devil came to him and said: if you are God’s son, order these stones to turn into bread, then the Devil took Jesus to Jerusalem, the Holy City…and said to him: if you are God’s son throw yourself down…then the Devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the Kingdoms of the world in all their greatness. All this, I will give you, the Devil said if you kneel down and worship me” |
“As soon as Jesus was baptized, he came up out of the water. Then, Heaven was open to him, and he saw the Spirit of God coming down…and lighting on him. Then a voice said from Heaven, “this is my own dear son with whom I am pleased” |
|
Spiritual |
The Life’s Cycle of Man |
The Spirit (soul) returns to God |
The beauty in our world is a mouth of a labyrinth. The unwary individual who on entering takes a few steps is soon unable to find the opening, he walks on without knowing anything not even whether he is really going forward or merely turning round on the same spot. If he does not lose courage, if he goes on walking, it is absolute certain that he will finally arrive at the center and there God is waiting for him. The beauty of the world is not an attribute of matter in itself. It is a relationship of the world to our sensibility, the sensibility that depends upon the structure of our body and our soul. God causes this universe to exist, but he consents not to command. He leaves to Man the autonomy of using his free will.
|
The birth |
1.
The basic form:
A complex substance with strong vertical orientation (Man-God relationship)
dominates the painting. Spiral and curvilinear elements are woven into it and
affect the density, direction and color of that substance, turning it into a
labyrinth (the human endeavor).
2.
Structure:
Both the biblical and spiritual stories flow throughout the sliding
panels. The entire series of panels can be read as a book: the first panel
represents the preface, the second and third panels are the content, and the
fourth panel is the epilog, the end of the story.
3.
Perspective:
This is a central perspective (its vanishing point is at the center of
the work). It contains two aspects:
a. A human perspective: it is made to provide to Man a sensation of continuity of the floor plane he is standing on. This is the Man’s here and now, where time and space are defined.
b. A creator’s perspective, for whom, there is no limit of time and space. The curvilinear grid creates the illusion of a series of volumes that emerge one from the other, as well as a panoramic view of creation, all this visualizing infinity in time and space. The cutout of the lower part of the first and fourth panels will further emphasize this grid.
4.
Focal point:
Instinctively, we are tempted to look at the world, as we are the center
of it. As God exists at the same time in the center of the world and beyond it,
we can be mistaken to think that we are in the center, and God outside. At a
certain point, we are capable of surpassing this instinct, and look at the same
world, but perceive it completely differently. This is the notion of God
dwelling in us, representing the culmination of the closeness of Man to God.
God causes this universe to exist, but he consents not to command it, although he has the power to do so. Instead he leaves two other forces to rule in his place. On the one hand there is the blind necessity attaching to the matter, including the psychic matter of the soul, and on the other hand the autonomy essential to thinking persons.