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Sao Luis do Maranhao - 400 anos !

 

Portuguese

Desde há cinco séculos que a azulejaria ocupa uma posição de relevo entre as artes decorativas portuguesas e, apesar de ao longo da sua história ter sofrido múltiplas influências, desenvolveu em Portugal características específicas entre as quais merecem destaque a riqueza cromática, a monumentalidade, o sentido cenográfico e a integração na arquitectura.

Foi durante a ocupação árabe da Península que os povos ibéricos tomaram contacto com a cerâmica mural. O termo "azulejo" deriva, aliás, de uma palavra árabe (al zulej) que significa pedra lisa e polida.

Até finais do século XV, os artífices andaluzes produziram grandes placas de barro cobertas de vidrado colorido uniforme que, uma vez cozidas, cortavam em fragmentos geométricos que eram depois recombinados em belos desenhos decorativos. Este processo, conhecido pelo nome de “alicatado”, porque envolvia a utilização de um alicate, era moroso e difícil além de exigir que o artífice acompanhasse a encomenda até ao local da sua aplicação. A impossibilidade de exportar o produto já acabado constituía uma limitação importante e, talvez por isso, os exemplares existentes em Portugal sejam escassos. Os mais célebres são os do Palácio de Sintra (Capela e quarto onde esteve preso D. Afonso VI).

No final do século XVI surge uma transformação técnica que leva ao aparecimento do azulejo tal como o conhecemos hoje: uma placa de barro quadrangular com uma face vidrada lisa ou decorada com desenhos coloridos. Contudo, a separação das cores na superfície vidrada levantava problemas porque as substâncias utilizadas eram hidro-solúveis e misturavam-se quer na fase de aplicação quer durante a cozedura. Para evitar este contratempo utilizava-se, como separador, uma barreira gordurosa constituída por óleo de linhaça e manganês. Esta técnica, conhecida pelo nome de "corda seca" associava-se quase sempre a uma elevação em "aresta" da superfície do barro, que funcionava como barreira mecânica nas zonas de separação dos vidrados. A "aresta" ou "cuenca" só passou a ser utilizada isoladamente depois da introdução de uma outra inovação: a "fritagem" que consistia no aquecimento dos vidrados a altas temperaturas antes de serem aplicados.

Azulejos de "corda seca" e de "aresta" ficaram na História com o nome de mudejares, hispano-árabes ou hispano-mouriscos. Durante o século XVI foram importados em grande quantidade para Portugal e aplicados em igrejas e palácios. Alguns exemplares ficaram célebres como os azulejos de "corda seca" representando a esfera armilar, encomendados por D. Manuel I e que ainda hoje revestem o Pátio das Carrancas, no Palácio de Sintra. Os desenhos dos azulejos hispano-árabes mantinham a influência das decorações árabes e reproduziam as laçarias e os esquemas geométricos. Nos finais do século XVI surge outro avanço técnico decisivo: graças à utilização do esmalte estanífero branco e dos pigmentos metálicos, passou a ser possível pintar directamente sobre o vidrado. Esta nova técnica conhecida pelo nome de "majólica" (provável corruptela da palavra Maiorca, porto de onde os azulejos eram importados) foi trazida para Portugal por Francisco Niculoso. Com ela vinha associada a estética renascentista com a sua gramática decorativa própria e que evoluiria mais tarde para o maneirismo.

Por influência das disposições saídas do Concílio de Trento, foi abolido tudo quanto pudesse lembrar a arte islâmica e em sua substituição passaram a proliferar os motivos ornamentais italo-flamengos. Deste período existem algumas obras notáveis entre as quais merece referência especial o revestimento a azulejos da Capela de S. Roque, em Lisboa, pintados por Francisco de Matos em 1584.

No final do século XVI, Portugal cai sob o domínio dos Filipes. As dificuldades económicas, que não permitiam acesso fácil às tapeçarias, aos vitrais e aos mármores, associadas às experiências acumuladas pelos portugueses no campo das artes e da cerâmica, conduziram ao aproveitamento máximo do azulejo com material decorativo. É então que aparecem numerosos exemplares de composições geométricas que vão desde as combinações em xadrez até formas mais complexas como os "azulejos de caixilho", que com as suas linhas oblíquas, decompõem e modelam as superfícies onde se encontram aplicados.

Na sequência destes exemplares, surgiram os célebres "tapetes" do século XVII, formados pela repetição de padrões polícromos. Estes padrões resultavam de combinações de um número variável de azulejos, formando quadrados de 4, 16, 36, ou mais elementos. Os vários "tapetes", cada um com o seu padrão diferente, justapostos e emoldurados por faixas, revestiam de alto a baixo as paredes das igrejas e por vezes o próprio tecto, produzindo efeitos decorativos surpreendentes. A Igreja de Marvila em Santarém e a Igreja de São Quintino, em Sobral do Montagraço, são dois belos exemplos deste tipo de utilização do azulejo.

A partir do último quartel do século XVII, vários factores provocaram profundas transformações na estética do azulejo. Os navegadores portugueses que tinham viajado pelo Oriente, divulgaram na Europa a faiança chinesa azul e branca que rapidamente conquistou o gosto dos países do Norte da Europa e se estendeu mais tarde aos países meridionais. A policromia dos azulejos foi então sendo substituída pelo monocromatismo, começando a surgir então vários padrões de "tapetes" do século XVII, reproduzidos a azul e branco.

Ao mesmo tempo, alastrava pela Europa a estética do barroco cujos componentes de encenação e de teatralidade da vida e dos costumes se reflectiam sobre todas as formas de arte. Surge então o azulejo historiado, em que os diversos personagens são captados em plena acção e em que as cenas representadas são envolvidas por molduras extremamente ricas que funcionam como a "boca de cena" de um palco. Tudo isto coincide com a reconquista da independência de Portugal em 1640 e com o nascimento de uma nova aristocracia que rapidamente prospera e procura criar os seus próprios cenários. Os palácios são então revestidos com belos painéis de azulejo representando batalhas, caçadas ou cenas da vida quotidiana. Grande parte destes painéis são copiados e adaptados de gravuras que nessa altura chegam de França e que passam a ditar as modas.

Nas escadarias e vestíbulos dos palácios mais abastados, surgem também as célebres "figuras de convite" que representam porteiros ou soldados armados, enquanto que nas casas de recursos mais limitados, se recorre aos alizares, com módulos repetidos, em que predominam as "albarradas". Pela mesma altura, a "figura avulsa", também de influência holandesa, ganha em Portugal uma expressão própria e uma invulgar força decorativa, apesar do seu desenho de traço grosseiro e pouco cuidado.

Mas foi sobretudo nas igrejas e nos conventos que o azulejo barroco adquiriu a monumentalidade que o imortalizou. São muitos os exemplares espalhados por todo o País, representando cenas do Velho e do Novo Testamento e contando episódios da vida dos santos, em séries de painéis que assumem, por vezes, um carácter narrativo que quase lembra a banda desenhada. A igreja de São Lourenço, em Almansil, e o Convento dos Loios, em Arraiolos, constituem dois casos brilhantes da azulejaria portuguesa desta época.

Deve dizer-se que a expressão assumida pela azulejaria barroca portuguesa ficou fortemente ligada a alguns pintores de azulejos que a marcaram, desde o início, com o seu estilo pessoal. O primeiro e talvez o mais importante, foi Gabriel del Barco, nascido em Espanha e que veio aos 20 anos para Lisboa, onde morreu em 1703. Influenciado pela azulejaria holandesa, particularmente por Jan van Oort de quem copiou alguns painéis, revelou na sua pintura pouca preocupação pelo rigor e perfeição do desenho para, através de um traço vigoroso e expontâneo, dar primazia aos efeitos cenográficos que iriam marcar a azulejaria portuguesa durante várias décadas.

Mas igual destaque merece António Oliveira Bernardes (1660-1730) e todos os seus discípulos entre os quais se conta o seu filho Policarpo de cujas oficinas saíram alguns dos mais brilhantes revestimentos de azulejo do barroco português.

Cerca de 1750, após a morte de D. João V e já em pleno consulado do Marquês de Pombal, a azulejaria decorativa passou a ser influenciada pela estética "rocaille". Desapareceram então as exuberâncias decorativas do período anterior, regressou o policromatismo com uma paleta de quatro cores e as guarnições passaram a exibir as asas de morcego e os concheados assimétricos, típicos do estilo Luis XV. Na Fábrica do Rato, fundada em 1764, foram produzidos alguns dos mais belos exemplares deste período e é possível que de lá tenha saído um dos mais admirados: O Jardim da Quinta dos Azulejos, em Lisboa.

Mas a época pombalina ficou igualmente marcada por um tipo de azulejaria utilitária que surgiu após o Terramoto de 1755. Durante a reconstrução da cidade, o Marquês de Pombal incentivou a produção de azulejos, que constituíam material barato, higiénico e resistente. Os vestíbulos e escadas da Baixa lisboeta foram então revestidos com azulejos de padronagem polícroma, com desenhos simples mas extremamente decorativos, que ficaram definitivamente ligados à arquitectura pombalina.

É também a partir da segunda metade do século XVIII e sobretudo depois do Terramoto que proliferaram em todo o País, e particularmente em Lisboa, os registos de santos, pequenos painéis devocionais que eram colocados nas fachadas com o objectivo de obter protecção contra as catástrofes. Em Lisboa, as imagens que aparecem com mais frequência são as de Sto. António, protector da cidade, e São Marçal, o santo invocado contra os incêndios.

Mas cerca de 1780, já em pleno reinado de D. Maria I, surge o estilo neo-clássico. O azulejo português aderiu rapidamente às influências que chegavam da Europa e exprimiu-se, sobretudo sob a forma de alizares com enquadramentos rectilíneos e elementos decorativos polícromos em que predominam os florões, as grinaldas, as plumas, as "chinoiseries" e os medalhões com paisagens. O "estilo D. Maria", como ficou conhecido em Portugal, durou até ao princípio do século XIX.

Mas nessa altura, Portugal iria mergulhar numa grave crise política e económica que afectou a actividade produtiva, nomeadamente o fabrico de azulejos. Primeiro as invasões francesas, depois a independência do Brasil e mais tarde a guerra civil de 1832-1834. Grande parte das olarias portuguesas foram obrigadas a fechar e deixaram de poder responder às encomendas dos seus clientes habituais.

No Brasil, para onde desde o século XVII eram enviadas grandes quantidades de azulejos portugueses, a azulejaria vai passar a ter uma utilização diferente: o revestimento das fachadas. De início, foram aplicados apenas azulejos brancos em fachadas de igrejas, mas posteriormente esta prática estendeu-se aos prédios urbanos que se cobririam de padronagem polícroma. A partir de meados do século XIX, esta prática estendeu-se a Portugal, trazida pelos emigrantes endinheirados que regressavam às suas terras e que ficaram conhecidos na História pelo nome de "brasileiros". As fachadas das povoações do Norte (Porto, Ovar, Aveiro) e mais tarde, as do Sul, vão cobrir-se da azulejos produzidos nas fábricas surgidas após a recuperação económica que se iniciou cerca de 1840.

Esta azulejaria de fachada, de fabrico semi-industrial, coexistiu com outra em que estavam presentes tendências românticas e revivalistas, marcadas por uma linguagem eclética. Nesta fase, distinguiu-se Ferreira das Tabuletas, autor de composições ornamentais aplicadas em fachadas de vários prédios de Lisboa, nas quais estão presentes simbologias maçónicas.

Nas primeiras décadas do século XX, o azulejo foi influenciado pela Arte Nova que aparece nos trabalhos de Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro e em numerosos frontões e faixas decorativas produzidas nas fábricas de Sacavém, Desterro, Carvalhino e Fonte Nova. A Arts Deco, que teve uma presença mais discreta na azulejaria portuguesa, foi predominantemente utilizada em vestíbulos, tabernas e num núcleo numeroso de fachadas em Vila Franca de Xira.

Durante os dois primeiros quartéis do século XX, a azulejaria revivalista ocupou um espaço importante, sendo numerosos os painéis de pendor historicista e folclórico produzidos durante este período. O principal representante desta corrente foi Jorge Colaço, autor de uma vasta obra em que a técnica da pintura a óleo se procurou adaptar ao azulejo.

A partir de 1950, os artistas plásticos portugueses começaram a interessar-se pela utilização do azulejo. Para isso contribuiram Jorge Barradas, considerado o renovador da cerâmica portuguesa e Keil do Amaral que, nos contactos com os arquitectos brasileiros, redescobriu as potencialidades deste material de revestimento cerâmico. Embora sejam numerosos os artistas plásticos que ensaiaram experiências no campo da azulejaria, alguns deles conquistaram uma posição de destaque mercê da dimensão e da qualidade da obra produzida, como é o caso de Maria Keil, Manuel Cargaleiro, Querubim Lapa e Eduardo Nery. Na sequência de encomendas feitas por entidades oficiais ou por particulares, a azulejaria moderna portuguesa enriqueceu-se com alguns exemplares notáveis como os conjuntos de painéis da Av. Infante Santo e do Metropolitano, a fachada da Reitoria da Universidade e o painel da Av. Calouste Gulbenkian, todos em Lisboa.

A par desta azulejaria de características eruditas, o azulejo português continuou, nesta segunda metade do século XX, a manifestar-se através de exemplares menos elaborados ou de carácter popular, como os revestimentos das fachadas das casas dos emigrantes e os registos, cartelas e painéis naturalistas, desenhados pelos artífices que trabalham nas fábricas. Mas, através de todas estas formas, continuou a revelar a sua vitalidade e a reafirmar-se como uma das manifestações mais originais das artes decorativas europeias.

 

Fonte: www.oazulejo.net/oazulejo_frame.html

 

PS: Texto gentilmente enviado pela amiga do Flickr, da cidade do Porto, Portugal, Maria Aurora Pires.

 

English

Since five centuries, tile occupies a prominent position among the Portuguese decorative arts, and although throughout its history to have suffered multiple influences, developed in Portugal including specific features deserve highlighting the richness of color, monumentality, a sense scenic architecture and integration.

It was during the Arab occupation of the Iberian Peninsula that the people had contact with the ceramic mural. The term "tile" is derived, moreover, an Arabic word (al zulej) which means smooth, polished stone.

Until the late fifteenth century, the Andalusian craftsmen have produced large boards covered with glazed clay colored uniform that, once cooked, cut into geometric pieces that were then recombined into beautiful decorative designs. This process, known as "tongs," because it involved the use of pliers, was slow and difficult in addition to requiring that the author accompany the consignment to the place of its application. The inability to export the finished product has already constituted a major constraint, and perhaps this is why the existing copies in Portugal are scarce. The most famous are the Palace of Sintra (Chapel room where he was imprisoned and Alfonso VI).

At the end of the sixteenth century comes a transformation technique that leads to the appearance of the tile as we know today: a clay plate with a square face plain glazed or decorated with colored drawings. However, the separation of colors on the glass surface caused a problem because the substances used were water soluble and mingled both in the implementation phase and during cooking. To avoid this mishap is used as separator, a barrier consisting of fat linseed oil and manganese. This technique, known as "dry rope" is almost always associated to an increase in "edge" of the surface of clay, which functioned as a mechanical barrier in the separation zones of the glazes. The "edge" or "cuenca" only began to be used alone after the introduction of another innovation: the "sintering" which consisted of heating the glaze at high temperatures before being applied.

Tiles "dry rope" and "edge" gone down in history with the name of Mudejar Moorish-or Hispano-Moorish. During the sixteenth century were imported in large quantities to Portugal and used in churches and palaces. Some specimens were celebrated as the tiles of "dry rope" representing the armillary sphere, commissioned by King Manuel I, who still line the courtyard of the Gargoyles at the Palace of Sintra. The drawings of the Hispano-Arab influence remained of the decorations and setting out the Arabs laçarias and geometric patterns. In the late sixteenth century comes another crucial technical advance: thanks to the use of white tin glaze and metallic pigments, it became possible to paint directly on the glaze. This new technique known as "majolica" (probably a corruption of the word Majorca, port from where the tiles were imported) was brought to Portugal by Francisco Niculi. With it came the Renaissance aesthetics associated with its own decorative language that evolved later in mannerism.

Influenced by the provisions of the outputs the Council of Trent abolished all that could remind the Islamic art in place and started to proliferate the Italo-Flemish ornamental motifs. This period there are some outstanding works among which deserves special mention flooring tiles of the chapel of S. Roque, Lisbon, painted by Francisco de Matos in 1584.

At the end of the sixteenth century, Portugal falls under the rule of Kings. The economic difficulties that do not allow easy access to the tapestries, stained glass windows and marble, combined with the experience accumulated by the Portuguese in the arts and ceramics, leading to maximum utilization of the tile with decorative material. It appears then that numerous examples of geometric compositions ranging from the combinations in chess to more complex forms such as "tile frame," which with its oblique lines, they decompose and model surfaces where applied.

Following these examples, there were the famous "carpet" of the seventeenth century, formed by the repetition of patterns polychrome. These patterns resulted from a combination of a variable number of tiles, forming squares of 4, 16, 36 or more elements. The various rugs, each with their different pattern, juxtaposed and framed by bands, lined up and down the walls of churches and sometimes also the ceiling, producing amazing decorative effects. The Church of Marvila in Santarém and the Church of St. Quentin, in Sobral's Montagraço are two fine examples of use of this type of tile.

From the last quarter of the seventeenth century, several factors have caused profound changes in the aesthetics of the tile. The Portuguese sailors who had traveled to the East, released in Europe in Chinese blue and white earthenware which gained a taste of the countries of northern Europe and later spread to southern countries. The tiling has therefore been replaced by monochromatic, then beginning to surface various patterns of "carpet" of the seventeenth century, played in blue and white.

At the same time, sweeping through Europe in the Baroque aesthetic in which the components of staging and theatricality of life and morals were reflected on all forms of art. Then comes the tile historians, in which several characters are captured in full action and the scenes represented are surrounded by extremely rich frames that act as a "proscenium arch" of a stage. All this coincides with the regaining of independence from Portugal in 1640 and with the birth of a new aristocracy which quickly prospered and seeks to create your own scenarios. The palaces are then covered with beautiful tile panels representing battles, hunted and scenes from everyday life. Most of these panels are copied and adapted from engravings that then come to France and spend dictating fashions.

In stairwells and hallways of wealthy palaces, there are also the famous "figures of invitation" which represent armed soldiers or porters, while the homes of more limited resources, it uses the frames with repeated modules, which are predominant "albarradas" . Around the same time, "the spare figure, also of Dutch influence, Portugal won in a personal expression and an unusual decorative power, despite its design receding hairline and a little care.

But it was mainly in churches and convents that purchased the tile baroque monumentality that immortalized him. There are many examples scattered throughout the country, depicting scenes from the Old and New Testament episodes and counting of the saints, in a series of panels assume that sometimes a character narrative that recalls the almost comic. The church of San Lorenzo in Almansil and the Convent of Loios in Arraiolos, are two cases of Portuguese tile brilliant this season.

It should be noted that the expression assumed by the Portuguese baroque tiles was strongly linked to some painters of tiles that marred from the start, with his personal style. The first and perhaps most important, was Gabriel del Barco, born in Spain who came to Lisbon for 20 years, where he died in 1703. Influenced by Dutch tiles, particularly by Jan van Oort who swiped some panels, revealed in his painting little concern for accuracy and perfection in design, by means of a dash vigorous and spontaneous, giving primacy to the scenic effects that would mark the Portuguese tiles during several decades.

But equal emphasis deserves Antonio Oliveira Bernardes (1660-1730) and all his disciples among them is her son whose Polycarp of workshops left some of the most brilliant of tile coatings Portuguese baroque.

Around 1750, after the death of D. John V and already in the consulate of the Marquis of Pombal, the decorative tiles began to be influenced by the aesthetics rocaille. Disappeared then the decorative exuberance of the previous period, returned the polychromatic with a palette of four colors and trims now display the bat wings and scoops asymmetrical, typical of the style of Louis XV. Mouse Factory, founded in 1764, were produced some of the finest examples of this period and it is possible that there has emerged one of the most admired: The Garden of Tiles Thursday in Lisbon.

But the time Pombal was also marked by a kind of utilitarian tiles that emerged after the 1755 earthquake. During the reconstruction of the city, the Marquis of Pombal encouraged the production of tiles, which were inexpensive material, hygienic and durable. The halls and stairs of the downtown Lisbon were then covered with polychrome tiles patterned with simple but highly decorative designs, which were definitively linked to Pombaline.

It is also from the second half of the eighteenth century and especially after the earthquake that proliferated throughout the country, and particularly in London, the records of saints, small devotional panels that were placed on the facades in order to obtain protection against disasters. In Lisbon, the images that appear most frequently are those of Sto. Anthony, patron of the city, and St. Martial, the saint invoked against fire.

But around 1780, already in the reign of King Mary I, there is the neo-classical style. The Portuguese tile adhered quickly to the influences that came from Europe and expressed itself mainly in the form of frames with straight frames and decorative elements in polychrome dominated by rosettes, wreaths, plumes, the "chinoiserie" and the medallions with landscapes . The "Queen Mary style," as it became known in Portugal, lasted until the early nineteenth century.

But then, Portugal would plunge into a serious political and economic crisis that affected the productive activity, including the manufacture of tiles. First the French invasion, after Brazil's independence and later civil war of 1832-1834. Much of the pottery Portuguese were forced to close and no longer respond to orders from its regular customers.

In Brazil, where since the seventeenth century were sent large numbers of Portuguese tiles, the tile is going to have a different use: the lining of the facades. Initially, only white tiles were used on the facades of churches, but later this practice was extended to urban buildings that cover patterned polychrome. From the mid-nineteenth century, this practice has spread to Portugal, brought by wealthy emigrants returning to their land and became known in history as the "Brazilians". The facades of the towns in the north (Porto, Ovar, Aveiro) and later the South, will cover the tiles are produced in factories that emerged after the economic recovery that began about 1840.

This tile facade, semi-industrial manufacturing, coexisted with other trends that were present in romantic revival, marked by an eclectic language. At this stage, he distinguished himself from tablets Ferreira, author of ornamental compositions applied on the facades of several buildings in Lisbon, in which there are Masonic symbols.

In the first decades of the twentieth century, the tile was influenced by Art Nouveau which appears in the work of Raphael Bordallo Pinheiro and numerous gables and decorative bands produced in factories Sacavem, Desterro, Carvalhino and New Source. The Arts Deco, who had a discreet presence in the Portuguese tiles, was predominantly used in entrance halls, taverns and a large core of facades in Vila Franca de Xira.

During the first two quarters of the twentieth century, revivalist tiles occupied an important place, there are numerous panels and historicist bent folk produced during this period. The main representative of this current was Colaço George, author of a vast work in which the technique of oil painting that sought to adapt to the tile.

Since 1950, the Portuguese artists began to become interested in the use of tile. Contributed to this Jorge Barradas, considered the renewal of Portuguese ceramics and Keil do Amaral, in contacts with Brazilian architects, has rediscovered the potential of ceramic material. Although there are many artists who rehearsed the experiences in the field of tiles, some of them have gained a leading position thanks to the size and quality of work produced, as is the case of Mary Keil, Manuel Cargaleiro, Cherubim and Lapa Eduardo Nery. Following orders made by authorities or private persons, the modern Portuguese tiling enriched with some notable examples as the sets of panels of Avenida Infante Santo and the Metropolitan, the facade of Regents of the University and the panel of Avenida Calouste Gulbenkian , all in Lisbon.

Alongside the classical features tilework, the tile Portuguese continued in the second half of the twentieth century, manifesting itself through less elaborate or copies of a popular nature, such as the linings of the facades of the houses of emigrants and records, cards and boards naturalists, designed by artisans who work in factories. But through all these forms, continued to show their vitality and reassert itself as one of the most original expressions of European decorative arts.

(References:- K. Lal in his book Tarekh e Punjab & The crumbling glory of Sheikhupura Fort by Aown Ali)

 

In West Punjab (now in Pakistan), the town of Sheikhupura (about 35 km west of Lahore) is hailed a center of historically significant architecture.

 

The Hiran Minar (Minaret of the Antelope) and the Sheikhupura Fort make this stop a focal point of interest.

 

The town, now a district headquarters and one of the major industrial cities of Punjab, has grown from a village, originally called “Jahangirpura” when it was settled during the reign of the Mughal emperor, Jahangir, because of its proximity to Hiran Minar, a royal hunting resort.

 

The primary historical importance of the city relates to its Fort. It lays no claim to grandeur. Locally known as Qila Sheikhupura, it has gave its name to the town as well.

 

Construction of the fort began in the second year of Jahangir’s reign (1607). The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (autobiography of Jahangir) mentions that the emperor assigned the job of constructing a fort at that location to Sikandar Moeen during a hunting trip to Hiran Minar.

 

The two centuries that followed were mostly uneventful for the Fort. Neither a seat of government nor a target for invaders, it remained but a halt for imperial entourages heading on pleasure trips to Kashmir in the north, or towards Kabul in the west.

 

The Fort’s political importance did not emerge until the establishment of the Sikh Empire at the end of the 18th century.

 

A veteran historian and archeologist, Ihsan H. Nadiem, tells us that immediately before the consolidation of Punjab under the Sikhs, the Fort served as a convenient place for robbers looting the countryside.

 

The Durrani king, Shah Zaman, during his invasion of Lahore in 1797, briefly besieged the Fort, but only to purge it of the robbers. Soon after his departure, the Fort was once again occupied by the highwaymen.

 

Shortly thereafter, Lehna Singh Majithia (who also served as the Governor of Lahore. The son of General Lehna Singh, Sardar Dyal Singh, was perhaps the most significant Punjabi of the late 19th century in the British Punjab. He was the main force behind the founding of Punjab University), an ally of Ranjit Singh, invaded the fort and took occupation. After him, its ownership passed on to Bhai Singh, followed by Sahib Singh and Sahai Singh in 1808, at which point Ranjit Singh marched upon it and caused its surrender.

 

This whole story of Sheikhupura raid wrote by Hindu writer K. Lal in his book Tarekh e Punjab (Page 196-197) and it is as under:

 

“Mahraja Ranjeet was busy in handling state affairs, in the meantime a group of farmers belong to Sheikhpura came to his door, they wanted to seek help against brutal Sikh rulers Sardar Arbel Singh & Sardar Ameer Singh. These Sardars had occupied the Sheikhupura fort and land, there army looting common people up to that level that they were dying of hunger. That group of farmer said the people of Sheikhupura accepted the over lordship of the Maharaja and requested to take their territory under Mahraja rule and control to protect them from these two brutal Sardars.

Mahraja accepted the request and assigned his eldest son, the crown prince, Kharak Singh for Sheikhupura fort Campaign. He reached Sheikhupura; he has four thousand army troops and support of one Cannon artillery.

Sheikhupura fort was very well constructed with strong fortified walls, Mahraja himself selected best cannons from his cannon yard for this campaign and also assign one of his best army officer Sardar Hakma Singh for assisting Crown prince Kharak Singh in this campaign.

When this troop reached Sheikhupura, Crown Prince Kharak Singh called both the ruling Sardar’s to him, but instead of appearing in front of Prince they have further fortified the fort and get ready for war.

The Prince first sieges the fort and then orders Canon artillery to start fire on fort walls. The fort walls were strongly fortified and hold the Cannon artillery attack for days.

This result less campaign made Prince to think if he wanted to win this fight he has to reinforce his troops and artillery as well. For that purpose he wrote for help to his father Mahraja Ranjit Singh. When Maharaja saw this letter he got angry, he ordered to send biggest cannon of his artillery the Ahmad Shahi Gun. Which he forcefully took from Saheb Singh Guajarati)

(Ahmad Shahi Gun also known as zamzama gun…, The Zamzama Gun is a large bore cannon. It is also known as Kim’s Gun or Bhangianwali Taop. It was cast in 1757 in Lahore. At that time Lahore was a part of the Durrani Empire. The gun was used by Ahmed Shah in the battle of Panipat in 1761. In 1802, Ranjit Singh got hold of the gun and used it in the battles of Daska, Kasur, Sujanpur, Wazirabad and Multan. In the siege of Multan, the gun was badly damaged. It is currently on display in front of the Lahore Museum at The Mall Road, Lahore.)

The Maharaja also reached the Sheikhupura Fort with fresh troops and again the battle started.

After two days of fight, Maharaja ordered to place Ahmed Shah Gun in front of Main gate of Fort. It was tough task and took many lives of soldiers but at last it was placed there. Hundred rounds of guns were fired and main gate of fort completely destroyed. The Mahraja troops entered the fort and raise the winning flag on wall. Both Arbel & Ameer Singh were arrested.

Since the area of Sheikhupura won in name of Crown Prince Kharak Singh, the fort and “Jageer” of Sheikhupura bestowed to Prince by his father Mahraja Ranjeet Singh under the primacy of her mother Rani Datar Kaur (1801-1840), the mother of the crown prince, Kharak Singh. She was also known as Rani Raj Kaur or Mai Nakkain. She lived in the Fort till her death.”

 

She had a considerable role in the rehabilitation of this small, strategically unimportant and hitherto almost abandoned citadel. She built a wonderful haveli within it. The excellent frescoes in the distinctive Kangra style found in the parlour and in the two chambers on the first floor of this haveli, are attributed to Raj Kaur‘s excellent taste.

 

In mid-19th century, when the British invaded Punjab, they used the Fort to imprison the Sikh kingdom’s Regent, Rani Jind Kaur – “Jindaa(n)” - after taking her son, the child Emperor Duleep Singh, prisoner.

 

In a letter dated August 9, 1847 Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence, the British Resident in Punjab suggested to the Governor General that the Queen be banished from Punjab, to prevent the populace from rising under banner.

 

The 8-year old Emperor was removed from his palace in the Lahore Fort on August 19, 1847, and taken to the Shalimar Gardens, while his mother, the Queen, was confined to the distant Sheikhupura Fort.

 

Historian Himadri Banerjee describes how Jindaan was forcibly removed from Lahore between 8 and 9 pm under a heavy military escort. Accompanied by Sardar Arjan Singh Rangharnanglia and Gurmukh Singh Lamma, she was lodged in Sheikhupura Fort in the early hours of Friday, August 20, 1847, under the charge of Sardar Boor Singh.

 

Soon after her arrival at Sheikhupura, she wrote the following letter to the Resident at Lahore, protesting the ruthless separation from her young eight-year old.

 

With the Grace of the Great Guru

From Bibi Sahib to Lawrence Sahib,

 

We have arrived safely at Sheikhupura, You should send our luggage with care, As I was sitting in the Samman (Burj - Palace in Lahore Fort), in the same way I am in Sheikhupura. Both the places are same to me; you have been very cruel to me. You have snatched my son from me … In the name of the God you worship and in the name of the king whose salt you eat, restore my son to me. I cannot bear the pain of this separation … I shall reside in Sheikhupura. I shall not go to Lahore. Send my son to me. I will come to you at Lahore only during the days when you hold darbar. On that day I will send him. A great deal (of injustice) has been done to me. A great deal (of injustice) has been done to my son also. You have accepted what other people have said. Put an end to it now. Too much has been done.

 

The Queen resided in the Sheikhupura Fort for nine months. On the afternoon of May 15, 1848, she was taken away, to be imprisoned in Chunar Fort, near Benares (in current day Uttar Pradesh, India). She made a dramatic escape from there and fled to Nepal, where she remained until, years later, almost blind and dying, was finally allowed to visit her son, who was by then exiled in England.

 

The Sheikhupura Fort was thus witness to a number of crucial turning points during the half-century of the Sikh Raj.

 

The Empire had held played a crucial role as a bulwark against ongoing invasions through the subcontinent’s porous western borders. At its peak, it held sway from Tibet in the east to the Khyber Pass in the west, to Kashmir in the north and to Sindh in the south. It also, while Ranjit Singh was alive, kept the British at bay, even though the rest of the subcontinent had collapsed under them like a row of dominoes.

 

After the annexation of Punjab, the Sheikhupura Fort was temporarily used as administrative headquarters of the Gujranwala district from 1849 to 1851. However, upon the transfer of the district headquarters to Gujranwala town, it was turned into a military outpost.

 

After a split of administration jurisdictions in 1918, a new district was created in Sheikhupura. The Fort then passed on to house the police headquarters of the newly created district.

 

After the partition of Punjab and India in 1947, it was briefly used by the immigrants from East Punjab (by then in the newly-created India) as shelter, and

later by encroachers, from whom it came into the possession of the Department of Archaeology of Pakistan in 1967.

 

Within the complex, no building from the Mughal period is left standing, except the main entrance façade. There are also some remains of sandstone columns depicting the history of the laying of the foundations of the Sheikhupura Fort.

 

Today, what we can see standing, although dilapidated, is a crumbling six-storey haveli, identical to the haveli of Naunihal Singh, which is situated inside Mori Gate in Lahore.

 

The most vibrant aspect of the beauty of the haveli in the Sheikhupura Fort is its frescoes.

 

Sadly, precious wooden doors, windows and parts of the roof have already been whisked away by raiders and the haveli has turned into a haunted house.

 

Inside the ruins and rooms occupied by bats, we can still find signs of the former lifestyle through colourful and thematic paintings and other art work in the Kangra style. Fresco art work in the haveli of Raj Kaur portrays almost all aspects of daily life – ranging from worship to romantic love to military life. Colors are still vivid, the art work is glittering, but the haveli is now, due to institutional neglect, close to the end of its physical life.

 

Despite its poor condition, no contractor or labourer agrees to work as it is believed the fort is haunted by ghosts of the queens which used to live there.

 

This fort is closed to the public due to its bad structural condition; it took me at least three years to take permission to visit this place.

 

Dicono che passeggiare la sera lungo il molo dei defunti sia pericoloso. Non tanto per via degli spiriti, quanto per la presenza molto più terrena di vagabondi e ladruncoli comuni. Ma il buio della notte qui non è mai davvero buio. L’oscurità è punteggiata di fuochi. Alcune fiammelle se le porta via il Gange: sono luci di buon augurio, accese dentro piccole ceste di fiori di loto, e affidate alla corrente. Ormai trasportano perlopiù desideri e speranze di turisti di passaggio. Le fiamme della tradizione vera bruciano più verso le sponde, alitando in cielo fumi d’incenso, sandalo e carne bruciata: sono le pire che ardono incessantemente lungo i ghat, i moli in riva al Gange dove gli indù cremano i loro morti.

Per questo alcuni indiani conoscono Varanasi solo con il soprannome di Maha Shmashan Puri, che vuol dire "fuoco che non si ferma mai". Questa è la città santa dell’induismo: un luogo propizio per morire perché, secondo antiche credenze, esalando qui l’ultimo respiro ci si sottrae al ciclo delle reincarnazioni, e si accede direttamente al paradiso himalayano di Shiva, che si ritiene sia sul Monte Kailasa.

"Varanasi", scrisse una volta Mark Twain, "è più antica della storia, più antica della tradizione, più antica della leggenda, e appare vecchia il doppio di tutte queste cose messe insieme". Un luogo denso di misticismo, dove tutto sembra possibile. Ad esempio, che una famiglia collocata al gradino più basso della gerarchia sociale indiana, i cosiddetti "intoccabili", acquisisca tanto denaro e prestigio da divenire la famiglia più ricca e influente della città. Il loro nome è Dom, ma loro si fanno chiamare Dom Raja, poiché si considerano "i re del regno dei morti" (in indù "raja" significa "re"). La loro casa è la più bella e imponente del lungofiume.

I Dom custodiscono il cosiddetto "fuoco sacro", una fiamma che arde giorno e notte da tempo immemorabile all’interno di un tempio dedicato a Shiva. Nel complesso cerimoniale della cremazione, il fuoco sacro, con cui la pira funebre viene accesa al termine del rito, è considerato un elemento fondamentale. E per avervi accesso, le famiglie dei defunti fanno offerte anche cospicue.

Matru Dom è uno dei capifamiglia. In città lo conoscono tutti, ma non è facile arrivare a lui. Accetta di parlarmi solo grazie all’aiuto di un intermediario. E’ sera fatta, ormai, quando arrivo all’Harishchandra Ghat, un molo delle cremazioni tra i più antichi in città, e forse il più sacro in assoluto. Tutto intorno un fitto tramestio di fedeli e sacerdoti già impegnati nelle cerimonie funebri. Ci sono petali di rosa e fiori di loto sparsi un po’ ovunque, braci quasi consumate, roghi che bruciano con fiamme alte tre metri, legna accatastata in attesa dell’arrivo di una salma. "Aspetta qui", dice Sadhu, l’intermediario. Mi fa un cenno d’intesa, poi si arrampica leggero sulla scalinata che sale verso la città. Il Gange nero si appropria della visuale. Sembra accogliere con identica accondiscendenza i vivi e i morti che continuamente si riversano, o vengono riversati, nelle sue acque. Un vecchio, seduto su uno scalino in riva al fiume, tossisce e sputa in terra più volte. Poi torna a guardare l’acqua senza espressione. Alcuni anziani, all’approssimarsi della morte, vengono qui ad aspettare il destino. Un tempo anche i malati incurabili venivano abbandonati lungo le rive del fiume, all’interno di capanne fatte di rami. Non ci si attendeva che il Gange facesse il miracolo, come l’acqua di Lourdes, ma che accettasse lo spirito del defunto al momento della sua morte. Se il malato invece sopravviveva, si pensava che fosse stato rifiutato dagli dei, e pertanto veniva respinto dalla società e isolato tra i paria, gli intoccabili.

"Matru Dom, signore". Mi giro. Davanti a me c’è un uomo piccolo, avvolto in una sciarpa bianca che mette ancor più in risalto la sua carnagione scura (caratteristica di molti intoccabili). Ci sediamo sotto un piccolo portico di cemento. Parla un inglese stentato, ma sorprendentemente spolvera qualche parola di italiano. "Ciao amico", abbozza sorridendo, "bella Italia". Ricorda di aver imparato quelle parole da un missionario, qualche anno addietro. Poi torna serio, fa qualche cenno a dei ragazzi impegnati su un rogo ormai agli sgoccioli. Finalmente mi racconta dei Dom: "Non saprei dire da quanto tempo la mia famiglia faccia questo lavoro, nessuno può dirlo. Custodiamo il fuoco sacro da generazioni. Facciamo un lavoro onesto, e non chiediamo in cambio nulla, solo donazioni spontanee". Si mette in bocca una foglia di betel, avvolta in una miscela di spezie dal colore rosso: per gli indiani aiuta a digerire e profuma l’alito, ma non tutti gli amanti del betel sanno che è causa frequente di cancro alla bocca.

"La donazione più importante", prosegue, “venne dalla famiglia di un maraja: 5 milioni di rupie (quasi 90 mila euro, ndr). Ma noi accettiamo qualunque offerta. Anche 50 rupie". Secondo l’induismo, fare offerte di questo tipo consente a ciascuno di migliorare il proprio karma, una sorta di somma delle azioni passate dal quale dipende la reincarnazione dell’anima. Per questo quando c’è da fare offerte per cerimonie importanti come un funerale, le famiglie benestanti non badano a spese. E l’offerta per il fuoco sacro non è che una parte. "Ci vogliono 360 chili di legna e 3 ore di tempo affinché le fiamme consumino un corpo", racconta. "I più ricchi comprano legna di sandalo, che arde meglio ed è profumata, ma costa più di 100 rupie al chilo (circa 2 euro)".

Spesso, però, le famiglie più povere non possono permettersi abbastanza legna, e allora il corpo non brucia a sufficienza, rimangono dei pezzi intatti. I Dom sanno come gestire queste situazioni: rivoltano i corpi tra le fiamme, li colpiscono con un bastone, e riescono così a ridurre il tempo necessario alla cremazione. "Noi siamo esperti", sorride Matru. "Per questo tutti ci rispettano e nessuno si sognerebbe di affidare ad altri il proprio defunto". Si guarda attorno, osserva il lavoro dei Dom, con l’aria del re che scruta i suoi possedimenti. Poi mi confida: "Una volta noi Dom abbiamo bruciato anche la salma di un italiano". Soppesa per un attimo il mio sguardo meravigliato. "Proprio lì, vicino a quel mucchio di braci", aggiunge stringendo gli occhi e indicando con un gesto circolare una pira ormai estinta. Sputa il betel. Dopodiché continua: "Era un vecchio venuto a Varanasi ormai da qualche settimana. Lo vedevamo spesso, qui al ghat. Conoscevo anche il suo nome, ma ora non lo ricordo più. Veniva sempre da solo, un signore curioso con un berretto in testa. Aveva occhi strani, sembrava sereno di spirito, ma forse il suo corpo era malato". Riprende a masticare del betel. "Poi improvvisamente smise di venire, non lo vidi per un po’. Lo trovarono morto nella sua stanza d’albergo. E accanto al cadavere c’era un foglietto, nel quale chiedeva di essere cremato qui. Così la polizia telefonò alla sua famiglia, in Italia, e chiese il permesso per la cremazione. Dopo lo affidarono a noi Dom. Le ceneri, però, non le abbiamo buttate nel Gange. La famiglia le ha volute indietro, così, alla fine della cerimonia, le abbiamo raccolte in un’urna e sono partite per l’Italia con il primo aereo". Dalle sue parole traspare l’orgoglio per il rispetto che i Dom si sono guadagnati anche presso le forze dell’ordine, con il loro centenario lavoro di custodi delle cremazioni.

Un rispetto che sembra oltrepassare ogni barriera sociale. Matru ne è convinto e nega con forza l’esistenza di disparità tra i vari livelli della società indiana. "Non ci sentiamo affatto discriminati per la questione delle caste. Possiamo avere la pelle più scura, essere più o meno poveri, ma alla fine siamo fatti di carne e ossa, siamo tutti come fratello e sorella", dice, cercando con insistenza il contatto con le mie mani. Ma poi ci pensa un po’ su e ammette: "Certo, a volte succede che qualcuno delle caste più alte eviti di toccarci. Ma accade raramente. Non è più come un tempo. Oggi i bambini vanno a scuola, sono più acculturati. E capiscono che tra esseri umani non ci può essere differenza". Le pupille scure lampeggiano a tratti, illuminate dai bagliori delle pire che bruciano tutto intorno.

Si interrompe, indica un corteo di persone che scende al molo, portando un feretro. Cantano "Ram Nam Satya hei" (Rama, l’unica verità). "Quelli sono bengalesi", spiega. "Hanno canti diversi, tradizioni particolari: noi indù bruciamo il defunto con la testa rivolta verso Calcutta, dove il Gange sfocia nell’oceano. Loro invece preferiscono sistemare le spoglie con la testa verso la sorgente, e i piedi verso la foce". I bengalesi trasportano il defunto avvolto in un sudario su una barella di bambù. Si sistemano in riva al fiume e il bramino inizia il rituale illuminato dagli schermi di un paio di telefoni cellulari. Tradizione e tecnologia. Per tre volte l’acqua del fiume viene versata in bocca al cadavere, prima di adagiarlo sulla pira e accendere il rogo. Nessuno fa una piega quando dal feretro ormai avvolto dalle fiamme, un braccio del defunto esce dalle bende, ondeggiando inerte per qualche secondo prima di essere aggredito dal fuoco.

"Molti indù non hanno abbastanza denaro per finanziare un corteo funebre sino a Varanasi" riprende Matru. "Così bruciano il defunto a casa loro, e qui portano solo le ceneri, per disperderle sul Gange". Solo alcuni morti sono considerati puri, e non è quindi necessario bruciarne i corpi: si tratta dei neonati, dei morti per vaiolo o per morsi di serpente, e delle vacche. I loro corpi vengono sepolti, oppure gettati direttamente nel fiume. Non vedo donne, al ghat delle cremazioni. Chiedo spiegazione a Matru. "Non c’è un divieto codificato secondo cui le donne non possano assistere alle cremazioni", spiega. "Però le famiglie preferiscono così. Le donne spesso sopportano meno il dolore per la perdita di un parente, e potrebbero turbare la cerimonia funebre con pianti e lamenti". In effetti, non ci sono segni di disperazione, né scene di isteria di alcun tipo tra i parenti che assistono alla cremazione dei loro defunti. La cerimonia segue di solito un rituale preciso: dopo le parole pronunciate dal sacerdote è il primogenito del morto ad accendere il rogo, girandogli attorno cinque volte. La salma è avvolta in un sudario rosso se si tratta di una donna, bianco se si tratta di un uomo, giallo dorato se è una persona anziana, indipendentemente dal sesso.

"Vieni, in cima a questa scalinata c’è il fuoco sacro. Te lo mostro". Matru sale lentamente i gradini, rispondendo con cenni di benevolenza ai molti sguardi che incrociano il suo.

Il tempio che custodisce il fuoco sacro ha un aspetto molto meno scenografico di quanto il suo valore rituale lascerebbe presagire. Una brace debole espira il suo fumo all’interno di una nicchia di cemento dipinta di rosso. Nella parte alta, cinque icone immacolate riconducono il fornetto alla sua dimensione spirituale: Shiva il distruttore danza in mezzo alle fiamme che rappresentano il ritmo perpetuo della distruzione e della creazione; accanto alla sua icona, c’è quella del paffuto Ganesh, il dio dalla testa di elefante, solitamente legato al concetto di fortuna; poi c’è Kali "la nera", con la lunga lingua rossa e una ghirlanda di teschi umani appesa al collo, segni caratteristici della dea della morte; le ultime due mattonelle sono per Durga, moglie di Shiva che si batte per la difesa dell’ordine cosmico, e Vishnu il preservatore, associato al concetto di giustizia.

"Il fuoco per le cremazioni deve partire da qui", assicura Matru, soffiando piano sulla brace per mostrarmi che è ancora viva. "Vedi questi steli di paglia? La gente li accende qui al tempio, e poi li usa per attizzare le fiamme sulla pira. Ognuno dona quello che può", ripete. Invitandomi in maniera più o meno esplicita a contribuire con un’offerta. Gli metto in mano le poche rupie che ho in tasca. "Torna domattina all’alba", riprende lui, "voglio mostrarti la casa dei Dom Raja". Lascio Matru alle sue mansioni di custode del fuoco e mi incammino lungo il ghat, illuminato a squarci dai falò. Luci accese da vite spente. L’occhio mi cade su un oggetto conficcato in una brace ormai quasi esausta. Sembra un femore. Affretto il passo. Al Kedar Ghat è già in corso la puja della sera. E’ una cerimonia rituale che si svolge all’alba e al tramonto, e rappresenta l’offerta di luce al fiume. La cerimonia più importante si svolge al Dasaswamedh Ghat, qualche chilometro più avanti, con cinque sacerdoti che officiano il rito accompagnati da un chiassoso gruppo di musicisti armati di tamburo. Chi preferisce una spiritualità più raccolta si ferma al Dekar. Un solo sacerdote, in piedi su una piattaforma di legno collocata di fronte al Gange, spande un crescendo di luce con movimenti precisi e armoniosi, servendosi dapprima di candele, per passare poi a incensiere, candelabri e lampade infuocate. Un ragazzo accompagna i gesti del sacerdote con un tamburello. Al termine della puja, nel ghat tornano oscurità e silenzio. Ancora pochi metri incerti sui gradini di pietra, nella testa gli ammonimenti sui rischi della Varanasi notturna. Poi è un sollievo riconoscere nel buio l’insegna lampeggiante della guesthouse.

 

Sul Gange l’alba arriva prima. I ghat non dormono mai, e i canti religiosi si diffondono pian piano ben prima che la luce del sole nascente arrivi a lambire le acque del fiume.

Lungo le sponde i primi pellegrini hanno già iniziato il loro complesso rituale: uomini e donne di ogni età sono assorti nelle abluzioni che prevedono bagni e gesti simbolici, da eseguire secondo un ordine preciso. Ogni errore commesso nella sequenza può portare sventura. Un uomo, immerso fino alla vita, riempie d’acqua una brocca d’ottone, ne beve parte del contenuto, poi la ripone sotto il braccio: al termine del rituale la porterà su al tempio. Una signora anziana è nel fiume con tutti i vestiti. Raccoglie l’acqua nelle mani a coppa, poi, rivolta verso il sole, la lascia gocciolare attraverso le dita. Un’offerta ai propri antenati e alle divinità. Più al largo, due pescatori trafficano con le loro reti su una vecchia barca. Nessuno si cura dei turisti più mattinieri che, scarrozzati in barca dal personale degli hotel, scattano freneticamente con le loro macchinette fotografiche digitali, spesso a un palmo di distanza dai pellegrini.

Matru è gia al ghat. Ha appena comprato una nuova foglia di betel e sembra di buonumore. Saliamo su una piccola imbarcazione che ci traghetta verso la casa dei Dom. Sulla sponda del fiume, dove ieri ardeva una grande pira, sono rimasti solo cenere e frammenti di bambù e del sudario. Due bambini scalzi rovistano tra i resti del rogo. "Sono i nostri ragazzi", sorride Matru, scorgendo il mio sguardo interrogativo. "Prima di buttare le ceneri nel fiume setacciano per bene, in cerca dei gioielli che il defunto aveva addosso. Sono tutte cose che rimangono a noi".

La casa dei Dom Raja non è distante. Si staglia sul Gange come un piccolo castello, dalle mura intonacate, un bel po’ di tempo fa, di rosso e celeste. All’interno le stanze sono grandi e colorate, anche se arredate in maniera approssimativa, e con una patina di fumo scuro sulle pareti. Sulla grande terrazza c’è un tempio per le preghiere che si sporge direttamente sul Gange. Ai due angoli, affacciate sul fiume, due imponenti tigri di ceramica colorata rivendicano alla casa dei Dom il primato tra gli edifici bagnati dal fiume sacro. Molti di questi sono palazzi di Maharaja provenienti anche da città lontane, come Jaipur. Una selva curiosa di figlioletti e nipotini ci segue in ogni stanza. Alcuni hanno un tratto di carboncino sulla fronte. "Serve a proteggerli dagli sguardi dei malintenzionati", spiega Matru. "Il carboncino intorno agli occhi, invece, protegge dalla polvere nelle giornate di vento". Matru mostra con orgoglio il ritratto di un suo antenato, l’uomo che fece affari con un Maharaja, ottenendo in cambio forse la cospicua donazione che diede avvio alla vera fortuna dei Dom. Tre donne lavano i panni sulla grande terrazza assolata. I bambini le aiutano a stenderli su un fitto reticolo di pali e fili che occupa parte del terrazzo. C’è un cucciolo di cane, una sedia da giardino di plastica, un lettino in legno e vimini. Nulla lascia trasparire la grande ricchezza dei Dom, se non l’imponenza dell’edificio arroccato in posizione strategica sul fiume.

Torniamo alla barca, seguiamo a ritroso il percorso dell’andata. Il sole è alto, sulle sponde del fiume il flusso di pellegrini sembra cresciuto. Adesso ci sono anche i professionisti del lava-e-stendi, spediti dagli HOTEL A sciacquare le lenzuola sul fiume. Dagli stretti vicoli della città vecchia arriva anche un pastore con un’intera mandria di bufali, che si accomoda in acqua senza creare grande scompiglio.

Nei ghat delle cremazioni, i roghi sono ripresi a pieno ritmo. Enormi mucchi di legna da ardere sono impilati in cima alle scalinate, dove vengono pesati accuratamente su grosse bilance che stabiliscono il prezzo della cremazione. Fuoco sacro a parte. Mi affretto a nascondere la macchina fotografica. Scattare foto nella zona delle cremazioni è considerato sacrilegio. Anche se Matru mi fa capire che, pagando 50 euro al funzionario giusto, è possibile ottenere un’autorizzazione scritta che consente di scattare foto liberamente anche nei ghat sacri. Resta da scoprire come la moltitudine di indu impegnata nei riti funebri riesca a distinguere chi ha il permesso di fare foto da chi non lo ha.

Dietro le pire dei defunti che ardono, incombe una struttura che sembra morta anche lei. E’ il crematorio elettrico di Varanasi, voluto dal Governo per tentare di porre argine all’inquinamento del Gange, dove spesso, nonostante il lavoro dei Dom, vengono gettati cadaveri non del tutto bruciati. Si calcola siano almeno quarantacinque mila ogni anno. Ma l’elettricità, nella città santa, va e viene in continuazione. E il crematorio è diventato presto un monumento alle buone intenzioni. Così come il sistema di depuratori installato in diversi punti del fiume, e mai veramente funzionante. Doveva depurare una striscia di fiume dove 30 cloache scaricano contemporaneamente i propri liquami. Gli investimenti per 25 milioni di dollari, riversati tra il 1986 e il 1993 dopo forti pressioni sul governo, si sono rivelati inutili.

Il livello d’inquinamento del Gange a Varanasi raggiunge livelli talmente alti che l’acqua è praticamente priva di ossigeno disciolto. Studi recenti hanno mostrato che in 100 ml di acqua del fiume sono presenti un milione e mezzo di colibatteri fecali…un valore che in acque balneabili non dovrebbe essere superiore a 500.

Anni fa si era tentato anche di affidarsi a spazzini naturali: tartarughe carnivore, introdotte nel fiume con la speranza di eliminare ciò che restava di rifiuti organici e cremazioni imperfette. Ma le tartarughe sono scomparse in pochissimo tempo. E la gente, sul Gange, continua a fare quello che ha sempre fatto: i pescatori pescano, i pellegrini eseguono le abluzioni rituali, i bambini si fanno il bagno e tutti lavano qui i propri panni.

Eppure il Gange ha una velocità di "autodepurazione" che continua a sfidare la scienza. Il vibrione del colera, che in acqua distillata sopravvive 24 ore, nell’acqua del Gange resiste appena 3 ore. Per gli scienziati è un rompicapo, al quale Mark Twain, sempre lui, diede una spiegazione dissacrante: "Nessun microbo che si rispetti saprebbe vivere in un’acqua simile". Una considerazione che i "figli del Gange" non esiterebbero a definire profana.

Matru allarga le braccia e spiega: "Il Gange è nostra madre. E una madre non farebbe mai del male ai propri figli. Vedi la gente che si bagna nel fiume? Non è mai accaduto nulla di male. Nessun incidente, nessuna malattia. Se fosse successo, tutti sarebbero stati molto più cauti. Ma non è mai accaduto. E mai accadrà". Poi si guarda attorno e, prudentemente, aggiunge: "Se Shiva vorrà", con un ampio sorriso che scopre i denti macchiati dal rosso del betel.

(Tratto da I Re Intoccabili di Varanasi)

They say that an evening stroll along the pier of the deceased is dangerous. Not so much because of the spirits, but for the much more earthly presence of vagrants and common thieves. But the darkness of the night here is never really dark. The darkness is punctuated by fireworks. Some flames if the port via the Ganges lights are a good omen, turned into small baskets of lotus flowers, and assigned to the current. Now carrying mostly desires and hopes of passing tourists. The flames burn more true of the tradition to the shores, breathed in the sky fumes of incense, sandalwood and burned flesh: are the pyres that burn incessantly along the ghats, jetties along the Ganges where Hindus cremate their dead.

For this reason, some Indians know Varanasi only by the nickname Shmashan Puri Maha, which means "fire that never stops." This is the holy city of Hinduism: a place conducive to die because, according to ancient beliefs, exhaling the last breath here one escapes the cycle of reincarnation, and leads directly to the Himalayan paradise of Shiva, who is believed to be on the Mount Kailasa.

"Varanasi" Mark Twain once wrote, "is older than history, older than tradition, older than legend and looks twice as old all these things put together." A place full of mysticism, where everything seems possible. For example, a family that placed at the lowest rung of the social hierarchy of India, the so-called "untouchables", acquires much money and prestige to become the richest and most influential families of the city. Their name is Dom, but they call themselves Dom Raja, because they consider it "the king of the kingdom of the dead" (in Hindu "raja" means "king"). Their home is the most beautiful and impressive of the riverfront.

The Sun guard the "sacred fire", a flame that burns day and night since time immemorial inside a temple dedicated to Shiva. Overall the cremation ceremony, the sacred fire, which is lit the funeral pyre at the end of the rite, is considered a key element. And to access them, the families of the deceased are also offered substantial.

Matru Dom is one of the householders. In the city everyone knows, but it is not easy to get to him. Agree to talk only with the help of an intermediary. And 'evening made ​​now, when I get all'Harishchandra Ghat, a dock of cremations among the oldest in the city, and perhaps the most sacred of all. All around a busy bustle of faithful and priests who were already engaged in funeral ceremonies. There are rose petals and lotus flowers scattered 'everywhere, almost consumed embers, fires that burn with flames three meters high, firewood stacked awaiting the arrival of a corpse. "Wait here," says Sadhu, the intermediary. He gives me a nod, then climbs slightly on the stairway leading to the city. The Ganges black appropriates the visual. There appears to be identical with appeasing the living and the dead who continually pour, or be reversed, in its waters. An old man, sitting on a step in the river, coughs and spits on the ground several times. Then come back and watch the water without expression. Some seniors, at the approach of death, come here to wait for destiny. At one time even the incurably ill were abandoned along the banks of the river, in huts made of branches. Not expected that the Ganges did the miracle, like the water of Lourdes, but he accepted the spirit of the deceased at the time of his death. If the patient survived the other hand, it was thought that it had been rejected by the gods, and was therefore rejected by society and isolated among the pariahs, the untouchables.

"Matru Dom, sir." I turn around. In front of me there is a small man, wrapped in a white scarf that puts even more emphasis on his dark complexion (a characteristic of many untouchables). We sit under a small concrete porch. He speaks broken English, but surprisingly sprinkle a few words of Italian. "Hello friend," outlines a smile, "Beautiful Italy". Remember to have learned those words from a missionary, a few years ago. Then come back seriously, does nod to some of the guys working on a pyre now running out. I finally told the Sun: "I do not know how long my family to do this work, no one can tell. We guard the sacred fire for generations. Do an honest job, and do not ask anything in return, only spontaneous donations." You put in your mouth a betel leaf, wrapped in a blend of spices from the red: for the Indians helps to digest and smells the breath, but not all lovers of betel know that it is a frequent cause of mouth cancer.

"The most important gift," he says, "came from the family of a maharajah: 5 million rupees (almost 90 thousand euro, ed.) But we accept any offer. Even 50 rupees. "According to Hinduism, making offerings of this type allows everyone to improve their karma, a sort of summation of past actions upon which the reincarnation of the soul.'s Why when it comes to bidding for important ceremonies such as a funeral, wealthy families spare no expense. and the offer for the sacred fire is but a part. "It takes 360 pounds of wood and 3 hours of time so that the flames consume a body," he says. "the richest buy sandal wood, which burns better and is fragrant, but it costs more than 100 rupees per kilo (about 2 euro)."

Often, however, the poorest families can not afford enough wood, and then the body does not burn enough, the pieces remain intact. Dom I know how to handle these situations: turn over the bodies in the flames, hit them with a stick, and can thus reduce the time required for cremation. "We are the experts," he smiles Matru. "That's why we all respect and nobody would entrust to others their own dead." He looks around, observing the work of the Sun, with the air of a king who searches his possessions. Then he tells me: "Once we have Dom also burned the body of an Italian." Weigh for a moment my gaze in wonder. "Right there, next to that pile of embers," adds squinting and gesturing circulated a pyre now extinct. He spits the betel. Then he continues: "It was an old man came to Varanasi for a few weeks now. We saw him often here at the ghat. Knew even his name, but now I no longer remember. Always came alone, a curious gentleman with a beret on his head. his eyes were strange, he seemed serene in spirit, but perhaps her body was sick. "Starts to chew betel. "Then suddenly he stopped coming, did not see him for a while. 'They found him dead in his HOTEL ROOM. And beside the corpse there was a piece of paper, in which he asked to be cremated here. So the police phoned his family in Italy, and asked permission for the cremation. entrusted to us after the Sun's Ashes, however, we have not thrown in the Ganges.'s family wanted them back, so at the end of the ceremony, we have collected in a 'urn and left for Italy with the first plane. "From his words reflected the pride in the respect that they have earned Dom also at the police, with their centenary work as custodians of cremations.

A respect that seems to go beyond any social barrier. Matru is convinced and strongly denies the existence of disparities between the various levels of Indian society. "We do not feel discriminated at all to the issue of caste., We have darker skin, be more or less poor, but in the end we are made of flesh and bones, we all like brother and sister," he says, looking earnestly contact with my hands. But then we think a bit 'up and admits: "Sure, sometimes it happens that some of the higher castes avoid touching., But rarely happens.'s Not like the past. Nowadays children go to school, they are more educated. E understand that among human beings there can be no difference. "The dark eyes flashing at times, illuminated by the glow of the pyres burning all around.

It stops, shows a procession of people coming down to the dock, carrying a coffin. They sing "Ram Nam Satya hei" (Rama, the only truth). "Those are Bengalis," he explains. "They have different songs, particular traditions: we Hindus burn the dead with her ​​head turned towards Calcutta, where the Ganges meets the ocean. They prefer to fix the spoils with his head towards the source, and the feet towards the mouth." The Bengalis carrying the deceased wrapped in a shroud on a bamboo stretcher. They settle in the river and the Brahmin ritual begins lit by a couple of screens of mobile phones. Tradition and technology. Three times the river water is poured into the mouth of the corpse, before you lay it on the pyre and light the pyre. No one bat an eyelid when the coffin is now engulfed in flames, an arm of the deceased comes from the bandages, swaying inert for a few seconds before being attacked by fire.

"Many Hindus do not have enough money to finance a funeral procession up to Varanasi" Matru resumes. "So burn the deceased at their home, and here only carry the ashes to scatter them on the Ganges." Only a few deaths are considered pure, and it is therefore necessary to burn the bodies: they are infants, deaths from smallpox or snake bites, and the cows. Their bodies are buried, or dumped directly into the river. I do not see women at the cremation ghat. I ask for explanation Matru. "There is a ban encoded according to which women can not attend the cremation," he explains. "But the families prefer it that way. Women often bear less pain for the loss of a relative, and might upset the funeral with weeping, and with mourning." In fact, there are signs of desperation, or scenes of hysteria of any kind between the relatives attending the cremation of their dead. The ceremony usually follows a precise ritual: after the words spoken by the priest is the firstborn of the dead to light the pyre, girandogli around five times. The body is wrapped in a shroud red if it is a woman, whether it is a white man, golden yellow if it is an older person, regardless of gender.

"Come, on top of this staircase is the sacred fire. I'll show you." Matru slowly climbs the stairs, responding with nods of kindness to many looks that cross her.

The temple which houses the sacred fire looks a lot less dramatic than its ritual value would leave portend. A brace weak exhale the smoke within a niche of concrete painted red. In the upper part, five icons immaculate bring back the oven to its spiritual dimension: the destroyer Shiva dance in the flames that represent the perpetual rhythm of destruction and creation; next to its icon, there is that of chubby Ganesh, the elephant-headed god, usually linked to the concept of luck; Then there is Kali "the black," with the long red tongue and a garland of human skulls hung around his neck, characteristic marks of the goddess of death; the last two tiles are for Durga, wife of Shiva who is fighting for the defense of the cosmic order, and Vishnu the preserver, associated with the concept of justice.

"The focus for the cremations must start from here," assures Matru, blowing on the embers plan to show that it is still alive. "See these stalks of straw? Them people on here at the temple, and then use them to stoke the flames on the pyre. Everyone gives what he can," he repeats. Inviting more or less explicitly to contribute with an offer. I put my hand in the few rupees in my pocket. "Come back tomorrow morning at dawn," he resumed, "I want to show the house of the Dom Raja". I leave Matru to his duties as guardian of the fire and walked along the ghats, illuminated by bonfires gashes. Lights to screw off. My eye falls on an object stuck in a brace now almost exhausted. It looks like a femur. Hasten the pace. At the Kedar Ghat is already underway puja in the evening. It 'a ritual ceremony that takes place at dawn and dusk, and represents the range of light to the river. The most important ceremony takes place at Dasaswamedh Ghat, a few kilometers further on, with five priests who officiate the ceremony accompanied by a boisterous group of musicians armed with drum. Those who prefer a more intimate spirituality stops at Dekar. One priest, standing on a wooden platform placed in front of the Ganges, spreading a crescendo of light with precise movements and harmonious, using first candle, then move on to incense, candlesticks and lamps burning. A boy accompanies the gestures of the priest with a tambourine. At the end of the puja, in return ghat darkness and silence. Just a few meters uncertain on the stone steps, in the head the warnings on the risks of Varanasi night. Then it is a relief to recognize the sign flashing in the darkness of the guesthouse.

 

On the Ganges before dawn arrives. The ghats never sleep, and religious songs spread gradually well before the light of the rising sun arrives to lap the waters of the river.

Along the banks of the first pilgrims have already started the whole ritual: men and women of all ages are absorbed in the ablutions that provide bathrooms and symbolic gestures, to be performed in a specific order. Any error in the sequence can lead misfortune. A man immersed to the waist, fills a water jug brass, do you drink the contents, then shoves it under his arm at the end of the ritual will bring about the temple. An elderly lady is in the river with all the dresses. Collects water in cupped hands, then, facing the sun, the leaves drip through your fingers. An offer to their ancestors and the gods. Further offshore, two fishermen traffic in their networks on an old boat. Nobody cares tourists risers that scarrozzati by boat from the staff of the hotel, click frantically with their cameras digital, often a few inches away from the pilgrims.

Matru is already at the ghat. He just bought a new betel leaf and seems in good spirits. We go on a small boat that ferries us to the house of the Sun On the bank of the river, where a great fire was burning yesterday, there are only ashes and fragments of bamboo and cloth. Two barefoot children rummaging through the remains of the fire. "They are our kids," Matru smiles, seeing my quizzical look. "Before you throw the ashes into the river scour for good, in search of the jewels that the deceased was wearing. Things are all that remain to us."

The home of Dom Raja is not far away. It stands on the Ganges as a small castle, the walls plastered, a nice little 'time ago, red and blue. Inside, the rooms are big and colorful, although furnished approximate, and with a patina of dark smoke on the walls. On the large terrace there is a temple for prayers that leans directly on the Ganges. The two corners, overlooking the river, two huge tigers colorful ceramic claiming the house of Dom primacy among the buildings bathed in the sacred river. Many of these buildings are of Maharaja also from distant cities, such as Jaipur. A mass of curious little children and grandchildren following us in every room. Some have a stretch of charcoal on the forehead. "We need to protect them from the eyes of the bad guys," says Matru. "The charcoal around the eyes, on the other hand, protects against dust on windy days." Matru proudly displays the portrait of his ancestor, the man who did business with a Maharaja, perhaps in exchange for the generous donation that started the fortune of the Sun Three Women wash clothes on the large sun terrace. The children help to lay them out on a dense network of poles and wires which occupies part of the terrace. There is a puppy dog, a plastic garden chair, a cot in wood and wicker. Nothing reveals the great wealth of the Sun, if not the grandeur of the building perched in a strategic position on the river.

Let's get back to the boat, we follow back the route. The sun is up, on the banks of the stream of pilgrims seem grown up. Now there are also professionals in the lava-and-stretch, consigned by A HOTEL wash the sheets on the river. From the narrow streets of the old town comes a shepherd with a herd of buffalo, which sits on the water without creating a commotion.

In the cremation ghat, the fires were resumed in full swing. Huge piles of firewood are stacked on top of the stairs, where they are weighed accurately on large scales that determine the price of cremation. Sacred Fire apart. I hasten to hide the camera. Take pictures of cremations in the area is considered sacrilege. Although Matru makes me realize that paying 50 euro to the official right, you can get a written authorization allowing you to take pictures freely even in the sacred ghat. It remains to find out how the multitude of Hindu funeral rites committed to be able to differentiate who is allowed to take pictures from those who did not.

Behind the blazing pyres of the dead, a looming structure that seems dead too. E 'the electric crematorium in Varanasi, wanted by the government for groped to put an embankment to the pollution of the Ganges, where often, despite the work of Dom, corpses are thrown completely burned. It is estimated to be at least forty-five thousand each year. But electricity, in the holy city comes and goes constantly. And the crematorium soon became a monument to good intentions. As well as the system of scrubbers installed at different points of the river, and never really working. He had to clean up a stretch of river where 30 sewers discharge their sewage at the same time. Investments for $ 25 million, paid between 1986 and 1993, after strong pressure on the government, proved futile.

The level of pollution of the Ganges in Varanasi reaches levels so high that the water is virtually free of dissolved oxygen. Recent studies have shown that in 100 ml of water of the river there are a million and a half of fecal coliform ... a value in bathing waters should not be more than 500.

Years ago it was also attempted to rely on natural scavengers: carnivorous turtles, which were introduced into the river with the hope of eliminating the remnants of organic waste and cremations imperfect. But the turtles are gone in no time. And the people, on the Ganges, continues to do what it has always done: most fishermen, the pilgrims perform the ritual ablutions, children bathe and wash all their clothes here.

Yet the Ganges has a speed of "self-purification" that continues to defy science. The vibrio cholerae, which survives 24 hours in distilled water, the water of the Ganges resists just 3 hours. For scientists it is a puzzle game, in which Mark Twain, he always gave a debunking explanation: "No self-respecting microbe know how to live in water like that." One consideration that the "sons of the Ganges" would not hesitate to define profane.

Matru opens his arms and says: "The Ganga is our mother. And a mother would never do harm to their children. See people who bathes in the river? There is nothing bad ever happened. Were no incidents, no disease. If had happened, all would have been much more cautious., but it never happened. it never happens. "Then you look around and prudently adds: "If you want to Shiva", with a broad smile that turns your teeth stained red from betel.

(Taken from The Untouchables King of Varanasi)

"Beloved:

I exhort the presbyters among you,

as a fellow presbyter and witness to the sufferings of Christ

and one who has a share in the glory to be revealed.

Tend the flock of God in your midst,

overseeing not by constraint but willingly,

as God would have it, not for shameful profit but eagerly.

Do not lord it over those assigned to you,

but be examples to the flock.

And when the chief Shepherd is revealed,

you will receive the unfading crown of glory."

– 1 Peter 5:1-4, which is today's 1st reading at Mass.

 

Stained glass window from Cologne Cathedral of the Council of Jerusalem.

The Church of the Primus of Saint Peter is a Franciscan church located in Tabgha, Israel, on the northwest coast of the Sea of Galilee. It refers to the evangelical episode of Peter's conferment of primacy within the group of Apostles and the Church (Gospel of John 21,1-19).

 

The modern structure was built in 1933 and incorporates parts of a former 4th century church.

At the base of its walls, in front of the tall altar, are found foundations of the 4th century church.

In the 9th century, the church was called the place of coal. This name refers to the episode of Jesus' meal preparation for the apostles, building a coal fire on which to cook the fish.

 

La Chiesa del Primato di San Pietro è una chiesa francescana situata a Tabgha, in Israele, sulla riva nord-occidentale del Mare di Galilea. Essa fa riferimento all'episodio evangelico del conferimento a Pietro del primato all'interno del gruppo degli Apostoli e della Chiesa (Vangelo di Giovanni 21,1-19).

 

La moderna struttura è stata costruita nel 1933 e incorpora parti di una precedente chiesa IV secolo.

Alla base delle sue pareti, di fronte all'altare maggiore, sono visibili fondazioni della chiesa del IV secolo.

Nel IX secolo, la chiesa fu chiamata come il luogo dei carboni. Questo nome si riferisce all'episodio della preparazione di pasto di Gesù per gli apostoli, costruendo un fuoco di carbone su cui cuocere il pesce.

Vienna Baroque

Doris Binder

 

The center of Baroque art was undisputable Vienna, as a special promoter appeared the Emperor Charles VI., under whose reign not only the Karlskirche was built, but also numerous buildings have been newly planned or built. The passion for building of the High Baroque is not only founded by the destructions of the Turks, but also has its causes in the backward economic structure and its lack of production plants. Whether nobleman, cleric or commoner, all those with sufficient capital put it rather in construction funds into practice than not make use of it. Responsible for this was a deep distrust to the imperial fiscal policy and concern about the currency and a possible bankruptcy.

The Baroque emerged within the civil peace (*) Burgfrieden) of the city of Vienna, had at the beginning of the High Baroque era still dominated religious buildings, so the cityscape changed in just four decades. Vienna was transformed into a "palace city", by the year 1740, the number of pleasure palaces, gardens and belvederes had doubled. The Baroque style, which by crown, church and nobility was forced upon the citizens, is considered of Felix Czeike as "authority art". The existing social gap should be camouflaged by the rubberneck culture in festivities, receptions and parades.

 

*) Burgfrieden (The term truce or Castle peace referred to a jurisdiction in the Middle Ages around a castle, in which feuds, so hostilities of private individuals among themselves, under penalty of ostracism were banned. Today the term is mainly used in a figurative sense.

 

Due to the return of Fischer von Erlach to Vienna in 1686 and a decade later, Lukas von Hildebrandt, the primacy of the Italians in architecture was broken and the victory parade of Austrian Baroque began. The connection between the spiritual and secular powers found its mode of expression in the Baroque, which the appearance of the city of Vienna should characterize in a decisive manner.

 

Construction of Charles Church

The Karlskirche was built by Emperor Charles VI. commemorating the plague saint, Charles Borromeo. In 1713 the plague raged in Vienna and claimed about 8,000 human lives, in February 1714 the plague disappeared and as a sign of gratitude was began with the construction of the church, this should become the most important religious building of Vienna in the 18th century.

In a contest was decided on the builder - participants were Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt and Ferdinando Galli-Bibienas. As winner emerged the famous architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, he died in 1723 and did not live to the achievement of the Church. The supervision was transferred to the imperial court architect Anton Erhard Martinelli, as Fischer von Erlach died, his son, Joseph Emmanuel, finished his work. On 28 October 1737 St. Charles Church was solemnly by the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Sigismund Count Kollowitz, inaugurated. The spiritual care ceded Emperor Karl VI. to the chivalric Order of the Cross with the Red Star, since 1783 is the Karlskirche imperial patronage parish.

The church at that time lay still behind the regulated river Wien (Wienfluss) and in the open field. The directed towards the city face side of the Charles Church, which stood on the edge of the suburb of Wieden, was target point of a line of sight the Hofburg and St. Charles Church in the sense of a "via triumphalis" connecting. On the temple-like front building of the Karlskirche the dedication inscription is clearly visible "Vota mea Reddam in conspectu timentium Deum" - "I will fulfill my vow before those who fear God."

Already during the construction by Fischer von Erlach (senior), there were several project phases, three of which have been preserved:

 

1. Medaillon by Daniel Warou for the groundbreaking ceremony

2. Fore stitches in Fischer's draft of a historical architecture 1721

3. Viennese view of work by Klein and Pfeffel 1722 (1724)

 

Due to the death of Fischer von Erlach, occured recent changes made by his son, Joseph Emmanuel most of all being concerned the dome (much higher and steeper), the priest choir (omitted) and the interior (simpler). The entire project took a total of 21 years and the costs amounted to 304 045 guilders and 22 ¼ cruisers. The construction costs were shouldered by all crown lands of the Empire, but also Spain, Milan and the Netherlands had to make a contribution.

The Karlskirche is the most important Baroque building of the city and represents the most convincing the so-called Empire style in which for the last time an empire awareness in the architecture of the capital of the Holy Roman Empire after the victorious ended wars against the Turks and the French was expressed.

Symbolism of the Karlskirche

The Karlskirche consists of a central rotunda with a dome, preceded by a column structure like a Greek temple, of two high pillars illustrated on the model of Trajan's Column in Rome and of two lateral gate pavilions. The illustrated columns represent Charles VI. as a wise and strong secular ruler, the two great pillars were created by Marder and Matielli. The columns are crowned by golden eagles, symbolizing the two virtues of the Emperor - fortitudo (bravery) and constantia (resistance). The two pillars are evocative of the two pillars before the temple in Jerusalem - Jachin and Boaz. However, the illustration of the two columns does not match the model of the Trajan columns in Rome, portraying war deeds, but these tell the life story of St. Borromeo. In the front view of the Karlskirche a wide range of different symbols become one whole - the Roman emperors Trajan and Augustus, the Temple of Solomon, St. Peter's Church in Rome, Hagia Sophia, Charlemagne and the Empire of Charles V. - through the skillfully used symbols should be shown the claim of the house of Habsburg to the European domination.

The plan view of the church is, as in baroque typical, ellipsoid. In the interior of the Karlskirche the great Baroque sculpture is immediately noticeable, representing St. Borromeo. At the base the four Latin Fathers of the Church are depicted. The interior of the Karlskirche is dominated by the tremendous fresco in the oval dome room, it was created by the eminent Baroque painter Johann Michael Rottmayr between 1725-1730. The fresco shows the Mother of God representing the intercession of the patron Saint of the Church to help head off the plague, surrounded is the scene by the cardinal virtues (faith, hope and love). In the left entrance wing is situated the tomb for the Austrian poet Heinrich Joseph von Collin (17771-1811).

Inside the St. Charles Church, there is a museum where the most valuable pieces are exhibited.

These include: the vestments of St. Borromeo, a reliquary of gold and silver - a donation of Emperor Charles VI. and a rococo monstrance (1760) containing a drop of blood of the saint. Thomas Aquinas.

Even the image of the architect Fischer von Erlach, painted by Jacob von Schuppen, is one of the church treasures.

The iconographic program of the Charles Church was written by Carl Gustav Haerus, by this the Saint Charles Borromeo should be connected to the imperial founder.

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Sao Luis do Maranhao - 400 anos !

 

Portuguese

Desde há cinco séculos que a azulejaria ocupa uma posição de relevo entre as artes decorativas portuguesas e, apesar de ao longo da sua história ter sofrido múltiplas influências, desenvolveu em Portugal características específicas entre as quais merecem destaque a riqueza cromática, a monumentalidade, o sentido cenográfico e a integração na arquitectura.

Foi durante a ocupação árabe da Península que os povos ibéricos tomaram contacto com a cerâmica mural. O termo "azulejo" deriva, aliás, de uma palavra árabe (al zulej) que significa pedra lisa e polida.

Até finais do século XV, os artífices andaluzes produziram grandes placas de barro cobertas de vidrado colorido uniforme que, uma vez cozidas, cortavam em fragmentos geométricos que eram depois recombinados em belos desenhos decorativos. Este processo, conhecido pelo nome de “alicatado”, porque envolvia a utilização de um alicate, era moroso e difícil além de exigir que o artífice acompanhasse a encomenda até ao local da sua aplicação. A impossibilidade de exportar o produto já acabado constituía uma limitação importante e, talvez por isso, os exemplares existentes em Portugal sejam escassos. Os mais célebres são os do Palácio de Sintra (Capela e quarto onde esteve preso D. Afonso VI).

No final do século XVI surge uma transformação técnica que leva ao aparecimento do azulejo tal como o conhecemos hoje: uma placa de barro quadrangular com uma face vidrada lisa ou decorada com desenhos coloridos. Contudo, a separação das cores na superfície vidrada levantava problemas porque as substâncias utilizadas eram hidro-solúveis e misturavam-se quer na fase de aplicação quer durante a cozedura. Para evitar este contratempo utilizava-se, como separador, uma barreira gordurosa constituída por óleo de linhaça e manganês. Esta técnica, conhecida pelo nome de "corda seca" associava-se quase sempre a uma elevação em "aresta" da superfície do barro, que funcionava como barreira mecânica nas zonas de separação dos vidrados. A "aresta" ou "cuenca" só passou a ser utilizada isoladamente depois da introdução de uma outra inovação: a "fritagem" que consistia no aquecimento dos vidrados a altas temperaturas antes de serem aplicados.

Azulejos de "corda seca" e de "aresta" ficaram na História com o nome de mudejares, hispano-árabes ou hispano-mouriscos. Durante o século XVI foram importados em grande quantidade para Portugal e aplicados em igrejas e palácios. Alguns exemplares ficaram célebres como os azulejos de "corda seca" representando a esfera armilar, encomendados por D. Manuel I e que ainda hoje revestem o Pátio das Carrancas, no Palácio de Sintra. Os desenhos dos azulejos hispano-árabes mantinham a influência das decorações árabes e reproduziam as laçarias e os esquemas geométricos. Nos finais do século XVI surge outro avanço técnico decisivo: graças à utilização do esmalte estanífero branco e dos pigmentos metálicos, passou a ser possível pintar directamente sobre o vidrado. Esta nova técnica conhecida pelo nome de "majólica" (provável corruptela da palavra Maiorca, porto de onde os azulejos eram importados) foi trazida para Portugal por Francisco Niculoso. Com ela vinha associada a estética renascentista com a sua gramática decorativa própria e que evoluiria mais tarde para o maneirismo.

Por influência das disposições saídas do Concílio de Trento, foi abolido tudo quanto pudesse lembrar a arte islâmica e em sua substituição passaram a proliferar os motivos ornamentais italo-flamengos. Deste período existem algumas obras notáveis entre as quais merece referência especial o revestimento a azulejos da Capela de S. Roque, em Lisboa, pintados por Francisco de Matos em 1584.

No final do século XVI, Portugal cai sob o domínio dos Filipes. As dificuldades económicas, que não permitiam acesso fácil às tapeçarias, aos vitrais e aos mármores, associadas às experiências acumuladas pelos portugueses no campo das artes e da cerâmica, conduziram ao aproveitamento máximo do azulejo com material decorativo. É então que aparecem numerosos exemplares de composições geométricas que vão desde as combinações em xadrez até formas mais complexas como os "azulejos de caixilho", que com as suas linhas oblíquas, decompõem e modelam as superfícies onde se encontram aplicados.

Na sequência destes exemplares, surgiram os célebres "tapetes" do século XVII, formados pela repetição de padrões polícromos. Estes padrões resultavam de combinações de um número variável de azulejos, formando quadrados de 4, 16, 36, ou mais elementos. Os vários "tapetes", cada um com o seu padrão diferente, justapostos e emoldurados por faixas, revestiam de alto a baixo as paredes das igrejas e por vezes o próprio tecto, produzindo efeitos decorativos surpreendentes. A Igreja de Marvila em Santarém e a Igreja de São Quintino, em Sobral do Montagraço, são dois belos exemplos deste tipo de utilização do azulejo.

A partir do último quartel do século XVII, vários factores provocaram profundas transformações na estética do azulejo. Os navegadores portugueses que tinham viajado pelo Oriente, divulgaram na Europa a faiança chinesa azul e branca que rapidamente conquistou o gosto dos países do Norte da Europa e se estendeu mais tarde aos países meridionais. A policromia dos azulejos foi então sendo substituída pelo monocromatismo, começando a surgir então vários padrões de "tapetes" do século XVII, reproduzidos a azul e branco.

Ao mesmo tempo, alastrava pela Europa a estética do barroco cujos componentes de encenação e de teatralidade da vida e dos costumes se reflectiam sobre todas as formas de arte. Surge então o azulejo historiado, em que os diversos personagens são captados em plena acção e em que as cenas representadas são envolvidas por molduras extremamente ricas que funcionam como a "boca de cena" de um palco. Tudo isto coincide com a reconquista da independência de Portugal em 1640 e com o nascimento de uma nova aristocracia que rapidamente prospera e procura criar os seus próprios cenários. Os palácios são então revestidos com belos painéis de azulejo representando batalhas, caçadas ou cenas da vida quotidiana. Grande parte destes painéis são copiados e adaptados de gravuras que nessa altura chegam de França e que passam a ditar as modas.

Nas escadarias e vestíbulos dos palácios mais abastados, surgem também as célebres "figuras de convite" que representam porteiros ou soldados armados, enquanto que nas casas de recursos mais limitados, se recorre aos alizares, com módulos repetidos, em que predominam as "albarradas". Pela mesma altura, a "figura avulsa", também de influência holandesa, ganha em Portugal uma expressão própria e uma invulgar força decorativa, apesar do seu desenho de traço grosseiro e pouco cuidado.

Mas foi sobretudo nas igrejas e nos conventos que o azulejo barroco adquiriu a monumentalidade que o imortalizou. São muitos os exemplares espalhados por todo o País, representando cenas do Velho e do Novo Testamento e contando episódios da vida dos santos, em séries de painéis que assumem, por vezes, um carácter narrativo que quase lembra a banda desenhada. A igreja de São Lourenço, em Almansil, e o Convento dos Loios, em Arraiolos, constituem dois casos brilhantes da azulejaria portuguesa desta época.

Deve dizer-se que a expressão assumida pela azulejaria barroca portuguesa ficou fortemente ligada a alguns pintores de azulejos que a marcaram, desde o início, com o seu estilo pessoal. O primeiro e talvez o mais importante, foi Gabriel del Barco, nascido em Espanha e que veio aos 20 anos para Lisboa, onde morreu em 1703. Influenciado pela azulejaria holandesa, particularmente por Jan van Oort de quem copiou alguns painéis, revelou na sua pintura pouca preocupação pelo rigor e perfeição do desenho para, através de um traço vigoroso e expontâneo, dar primazia aos efeitos cenográficos que iriam marcar a azulejaria portuguesa durante várias décadas.

Mas igual destaque merece António Oliveira Bernardes (1660-1730) e todos os seus discípulos entre os quais se conta o seu filho Policarpo de cujas oficinas saíram alguns dos mais brilhantes revestimentos de azulejo do barroco português.

Cerca de 1750, após a morte de D. João V e já em pleno consulado do Marquês de Pombal, a azulejaria decorativa passou a ser influenciada pela estética "rocaille". Desapareceram então as exuberâncias decorativas do período anterior, regressou o policromatismo com uma paleta de quatro cores e as guarnições passaram a exibir as asas de morcego e os concheados assimétricos, típicos do estilo Luis XV. Na Fábrica do Rato, fundada em 1764, foram produzidos alguns dos mais belos exemplares deste período e é possível que de lá tenha saído um dos mais admirados: O Jardim da Quinta dos Azulejos, em Lisboa.

Mas a época pombalina ficou igualmente marcada por um tipo de azulejaria utilitária que surgiu após o Terramoto de 1755. Durante a reconstrução da cidade, o Marquês de Pombal incentivou a produção de azulejos, que constituíam material barato, higiénico e resistente. Os vestíbulos e escadas da Baixa lisboeta foram então revestidos com azulejos de padronagem polícroma, com desenhos simples mas extremamente decorativos, que ficaram definitivamente ligados à arquitectura pombalina.

É também a partir da segunda metade do século XVIII e sobretudo depois do Terramoto que proliferaram em todo o País, e particularmente em Lisboa, os registos de santos, pequenos painéis devocionais que eram colocados nas fachadas com o objectivo de obter protecção contra as catástrofes. Em Lisboa, as imagens que aparecem com mais frequência são as de Sto. António, protector da cidade, e São Marçal, o santo invocado contra os incêndios.

Mas cerca de 1780, já em pleno reinado de D. Maria I, surge o estilo neo-clássico. O azulejo português aderiu rapidamente às influências que chegavam da Europa e exprimiu-se, sobretudo sob a forma de alizares com enquadramentos rectilíneos e elementos decorativos polícromos em que predominam os florões, as grinaldas, as plumas, as "chinoiseries" e os medalhões com paisagens. O "estilo D. Maria", como ficou conhecido em Portugal, durou até ao princípio do século XIX.

Mas nessa altura, Portugal iria mergulhar numa grave crise política e económica que afectou a actividade produtiva, nomeadamente o fabrico de azulejos. Primeiro as invasões francesas, depois a independência do Brasil e mais tarde a guerra civil de 1832-1834. Grande parte das olarias portuguesas foram obrigadas a fechar e deixaram de poder responder às encomendas dos seus clientes habituais.

No Brasil, para onde desde o século XVII eram enviadas grandes quantidades de azulejos portugueses, a azulejaria vai passar a ter uma utilização diferente: o revestimento das fachadas. De início, foram aplicados apenas azulejos brancos em fachadas de igrejas, mas posteriormente esta prática estendeu-se aos prédios urbanos que se cobririam de padronagem polícroma. A partir de meados do século XIX, esta prática estendeu-se a Portugal, trazida pelos emigrantes endinheirados que regressavam às suas terras e que ficaram conhecidos na História pelo nome de "brasileiros". As fachadas das povoações do Norte (Porto, Ovar, Aveiro) e mais tarde, as do Sul, vão cobrir-se da azulejos produzidos nas fábricas surgidas após a recuperação económica que se iniciou cerca de 1840.

Esta azulejaria de fachada, de fabrico semi-industrial, coexistiu com outra em que estavam presentes tendências românticas e revivalistas, marcadas por uma linguagem eclética. Nesta fase, distinguiu-se Ferreira das Tabuletas, autor de composições ornamentais aplicadas em fachadas de vários prédios de Lisboa, nas quais estão presentes simbologias maçónicas.

Nas primeiras décadas do século XX, o azulejo foi influenciado pela Arte Nova que aparece nos trabalhos de Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro e em numerosos frontões e faixas decorativas produzidas nas fábricas de Sacavém, Desterro, Carvalhino e Fonte Nova. A Arts Deco, que teve uma presença mais discreta na azulejaria portuguesa, foi predominantemente utilizada em vestíbulos, tabernas e num núcleo numeroso de fachadas em Vila Franca de Xira.

Durante os dois primeiros quartéis do século XX, a azulejaria revivalista ocupou um espaço importante, sendo numerosos os painéis de pendor historicista e folclórico produzidos durante este período. O principal representante desta corrente foi Jorge Colaço, autor de uma vasta obra em que a técnica da pintura a óleo se procurou adaptar ao azulejo.

A partir de 1950, os artistas plásticos portugueses começaram a interessar-se pela utilização do azulejo. Para isso contribuiram Jorge Barradas, considerado o renovador da cerâmica portuguesa e Keil do Amaral que, nos contactos com os arquitectos brasileiros, redescobriu as potencialidades deste material de revestimento cerâmico. Embora sejam numerosos os artistas plásticos que ensaiaram experiências no campo da azulejaria, alguns deles conquistaram uma posição de destaque mercê da dimensão e da qualidade da obra produzida, como é o caso de Maria Keil, Manuel Cargaleiro, Querubim Lapa e Eduardo Nery. Na sequência de encomendas feitas por entidades oficiais ou por particulares, a azulejaria moderna portuguesa enriqueceu-se com alguns exemplares notáveis como os conjuntos de painéis da Av. Infante Santo e do Metropolitano, a fachada da Reitoria da Universidade e o painel da Av. Calouste Gulbenkian, todos em Lisboa.

A par desta azulejaria de características eruditas, o azulejo português continuou, nesta segunda metade do século XX, a manifestar-se através de exemplares menos elaborados ou de carácter popular, como os revestimentos das fachadas das casas dos emigrantes e os registos, cartelas e painéis naturalistas, desenhados pelos artífices que trabalham nas fábricas. Mas, através de todas estas formas, continuou a revelar a sua vitalidade e a reafirmar-se como uma das manifestações mais originais das artes decorativas europeias.

 

Fonte: www.oazulejo.net/oazulejo_frame.html

 

PS: Texto gentilmente enviado pela amiga do Flickr, da cidade do Porto, Portugal, Maria Aurora Pires.

 

English

Since five centuries, tile occupies a prominent position among the Portuguese decorative arts, and although throughout its history to have suffered multiple influences, developed in Portugal including specific features deserve highlighting the richness of color, monumentality, a sense scenic architecture and integration.

It was during the Arab occupation of the Iberian Peninsula that the people had contact with the ceramic mural. The term "tile" is derived, moreover, an Arabic word (al zulej) which means smooth, polished stone.

Until the late fifteenth century, the Andalusian craftsmen have produced large boards covered with glazed clay colored uniform that, once cooked, cut into geometric pieces that were then recombined into beautiful decorative designs. This process, known as "tongs," because it involved the use of pliers, was slow and difficult in addition to requiring that the author accompany the consignment to the place of its application. The inability to export the finished product has already constituted a major constraint, and perhaps this is why the existing copies in Portugal are scarce. The most famous are the Palace of Sintra (Chapel room where he was imprisoned and Alfonso VI).

At the end of the sixteenth century comes a transformation technique that leads to the appearance of the tile as we know today: a clay plate with a square face plain glazed or decorated with colored drawings. However, the separation of colors on the glass surface caused a problem because the substances used were water soluble and mingled both in the implementation phase and during cooking. To avoid this mishap is used as separator, a barrier consisting of fat linseed oil and manganese. This technique, known as "dry rope" is almost always associated to an increase in "edge" of the surface of clay, which functioned as a mechanical barrier in the separation zones of the glazes. The "edge" or "cuenca" only began to be used alone after the introduction of another innovation: the "sintering" which consisted of heating the glaze at high temperatures before being applied.

Tiles "dry rope" and "edge" gone down in history with the name of Mudejar Moorish-or Hispano-Moorish. During the sixteenth century were imported in large quantities to Portugal and used in churches and palaces. Some specimens were celebrated as the tiles of "dry rope" representing the armillary sphere, commissioned by King Manuel I, who still line the courtyard of the Gargoyles at the Palace of Sintra. The drawings of the Hispano-Arab influence remained of the decorations and setting out the Arabs laçarias and geometric patterns. In the late sixteenth century comes another crucial technical advance: thanks to the use of white tin glaze and metallic pigments, it became possible to paint directly on the glaze. This new technique known as "majolica" (probably a corruption of the word Majorca, port from where the tiles were imported) was brought to Portugal by Francisco Niculi. With it came the Renaissance aesthetics associated with its own decorative language that evolved later in mannerism.

Influenced by the provisions of the outputs the Council of Trent abolished all that could remind the Islamic art in place and started to proliferate the Italo-Flemish ornamental motifs. This period there are some outstanding works among which deserves special mention flooring tiles of the chapel of S. Roque, Lisbon, painted by Francisco de Matos in 1584.

At the end of the sixteenth century, Portugal falls under the rule of Kings. The economic difficulties that do not allow easy access to the tapestries, stained glass windows and marble, combined with the experience accumulated by the Portuguese in the arts and ceramics, leading to maximum utilization of the tile with decorative material. It appears then that numerous examples of geometric compositions ranging from the combinations in chess to more complex forms such as "tile frame," which with its oblique lines, they decompose and model surfaces where applied.

Following these examples, there were the famous "carpet" of the seventeenth century, formed by the repetition of patterns polychrome. These patterns resulted from a combination of a variable number of tiles, forming squares of 4, 16, 36 or more elements. The various rugs, each with their different pattern, juxtaposed and framed by bands, lined up and down the walls of churches and sometimes also the ceiling, producing amazing decorative effects. The Church of Marvila in Santarém and the Church of St. Quentin, in Sobral's Montagraço are two fine examples of use of this type of tile.

From the last quarter of the seventeenth century, several factors have caused profound changes in the aesthetics of the tile. The Portuguese sailors who had traveled to the East, released in Europe in Chinese blue and white earthenware which gained a taste of the countries of northern Europe and later spread to southern countries. The tiling has therefore been replaced by monochromatic, then beginning to surface various patterns of "carpet" of the seventeenth century, played in blue and white.

At the same time, sweeping through Europe in the Baroque aesthetic in which the components of staging and theatricality of life and morals were reflected on all forms of art. Then comes the tile historians, in which several characters are captured in full action and the scenes represented are surrounded by extremely rich frames that act as a "proscenium arch" of a stage. All this coincides with the regaining of independence from Portugal in 1640 and with the birth of a new aristocracy which quickly prospered and seeks to create your own scenarios. The palaces are then covered with beautiful tile panels representing battles, hunted and scenes from everyday life. Most of these panels are copied and adapted from engravings that then come to France and spend dictating fashions.

In stairwells and hallways of wealthy palaces, there are also the famous "figures of invitation" which represent armed soldiers or porters, while the homes of more limited resources, it uses the frames with repeated modules, which are predominant "albarradas" . Around the same time, "the spare figure, also of Dutch influence, Portugal won in a personal expression and an unusual decorative power, despite its design receding hairline and a little care.

But it was mainly in churches and convents that purchased the tile baroque monumentality that immortalized him. There are many examples scattered throughout the country, depicting scenes from the Old and New Testament episodes and counting of the saints, in a series of panels assume that sometimes a character narrative that recalls the almost comic. The church of San Lorenzo in Almansil and the Convent of Loios in Arraiolos, are two cases of Portuguese tile brilliant this season.

It should be noted that the expression assumed by the Portuguese baroque tiles was strongly linked to some painters of tiles that marred from the start, with his personal style. The first and perhaps most important, was Gabriel del Barco, born in Spain who came to Lisbon for 20 years, where he died in 1703. Influenced by Dutch tiles, particularly by Jan van Oort who swiped some panels, revealed in his painting little concern for accuracy and perfection in design, by means of a dash vigorous and spontaneous, giving primacy to the scenic effects that would mark the Portuguese tiles during several decades.

But equal emphasis deserves Antonio Oliveira Bernardes (1660-1730) and all his disciples among them is her son whose Polycarp of workshops left some of the most brilliant of tile coatings Portuguese baroque.

Around 1750, after the death of D. John V and already in the consulate of the Marquis of Pombal, the decorative tiles began to be influenced by the aesthetics rocaille. Disappeared then the decorative exuberance of the previous period, returned the polychromatic with a palette of four colors and trims now display the bat wings and scoops asymmetrical, typical of the style of Louis XV. Mouse Factory, founded in 1764, were produced some of the finest examples of this period and it is possible that there has emerged one of the most admired: The Garden of Tiles Thursday in Lisbon.

But the time Pombal was also marked by a kind of utilitarian tiles that emerged after the 1755 earthquake. During the reconstruction of the city, the Marquis of Pombal encouraged the production of tiles, which were inexpensive material, hygienic and durable. The halls and stairs of the downtown Lisbon were then covered with polychrome tiles patterned with simple but highly decorative designs, which were definitively linked to Pombaline.

It is also from the second half of the eighteenth century and especially after the earthquake that proliferated throughout the country, and particularly in London, the records of saints, small devotional panels that were placed on the facades in order to obtain protection against disasters. In Lisbon, the images that appear most frequently are those of Sto. Anthony, patron of the city, and St. Martial, the saint invoked against fire.

But around 1780, already in the reign of King Mary I, there is the neo-classical style. The Portuguese tile adhered quickly to the influences that came from Europe and expressed itself mainly in the form of frames with straight frames and decorative elements in polychrome dominated by rosettes, wreaths, plumes, the "chinoiserie" and the medallions with landscapes . The "Queen Mary style," as it became known in Portugal, lasted until the early nineteenth century.

But then, Portugal would plunge into a serious political and economic crisis that affected the productive activity, including the manufacture of tiles. First the French invasion, after Brazil's independence and later civil war of 1832-1834. Much of the pottery Portuguese were forced to close and no longer respond to orders from its regular customers.

In Brazil, where since the seventeenth century were sent large numbers of Portuguese tiles, the tile is going to have a different use: the lining of the facades. Initially, only white tiles were used on the facades of churches, but later this practice was extended to urban buildings that cover patterned polychrome. From the mid-nineteenth century, this practice has spread to Portugal, brought by wealthy emigrants returning to their land and became known in history as the "Brazilians". The facades of the towns in the north (Porto, Ovar, Aveiro) and later the South, will cover the tiles are produced in factories that emerged after the economic recovery that began about 1840.

This tile facade, semi-industrial manufacturing, coexisted with other trends that were present in romantic revival, marked by an eclectic language. At this stage, he distinguished himself from tablets Ferreira, author of ornamental compositions applied on the facades of several buildings in Lisbon, in which there are Masonic symbols.

In the first decades of the twentieth century, the tile was influenced by Art Nouveau which appears in the work of Raphael Bordallo Pinheiro and numerous gables and decorative bands produced in factories Sacavem, Desterro, Carvalhino and New Source. The Arts Deco, who had a discreet presence in the Portuguese tiles, was predominantly used in entrance halls, taverns and a large core of facades in Vila Franca de Xira.

During the first two quarters of the twentieth century, revivalist tiles occupied an important place, there are numerous panels and historicist bent folk produced during this period. The main representative of this current was Colaço George, author of a vast work in which the technique of oil painting that sought to adapt to the tile.

Since 1950, the Portuguese artists began to become interested in the use of tile. Contributed to this Jorge Barradas, considered the renewal of Portuguese ceramics and Keil do Amaral, in contacts with Brazilian architects, has rediscovered the potential of ceramic material. Although there are many artists who rehearsed the experiences in the field of tiles, some of them have gained a leading position thanks to the size and quality of work produced, as is the case of Mary Keil, Manuel Cargaleiro, Cherubim and Lapa Eduardo Nery. Following orders made by authorities or private persons, the modern Portuguese tiling enriched with some notable examples as the sets of panels of Avenida Infante Santo and the Metropolitan, the facade of Regents of the University and the panel of Avenida Calouste Gulbenkian , all in Lisbon.

Alongside the classical features tilework, the tile Portuguese continued in the second half of the twentieth century, manifesting itself through less elaborate or copies of a popular nature, such as the linings of the facades of the houses of emigrants and records, cards and boards naturalists, designed by artisans who work in factories. But through all these forms, continued to show their vitality and reassert itself as one of the most original expressions of European decorative arts.

Crying Girl

Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923–1997)

Crying Girl, 1964

Crying Girl was one of Roy Lichtenstein’s first ventures into producing enamel-on-steel multiples of the comic-strip imagery he had first introduced in conventional hand-painted canvases. This innovative, industrial means of “mass production” was as ground-breaking as his distinctive subject matter. With other leading American Pop artists, Lichtenstein turned to popular culture and the worlds of commerce and advertising for attitudes and approaches as well as for content. Eliminating any trace of the individual artist’s hand in favor of reinforcing the notion of its mechanical origin, here Lichtenstein emphasized in rigid black outlines and the benday dots of printing the primacy of the image itself – a sentimental, glamorized and equally “mechanical” idealization of the American girl.

 

The miracle of Jesus walking on water is found in Matthew 14:22-34, Mark 6:45-53, and John 6:15-21. The idea of a powerful person possessing the ability to walk on water was not original when the Gospels were written, but in earlier classical texts it is usually presented in terms which acknowledge the sheer impossibility of the act.Three of the four Evangelists – Matthew, Mark, and John – describe the miracle of Jesus walking on water, and it’s one of the most famous miracles recounted in the New Testament. The ‘walking on water’ miracle tells of how Jesus walks across the Sea of Galilee during a storm, to aid his disciple, Peter.Jesus walking on the water, or on the sea, is depicted as one of the miracles of Jesus recounted in the New Testament. There are accounts of this event in three Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and John—but it is not included in the Gospel of Luke. This story, following the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, tells how Jesus sent the disciples by ship back to the "other side" of the Sea of Galilee (the western side) while he remained behind, alone, to pray. Night fell and the sea arose as the ship became caught in a wind storm. After rowing against the wind for most of the night, the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water. They were frightened, thinking that they were seeing a spirit, but when Jesus told them not to be afraid, they were reassured. After Jesus entered the ship, the wind ceased, and they arrived at land.The miracle of Jesus walking on the water, recorded in three of the Gospels (Matthew 14:22–36; Mark 6:45–56; John 6:16–21), came on the heels of His miraculous feeding of the 5,000 with only five loaves of bread and two fish (Matthew 14:17). But it was the miracle of Jesus walking on the water that, more than any other, convinced Jesus’ disciples that He was indeed the Son of God (Matthew 14:32–33).This event takes place shortly after another famous miracle: the so-called ‘feeding of the five thousand’, which we have previously discussed here (exploring, among other things, why ‘feeding of the five thousand’ is a somewhat erroneous title for this event).In that famous miracle, Jesus asked the bread and fish to be brought to him, before telling the crowds of gathered people to sit down upon the grass.Jesus tells them to be of good cheer and not to be afraid. He tells them who he is, and Peter says to Jesus, ‘if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.’ So Jesus ushers Peter to him, and Peter climbs out of the ship and, sure enough, he walks on the surface of the water towards Jesus.

 

Peter is afraid when the wind blows violently, and he calls to Jesus to save him. Jesus reaches out his hand and catches him, saying, ‘O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?’

 

When Jesus and Peter made it onto the ship, the wind ceased. The disciples all worshipped Jesus, declaring it to be true that he is the Son of God.

 

Jesus took just five loaves and two fish and looked up to heaven, blessing them, before breaking the food. Then he gave the food to the disciples, who in turn gave it to the crowds of people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve baskets full of leftovers. The number of those who ate was ‘about five thousand men, beside women and children’ (Matthew 14:21).

 

The story unfolds at the Sea of Galilee, which lies in the lower portion of the Jordan Valley in a mountain range that rises to 4,000 feet above sea level. The lake itself is 700 feet below the Mediterranean Sea. One of the more noteworthy aspects of this body of water is that it is greatly susceptible to sudden and extremely violent storms. These storms are caused by the cold air rushing down from the mountains surrounding it and colliding with the warm, moist air rising off the surface of the water itself.

 

“When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. When they had rowed three or three and a half miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were terrified. But he said to them, ‘It is I; don’t be afraid.’ Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading” (John 6:16–21).

 

There are several significant points to recognize about this miracle. First, Matthew tells us that “the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake” (Matthew 14:24–25). Though they were only to travel a short distance, the storm was so violent that, despite all their efforts to control their boat, the storm had driven them nearly four miles out into the very midst of the sea. Being the fourth watch of the night (3:00 AM to 6:00 AM), they had been rowing and straining at their oars for approaching nine hours! They were totally exhausted.

 

Mark tells us that, when the disciples saw Jesus walking on the lake, they thought He was a ghost. They cried out, because they all saw Him and were terrified (Mark 6:48–50). And this brings us to the second significant point of this miracle. Jesus always comes to us in the storms of life. This is reminiscent of the words of God to Isaiah: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you” (Isaiah 43:2). The Lord may not come at the time we think He should come, because He knows when we need Him the most. Jesus had waited until the boat was as far from land as possible, when all their hope was gone. In essence, Jesus was testing the disciples’ faith, and this meant removing every human prop. Why did Jesus walk on the water? To show His disciples that the very thing they feared, the raging, seething sea, was merely a set of steps for Him to come to them. Often we fear the difficult experiences of life such as illness, loss of loved ones, and financial hardships only to discover that these experiences can bring Jesus closer to us.

 

But we have to ask, why did they not recognize Jesus? The answer is they were not looking for Him. Had they been waiting by faith, they would have known Him instantly. Instead, they jumped to the false conclusion that His appearance was that of a ghost. The point is this: fear and faith cannot live in the same heart, for fear frequently blinds the eyes to the presence of the Lord.

 

The third significant point is that Jesus proved Himself to be in command of the elements, something only God can do. He revealed this truth to the disciples who recognized His divinity and responded with a confession of faith in Jesus as God: “The wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God’” (Matthew 14:32–33). This was the first time Jesus was called the Son of God by the disciples, a statement that, in fact, built on what they had said earlier about Him in Matthew 8:27: “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him.” Here they answer their own question: “Truly you are the Son of God.”

 

Though they had a long way to go in their spiritual understanding, the disciples were growing in their faith in the Lord. Also, this was the first time the disciples are said to have worshiped Jesus. In Matthew 2:11, the magi from the East worshiped Jesus. Later, a leper is said to have worshiped Jesus (Matthew 8:2). A synagogue ruler does the same thing in Matthew 9:18. But this is the first time the disciples worshiped Him. It is also important to note that their worship is joined to their confession (Matthew 14:33).

 

And this is what worship is, acknowledging who God is and praising Him both for who He is and for what He has done. It was in this story that the disciples took the first step and worshiped Jesus as the Son of God.

 

Biblical narratives[edit]

 

Jesus walking on water in stained glass, St Giles' Cathedral

The story of Jesus walking on water is retold in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John; it is not in the Gospel of Luke. This episode is narrated towards the end of the Ministry of Jesus in Galilee before the key turning points halfway through the gospel narratives where Peter proclaimed Jesus as Christ and saw the Transfiguration.[1][2] In all three gospels it follows the feeding of the five thousand, where Jesus had withdrawn by ship to a desert place "belonging to"[3] Bethsaida after hearing of the death of John the Baptist, but was followed by the crowds who travelled on foot.[1]

 

At the end of the evening, the disciples boarded a ship to cross to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, without Jesus who went up the mountain to pray alone. John alone specifies they were headed "toward Capernaum".[4] During the journey on the sea, the disciples were distressed by wind and waves, but saw Jesus walking towards them on the sea. John's Gospel specifies that they were five or six kilometers away from their departure point. The disciples were startled to see Jesus, but he told them not to be afraid.[1]

 

Matthew's account adds that Peter asked Jesus, "if it is you", to tell him, or command him, to come to Jesus on the water (waters).[5] After Peter came down out of the ship and walked on the water, he became afraid of the storm and began to sink. He called out to Jesus for help. Jesus caught him, and commenting on his lack of faith led him back to the ship, whereupon the storm stopped. Matthew also notes that the disciples called Jesus the Son of God.[1] The fact that the John account also lacks this detail suggests that this account of "St. Peter's venture"[6] is a redactional addition by Matthew.[7]

 

Part of a series of articles on

Peter in the Bible

Detail from El Greco

In the New Testament

Walking on water Confession Servant's ear Denial Restoration Vision of a sheet Liberation Incident at Antioch Epistles 1 Peter 2 Peter

Other

Cross Sword Tomb Quo vadis? Primacy In Judaism In Islam

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In all three accounts, after Jesus got into the ship, the wind ceased and they reached the shore. Only John's account has their ship immediately reach the shore. Matthew's and Mark's accounts end at this point, but John mentions that the next day some people from the other side of the sea that looked for Jesus, noted that the disciples left without him, but they didn't know where he went. When they came to Capernaum and asked Jesus how he came there, instead of answering the question, he told the crowd that they followed him, not because they had seen signs, but because of the free loaves they had eaten the day before, and he advised them not to seek earthly gains, but aim for a life based on higher spiritual values.[1][8]

 

Gospel of Mark (c. 66–70 AD)[edit]

6:45 And straightway he constrained his disciples to enter into the boat, and to go before him unto the other side to Bethsaida, while he himself sendeth the multitude away. 46 And after he had taken leave of them, he departed into the mountain to pray. 47 And when even was come, the boat was in the midst of the sea, and he alone on the land. 48 And seeing them distressed in rowing, for the wind was contrary unto them, about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking on the sea; and he would have passed by them: 49 but they, when they saw him walking on the sea, supposed that it was a ghost, and cried out; 50 for they all saw him, and were troubled. But he straightway spake with them, and saith unto them, Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid. 51 And he went up unto them into the boat; and the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in themselves; 52 for they understood not concerning the loaves, but their heart was hardened. 53 And when they had crossed over, they came to the land unto Gennesaret, and moored to the shore.

 

— Mark 6:45–53 American Standard Version

Gospel of Matthew (c. 80–90 AD)[edit]

14:22 And straightway he constrained the disciples to enter into the boat, and to go before him unto the other side, till he should send the multitudes away. 23 And after he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into the mountain apart to pray: and when even was come, he was there alone. 24 But the boat was now in the midst of the sea, distressed by the waves; for the wind was contrary. 25 And in the fourth watch of the night he came unto them, walking upon the sea. 26 And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a ghost; and they cried out for fear. 27 But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. 28 And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee upon the waters. 29 And he said, Come. And Peter went down from the boat, and walked upon the waters to come to Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, Lord, save me. 31 And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and took hold of him, and saith unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? 32 And when they were gone up into the boat, the wind ceased. 33 And they that were in the boat worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God. 34 And when they had crossed over, they came to the land, unto Gennesaret.

 

— Matthew 14:22–34 American Standard Version

Gospel of John (c. 90–100 AD)[edit]

6:15 Jesus therefore perceiving that they were about to come and take him by force, to make him king, withdrew again into the mountain himself alone. 16 And when evening came, his disciples went down unto the sea; 17 and they entered into a boat, and were going over the sea unto Capernaum. And it was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18 And the sea was rising by reason of a great wind that blew. 19 When therefore they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they behold Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the boat: and they were afraid. 20 But he saith unto them, It is I; be not afraid. 21 They were willing therefore to receive him into the boat: and straightway the boat was at the land whither they were going.

 

— (John 6:15–21 American Standard Version)

in other versions at biblegateway Matthew.14:22–34;Mark.6:45–53;John.6:15–21 YLTTemplate:Bibleverse with invalid book.

 

Interpretations[edit]

 

Christ walking on the sea, by Amédée Varint

Christian teachings[edit]

The walking on the sea episode has specific interpretations within Christian teachings and has been viewed by scholars as important due to its perceived impact on the formation of Christian ecumenical creeds, as discussed below.[9]

 

This event is also seen as a divine fulfillment of words of Job, “Who alone spreadeth out the heavens and walketh upon the waves of the sea,” Job (9:8).[10]

 

One aspect of the pericope (passage) is how it highlights the relationship between Jesus and his apostles. Merrill Tenney states that the incident is in essence centered on that aspect, rather than their peril or the miracle itself.[11] Dwight Pentecost and John Danilson state that this miracle was deliberately designed by Jesus to instruct his apostles and increase their faith.[12] David Cook and Craig Evans note that "of little faith" is a somewhat common expression in Matthew (e.g. 8:26 when calming the storm or 16:8 regarding bread and the Pharisees just before the Confession of Peter) and may mean "of no faith".[13]

 

Richard Cassidy states that this episode sheds special light on the position of Peter who had faith in Jesus and acknowledged Jesus' extraordinary powers, and by considering to walk on water himself, wanted to share in the act of Jesus before the other disciples for he considered himself closest to Jesus.[14] Cook and Evans note that the "Lord Save me" cry of Peter is similar to Matthew 8:25 and Mark 4:38 in the calming the storm episode and again emphasizes the reliance of the disciples on Jesus.[13]

 

Cook and Evans also echo Pentecost's interpretation that the detail regarding "many stadia away" and "battered by the waves" were intended to emphasize that Jesus could walk on the water far away from the shore, on a rough sea, thus establishing his dominance over nature.[12][13] R. T. France has also pointed out that the details regarding the boat being a long way from the shore, and the portrayal of Peter sinking are intended as a confirmation of the depth of the water.[15]

 

Scholars such as Ulrich Luz and separately Dale Allison view the pericope as instrumental in asserting the divinity of Jesus among early Christians.[9] Alan Robinson sees the pericope as important in establishing the belief in the early Church that the disciples viewed Jesus as the Son of God.[16] Dale Allison states that Matthew's presentation emphasizes that God the Father is willing to share divine power with his son and that the impact of this pericope on the affirmation of the divinity of Jesus in the ecumenical creeds is undeniable.[17]

 

Historical-critical analysis[edit]

 

François Boucher Cathédrale Saint-Louis (1766) Versailles

 

The beach of the Sea of Galilee, in Israel

 

Jesus walking on water. Armenian manuscript. Daniel of Uranc gospel, 1433.

Scholars who hold that the story records actual events do so on the basis that Jesus, as Son of God, was above the laws of nature; or, in a variation, that Jesus projected an image himself while actually remaining on the shore.[18] The meaning of the episode is held to be inherent in its miraculous nature: "The meaning of the pericope (story) ... only has meaning ... if it is understood as relating a miraculous event which really took place" (Leopold Sabourin, 1975).[18]

 

In recent scholarship, Bart Ehrman has championed the view that in general, it is impossible to either prove or disprove supernatural events such as miracles using the historical method, for proving them would require belief in a supernatural world not amenable to historical analysis, and disproving them would require historical evidence that is usually hard to come by.[19]

 

Catholic scholar John P. Meier believes that the miraculous walk on water is a purely theological narrative, without historical foundation. Oral tradition, according to Meier, is intertwined with references to the Old Testament (Jesus' answer "I am" is in accordance with the vision of Jesus as Yahweh of the Early Church) and post-resurrection perceptions. In particular, the narrative part of the story seems to fall into the apocalyptic genre, meaning by this term a genre characterized by an accentuated symbolism and light-shadow contrasts. Initially Jesus collects the Apostles on a boat and sends them away alone, to go alone to the mountain to pray, but promising to meet them on the other side of the "sea"; the apostles have difficulty in reaching the other shore, but Jesus appears and everything ends well. According to Meier this is a metaphor of the Early Church immediately after Easter: Jesus leaves his disciples with the ascension promising to return, but occasionally visits them during the journey to support them (through the Eucharist). Like all apocalyptic literature, his function is to comfort a community in need.[20]

 

Some scholars have held the view that while this event took place, it was not miraculous: Albert Schweitzer, for example, suggested that the disciples saw Jesus walking on the shore, but were confused by high wind and darkness; some scholars who accept this "misperception thesis" argue that Mark originally wrote that Jesus walked on the seashore rather than on the sea, and that John had a more accurate version.[21] Others have held that the entire episode is a "pious legend" (B. H. Branscomb, 1937), based perhaps on some lost incident; perhaps Jesus waded through the surf (Vincent Taylor, 1957), or perhaps he walked on a sand bar (Sherman Johnson, 1972, J.D.M. Derrett, 1981).[22]

 

There are scholars who regard the story as an example of "creative symbolism", or myth,[23] which probably was understood by a part of the audience literally and by others allegorically.[24] Rudolf Bultmann pointed out that the sea-walking theme is familiar in many cultures.[23] Furthermore, the motif of walking on water was associated with kings like Xerxes or Alexander, but also rejected and satirized as humanly impossible and as proverbial for the arrogance of the rulers by Menander, Dio Chrysostom or in 2 Maccabees 5:21.[24]

 

Others look for an origin in the mythic world of the Old Testament itself (Christ's victory over the waters paralleling Yahweh's defeat of the primeval Sea, representing Chaos),[25] or within the New Testament, as an originally simple story later embellished with Hellenistic and Old Testament details.[26] In the Hebrew Bible, God gives power over the sea, e.g. to Moses (Ex 14:21–29) or to Elijah (2 kg 2:8).[24]

 

Adela Yarbro Collins concludes that the text characterizes Jesus as Messiah and king of Israel endowed with divine properties.[24]

 

Russian skeptic Kirill Eskov in his "Nature"-praised work The Gospel of Afranius argues that it was politically prudent for the local Roman administration to strengthen Jesus's influence by spreading rumours about his miracles via active measures, with this story originating as a well-crafted deliberate lie.

 

Literary-critical analysis[edit]

See also: Subversive Symmetry

Biblical scholar George W. Young dismisses the naturalistic explanations, the traditional and the historical critical perspectives. He contends that these methods of exegesis rely on factual interpretations and fail to capture the full meaning of the text based on its structure. Instead, Young explores the pericope with literary-critical methods as narrative art. Young views the text as fiction, and uses tools and terms often associated with fantastic literature to analyze it.[27]

 

Young analyses the pericope as the expression of three entangled, conflicting perspectives on reality: (i) the "conventional reality" based on sensory perception; (ii) the "impossible" vision of Jesus resulting in the astonishment of the observers; (iii) the narrator's metaphysical comment in Mark 6:52 identifying Jesus as the Son of God.[28]

 

See also[edit]

iconChristianity portal

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jesus Christ walking on water.

Life of Jesus in the New Testament

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_walking_on_water

Portland's Tip Top Cleaners has gone to the great High Street in the sky, but its iconic sign remains. The space where generations of Portlanders dropped off laundry and picked up dry cleaning is now occupied by a mini vintage mall.

 

One of the 12 vendors sells rugs, including the Afghan war rugs seen here. In my opinion, they're priced to take you to the cleaners. In any case, it was my first exposure to this genre. I went in search of answers to the many questions these rugs provoked. My quest was successful. Read on!

 

"Ultimately, Afghan war rugs are produced for the market. It’s that simple."

 

The real story behind Afghanistan’s war rugs

 

The war rugs are distinctive and dynamic, but they’re often wildly misunderstood.

 

By Jamal J. Elias

Fast Company

9 September 2021

 

The end of the U.S.-led military intervention in Afghanistan has resulted in the withdrawal of most foreign aid workers and contractors.

 

It may well also spell the demise of the country’s war rug industry.

As a specialist in the visual and material culture of the Islamic world, I first became aware of war rugs when I was working on a book on truck decoration in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 1990s.

 

Since that time, I’ve followed changes in this industry and cultivated relationships with Pakistani and Afghan rug sellers.

War rugs – with symbols of war – are distinctive and dynamic in their styles. But they’re often misunderstood by buyers, journalists and curators.

 

The growth of the war rug market

 

There is no evidence of the existence of Afghan war rugs prior to the late-20th century.

The earliest rugs seem to have emerged shortly after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 from refugee camps in Pakistan, where millions of Afghans had relocated.

 

Featuring guns, helicopters and tanks, they were small and shoddily made with coarse wool. Rug sellers and souvenir shops pitched them to workers for non-government organizations and Western government officials.

 

The designs have become more sophisticated over the years.

English words were added, intentionally or accidentally garbled with Cyrillic words and letters to evoke a Soviet connection.

 

After 9/11, fixed patterns started to emerge – a sign that weavers were adhering to templates provided by rug merchants.

 

The images made it clear that they were hoping to primarily appeal to an American souvenir market.

 

One popular design commemorates the 9/11 attacks, pointing out that it was not Afghans who were responsible, but terrorists from other countries.

 

Another depicts a map of Afghanistan, professing Afghanistan’s friendship with the U.S. with text and images. It has the misspelled word “terrarism” written on the region of the country associated with the Taliban.

 

The writing on some rugs declares that they’re made in Sheberghan, a city in northern Afghanistan famous for its Turkmen weavers.

 

It’s unlikely that they’re all made there. However, whether they’re made in northern Afghanistan or in Afghan settlements in Pakistan, the word “Shebergan,” written in English, is supposed to signal that these rugs are authentically Afghan.

 

Such rugs are readily available on eBay and were – until recently – sold by souvenir sellers in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan’s cities with the largest number of foreign workers and tourists.

 

With the Taliban’s return to power, it remains unclear what the future of rug making and its market will be.

 

Over the years, war motifs have found their way into higher-quality, larger carpets, with small tanks appearing where rows of medallions might traditionally have been. Other rugs feature a more comprehensive integration of modern and traditional patterns.

 

While these larger carpets take substantially more time to make and cost more money than the far more common smaller, coarser rugs, they nevertheless don’t meet the standards of fine carpets, which suggests they’re geared more to souvenir collectors than those seeking luxury home furnishings.

 

Misreading the meaning of the rugs

 

Over the past 20 years, Afghan war rugs have garnered considerable attention.

 

Books in German and English describe, catalog and contextualize them. Magazines and major newspapers have run features on them, and university art galleries have exhibited them.

 

Within the coverage, there’s a tendency to see war rugs as a reflection of the emotional lives of the weavers, who, wracked by war and violence, felt compelled to incorporate these motifs into their designs.

 

Articles and exhibits often ignore the reality that rug brokers and dealers – not weavers – are the ones who are attuned to fickle market tastes.

 

Studies on labor in the rug industry note that they’re normally the ones who supply weavers with new patterns, color schemes and yarn. I’ve seen the same dynamic in my own long-term observations.

 

Yet you’ll still see exhibit curators describe war rugs as combining “ancient practice with the latest in the daily lives of the weavers,” or as windows into the perspectives of everyday Afghans – the “underdogs” in a country subsumed by strife.

 

In 2014, The New York Times reported that weavers had incorporated “the grim realities of life in a war zone into their traditional craft.”

 

Six years earlier, Smithsonian Magazine buried a brief acknowledgment that the rugs are for tourists under claims – with scant evidence – that the earliest war rugs were intended for Afghan buyers who resented the Soviet invasion. Later, the writer notes that female weavers drew from their own lives when they incorporated symbols of violence.

 

The appeal of the trauma market

 

With so much evidence showing that Afghan war rugs are produced in response to market demand, why do claims that they’re based on the weavers’ experiences of war persist?

 

Part of the answer lies in the global market for handicrafts. Buyers want to feel like they’re purchasing artisanal products when, in reality, they’re sold by the thousands in chain stores and through online storefronts such as Ten Thousand Villages or Etsy.

 

Implying that rugs are a source of income for traumatized and destitute Afghan women ignores the reality that the overwhelming majority of profits go to middlemen and dealers.

 

A work-from-home model encourages workers to devote all available time to rug production. It also encourages child labor: Children are either tasked with making the crude rugs or are forced to take up the responsibilities of adults.

 

The appeal of war rugs – and the insistence that their designs represent a victim’s experience of war – seems to reflect a vicarious desire to peer into the emotional experience of Afghan civilians.

 

In reality, though, this gives primacy not to the actual experiences of Afghans, but to the viewers’ and customers’ ideas of victimhood.

 

The granular realities of the loss of home and animals, family deaths or food insecurity aren’t represented in the rugs. Nor should we assume weavers would wish to put their own traumas on display for the world.

 

Modern rugs are not venues for self-expression, and the designs tend to contain an index of symbols that reflect an outsider’s understanding of war: AK-47s, 9/11, security politics and drones.

 

Nowhere in the rugs do we see the well-documented psychological and health impacts on Afghanistan’s population caused by decades of deprivation and violence.

 

Real trauma is not only hard to turn into a commodity, it is also hard to live with – even in souvenirs.

www.fastcompany.com/90678962/the-real-story-behind-afghan...

 

Jamal J. Elias is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Church of the Primus of Saint Peter is a Franciscan church located in Tabgha, Israel, on the northwest coast of the Sea of Galilee. It refers to the evangelical episode of Peter's conferment of primacy within the group of Apostles and the Church (Gospel of John 21,1-19).

 

The modern structure was built in 1933 and incorporates parts of a former 4th century church.

At the base of its walls, in front of the tall altar, are found foundations of the 4th century church.

In the 9th century, the church was called the place of coal. This name refers to the episode of Jesus' meal preparation for the apostles, building a coal fire on which to cook the fish.

 

La Chiesa del Primato di San Pietro è una chiesa francescana situata a Tabgha, in Israele, sulla riva nord-occidentale del Mare di Galilea. Essa fa riferimento all'episodio evangelico del conferimento a Pietro del primato all'interno del gruppo degli Apostoli e della Chiesa (Vangelo di Giovanni 21,1-19).

 

La moderna struttura è stata costruita nel 1933 e incorpora parti di una precedente chiesa IV secolo.

Alla base delle sue pareti, di fronte all'altare maggiore, sono visibili fondazioni della chiesa del IV secolo.

Nel IX secolo, la chiesa fu chiamata come il luogo dei carboni. Questo nome si riferisce all'episodio della preparazione di pasto di Gesù per gli apostoli, costruendo un fuoco di carbone su cui cuocere il pesce.

"In the spring of 1571, a group of militant Calvinists along with a band of pirates began raiding Dutch villages, particularly focusing on the arrest and capture of the Catholic clergy. In June of that year, the neighboring town of Gorkum was attacked, and the clergy were captured. Fifteen priests, the majority of them Franciscans, had been imprisoned.

 

Upon hearing of their arrest, John immediately disguised himself and sought to bring these priests the consolation of the sacraments. For several days he was successful, but was eventually captured along with three other priests. These nineteen were imprisoned in Gorkum from June 26 until July 6, undergoing much abuse as they were asked to deny the tenets of the Catholic faith.

 

On July 6, the nineteen martyrs were transferred to the prison at Dortrecht. Along the way, villagers were charged admission for viewing the torture of the priests. Once in Dortecht, each of them was asked to deny belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and in the primacy of the Pope. Each one remained steadfast in his profession of faith. Despite an order from the Dutch ruler William of Orange that the priests not be harmed, they were cruelly mutilated and hanged on the night of July 9, 1572. The Dominican John of Cologne, great athlete of Christ, had won his final victory of martyrdom. Along with his companions, he was beatified on November 14, 1675 and canonized on June 29, 1865." Today is the feast of the Martyrs of Gorkum.

 

Stained glass detail of St John of Cologne from St Dominic's Priory church in San Francisco, CA.

Portland's Tip Top Cleaners has gone to the great Main Street in the sky, but its iconic sign remains. The space where generations of Portlanders dropped off laundry and picked up dry cleaning is now occupied by a mini vintage mall.

 

One of the 12 vendors sells rugs, including the Afghan war rugs seen here. In my opinion, they're priced to take you to the cleaners. In any case, it was my first exposure to this genre. I went in search of answers to the many questions these rugs provoked. My quest was successful. Read on!

 

"Ultimately, Afghan war rugs are produced for the market. It’s that simple."

 

The real story behind Afghanistan’s war rugs

 

The war rugs are distinctive and dynamic, but they’re often wildly misunderstood.

 

By Jamal J. Elias

Fast Company

9 September 2021

 

The end of the U.S.-led military intervention in Afghanistan has resulted in the withdrawal of most foreign aid workers and contractors.

 

It may well also spell the demise of the country’s war rug industry.

As a specialist in the visual and material culture of the Islamic world, I first became aware of war rugs when I was working on a book on truck decoration in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 1990s.

 

Since that time, I’ve followed changes in this industry and cultivated relationships with Pakistani and Afghan rug sellers.

War rugs – with symbols of war – are distinctive and dynamic in their styles. But they’re often misunderstood by buyers, journalists and curators.

 

The growth of the war rug market

 

There is no evidence of the existence of Afghan war rugs prior to the late-20th century.

The earliest rugs seem to have emerged shortly after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 from refugee camps in Pakistan, where millions of Afghans had relocated.

 

Featuring guns, helicopters and tanks, they were small and shoddily made with coarse wool. Rug sellers and souvenir shops pitched them to workers for non-government organizations and Western government officials.

 

The designs have become more sophisticated over the years.

English words were added, intentionally or accidentally garbled with Cyrillic words and letters to evoke a Soviet connection.

 

After 9/11, fixed patterns started to emerge – a sign that weavers were adhering to templates provided by rug merchants.

 

The images made it clear that they were hoping to primarily appeal to an American souvenir market.

 

One popular design commemorates the 9/11 attacks, pointing out that it was not Afghans who were responsible, but terrorists from other countries.

 

Another depicts a map of Afghanistan, professing Afghanistan’s friendship with the U.S. with text and images. It has the misspelled word “terrarism” written on the region of the country associated with the Taliban.

 

The writing on some rugs declares that they’re made in Sheberghan, a city in northern Afghanistan famous for its Turkmen weavers.

 

It’s unlikely that they’re all made there. However, whether they’re made in northern Afghanistan or in Afghan settlements in Pakistan, the word “Shebergan,” written in English, is supposed to signal that these rugs are authentically Afghan.

 

Such rugs are readily available on eBay and were – until recently – sold by souvenir sellers in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan’s cities with the largest number of foreign workers and tourists.

 

With the Taliban’s return to power, it remains unclear what the future of rug making and its market will be.

 

Over the years, war motifs have found their way into higher-quality, larger carpets, with small tanks appearing where rows of medallions might traditionally have been. Other rugs feature a more comprehensive integration of modern and traditional patterns.

 

While these larger carpets take substantially more time to make and cost more money than the far more common smaller, coarser rugs, they nevertheless don’t meet the standards of fine carpets, which suggests they’re geared more to souvenir collectors than those seeking luxury home furnishings.

 

Misreading the meaning of the rugs

 

Over the past 20 years, Afghan war rugs have garnered considerable attention.

 

Books in German and English describe, catalog and contextualize them. Magazines and major newspapers have run features on them, and university art galleries have exhibited them.

 

Within the coverage, there’s a tendency to see war rugs as a reflection of the emotional lives of the weavers, who, wracked by war and violence, felt compelled to incorporate these motifs into their designs.

 

Articles and exhibits often ignore the reality that rug brokers and dealers – not weavers – are the ones who are attuned to fickle market tastes.

 

Studies on labor in the rug industry note that they’re normally the ones who supply weavers with new patterns, color schemes and yarn. I’ve seen the same dynamic in my own long-term observations.

 

Yet you’ll still see exhibit curators describe war rugs as combining “ancient practice with the latest in the daily lives of the weavers,” or as windows into the perspectives of everyday Afghans – the “underdogs” in a country subsumed by strife.

 

In 2014, The New York Times reported that weavers had incorporated “the grim realities of life in a war zone into their traditional craft.”

 

Six years earlier, Smithsonian Magazine buried a brief acknowledgment that the rugs are for tourists under claims – with scant evidence – that the earliest war rugs were intended for Afghan buyers who resented the Soviet invasion. Later, the writer notes that female weavers drew from their own lives when they incorporated symbols of violence.

 

The appeal of the trauma market

 

With so much evidence showing that Afghan war rugs are produced in response to market demand, why do claims that they’re based on the weavers’ experiences of war persist?

 

Part of the answer lies in the global market for handicrafts. Buyers want to feel like they’re purchasing artisanal products when, in reality, they’re sold by the thousands in chain stores and through online storefronts such as Ten Thousand Villages or Etsy.

 

Implying that rugs are a source of income for traumatized and destitute Afghan women ignores the reality that the overwhelming majority of profits go to middlemen and dealers.

 

A work-from-home model encourages workers to devote all available time to rug production. It also encourages child labor: Children are either tasked with making the crude rugs or are forced to take up the responsibilities of adults.

 

The appeal of war rugs – and the insistence that their designs represent a victim’s experience of war – seems to reflect a vicarious desire to peer into the emotional experience of Afghan civilians.

 

In reality, though, this gives primacy not to the actual experiences of Afghans, but to the viewers’ and customers’ ideas of victimhood.

 

The granular realities of the loss of home and animals, family deaths or food insecurity aren’t represented in the rugs. Nor should we assume weavers would wish to put their own traumas on display for the world.

 

Modern rugs are not venues for self-expression, and the designs tend to contain an index of symbols that reflect an outsider’s understanding of war: AK-47s, 9/11, security politics and drones.

 

Nowhere in the rugs do we see the well-documented psychological and health impacts on Afghanistan’s population caused by decades of deprivation and violence.

 

Real trauma is not only hard to turn into a commodity, it is also hard to live with – even in souvenirs.

www.fastcompany.com/90678962/the-real-story-behind-afghan...

 

Jamal J. Elias is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

(References:- K. Lal in his book Tarekh e Punjab & The crumbling glory of Sheikhupura Fort by Aown Ali)

  

In West Punjab (now in Pakistan), the town of Sheikhupura (about 35 km west of Lahore) is hailed a center of historically significant architecture.

 

The Hiran Minar (Minaret of the Antelope) and the Sheikhupura Fort make this stop a focal point of interest.

 

The town, now a district headquarters and one of the major industrial cities of Punjab, has grown from a village, originally called “Jahangirpura” when it was settled during the reign of the Mughal emperor, Jahangir, because of its proximity to Hiran Minar, a royal hunting resort.

 

The primary historical importance of the city relates to its Fort. It lays no claim to grandeur. Locally known as Qila Sheikhupura, it has gave its name to the town as well.

 

Construction of the fort began in the second year of Jahangir’s reign (1607). The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (autobiography of Jahangir) mentions that the emperor assigned the job of constructing a fort at that location to Sikandar Moeen during a hunting trip to Hiran Minar.

 

The two centuries that followed were mostly uneventful for the Fort. Neither a seat of government nor a target for invaders, it remained but a halt for imperial entourages heading on pleasure trips to Kashmir in the north, or towards Kabul in the west.

 

The Fort’s political importance did not emerge until the establishment of the Sikh Empire at the end of the 18th century.

 

A veteran historian and archeologist, Ihsan H. Nadiem, tells us that immediately before the consolidation of Punjab under the Sikhs, the Fort served as a convenient place for robbers looting the countryside.

 

The Durrani king, Shah Zaman, during his invasion of Lahore in 1797, briefly besieged the Fort, but only to purge it of the robbers. Soon after his departure, the Fort was once again occupied by the highwaymen.

  

Shortly thereafter, Lehna Singh Majithia (who also served as the Governor of Lahore. The son of General Lehna Singh, Sardar Dyal Singh, was perhaps the most significant Punjabi of the late 19th century in the British Punjab. He was the main force behind the founding of Punjab University), an ally of Ranjit Singh, invaded the fort and took occupation. After him, its ownership passed on to Bhai Singh, followed by Sahib Singh and Sahai Singh in 1808, at which point Ranjit Singh marched upon it and caused its surrender.

 

This whole story of Sheikhupura raid wrote by Hindu writer K. Lal in his book Tarekh e Punjab (Page 196-197) and it is as under:

 

“Mahraja Ranjeet was busy in handling state affairs, in the meantime a group of farmers belong to Sheikhpura came to his door, they wanted to seek help against brutal Sikh rulers Sardar Arbel Singh & Sardar Ameer Singh. These Sardars had occupied the Sheikhupura fort and land, there army looting common people up to that level that they were dying of hunger. That group of farmer said the people of Sheikhupura accepted the over lordship of the Maharaja and requested to take their territory under Mahraja rule and control to protect them from these two brutal Sardars.

Mahraja accepted the request and assigned his eldest son, the crown prince, Kharak Singh for Sheikhupura fort Campaign. He reached Sheikhupura; he has four thousand army troops and support of one Cannon artillery.

Sheikhupura fort was very well constructed with strong fortified walls, Mahraja himself selected best cannons from his cannon yard for this campaign and also assign one of his best army officer Sardar Hakma Singh for assisting Crown prince Kharak Singh in this campaign.

When this troop reached Sheikhupura, Crown Prince Kharak Singh called both the ruling Sardar’s to him, but instead of appearing in front of Prince they have further fortified the fort and get ready for war.

The Prince first sieges the fort and then orders Canon artillery to start fire on fort walls. The fort walls were strongly fortified and hold the Cannon artillery attack for days.

This result less campaign made Prince to think if he wanted to win this fight he has to reinforce his troops and artillery as well. For that purpose he wrote for help to his father Mahraja Ranjit Singh. When Maharaja saw this letter he got angry, he ordered to send biggest cannon of his artillery the Ahmad Shahi Gun. Which he forcefully took from Saheb Singh Guajarati)

(Ahmad Shahi Gun also known as zamzama gun…, The Zamzama Gun is a large bore cannon. It is also known as Kim’s Gun or Bhangianwali Taop. It was cast in 1757 in Lahore. At that time Lahore was a part of the Durrani Empire. The gun was used by Ahmed Shah in the battle of Panipat in 1761. In 1802, Ranjit Singh got hold of the gun and used it in the battles of Daska, Kasur, Sujanpur, Wazirabad and Multan. In the siege of Multan, the gun was badly damaged. It is currently on display in front of the Lahore Museum at The Mall Road, Lahore.)

The Maharaja also reached the Sheikhupura Fort with fresh troops and again the battle started.

After two days of fight, Maharaja ordered to place Ahmed Shah Gun in front of Main gate of Fort. It was tough task and took many lives of soldiers but at last it was placed there. Hundred rounds of guns were fired and main gate of fort completely destroyed. The Mahraja troops entered the fort and raise the winning flag on wall. Both Arbel & Ameer Singh were arrested.

Since the area of Sheikhupura won in name of Crown Prince Kharak Singh, the fort and “Jageer” of Sheikhupura bestowed to Prince by his father Mahraja Ranjeet Singh under the primacy of her mother Rani Datar Kaur (1801-1840), the mother of the crown prince, Kharak Singh. She was also known as Rani Raj Kaur or Mai Nakkain. She lived in the Fort till her death.”

 

She had a considerable role in the rehabilitation of this small, strategically unimportant and hitherto almost abandoned citadel. She built a wonderful haveli within it. The excellent frescoes in the distinctive Kangra style found in the parlour and in the two chambers on the first floor of this haveli, are attributed to Raj Kaur‘s excellent taste.

 

In mid-19th century, when the British invaded Punjab, they used the Fort to imprison the Sikh kingdom’s Regent, Rani Jind Kaur – “Jindaa(n)” - after taking her son, the child Emperor Duleep Singh, prisoner.

 

In a letter dated August 9, 1847 Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence, the British Resident in Punjab suggested to the Governor General that the Queen be banished from Punjab, to prevent the populace from rising under banner.

 

The 8-year old Emperor was removed from his palace in the Lahore Fort on August 19, 1847, and taken to the Shalimar Gardens, while his mother, the Queen, was confined to the distant Sheikhupura Fort.

 

Historian Himadri Banerjee describes how Jindaan was forcibly removed from Lahore between 8 and 9 pm under a heavy military escort. Accompanied by Sardar Arjan Singh Rangharnanglia and Gurmukh Singh Lamma, she was lodged in Sheikhupura Fort in the early hours of Friday, August 20, 1847, under the charge of Sardar Boor Singh.

 

Soon after her arrival at Sheikhupura, she wrote the following letter to the Resident at Lahore, protesting the ruthless separation from her young eight-year old.

 

With the Grace of the Great Guru

From Bibi Sahib to Lawrence Sahib,

 

We have arrived safely at Sheikhupura, You should send our luggage with care, As I was sitting in the Samman (Burj - Palace in Lahore Fort), in the same way I am in Sheikhupura. Both the places are same to me; you have been very cruel to me. You have snatched my son from me … In the name of the God you worship and in the name of the king whose salt you eat, restore my son to me. I cannot bear the pain of this separation … I shall reside in Sheikhupura. I shall not go to Lahore. Send my son to me. I will come to you at Lahore only during the days when you hold darbar. On that day I will send him. A great deal (of injustice) has been done to me. A great deal (of injustice) has been done to my son also. You have accepted what other people have said. Put an end to it now. Too much has been done.

 

The Queen resided in the Sheikhupura Fort for nine months. On the afternoon of May 15, 1848, she was taken away, to be imprisoned in Chunar Fort, near Benares (in current day Uttar Pradesh, India). She made a dramatic escape from there and fled to Nepal, where she remained until, years later, almost blind and dying, was finally allowed to visit her son, who was by then exiled in England.

 

The Sheikhupura Fort was thus witness to a number of crucial turning points during the half-century of the Sikh Raj.

 

The Empire had held played a crucial role as a bulwark against ongoing invasions through the subcontinent’s porous western borders. At its peak, it held sway from Tibet in the east to the Khyber Pass in the west, to Kashmir in the north and to Sindh in the south. It also, while Ranjit Singh was alive, kept the British at bay, even though the rest of the subcontinent had collapsed under them like a row of dominoes.

 

After the annexation of Punjab, the Sheikhupura Fort was temporarily used as administrative headquarters of the Gujranwala district from 1849 to 1851. However, upon the transfer of the district headquarters to Gujranwala town, it was turned into a military outpost.

  

After a split of administration jurisdictions in 1918, a new district was created in Sheikhupura. The Fort then passed on to house the police headquarters of the newly created district.

 

After the partition of Punjab and India in 1947, it was briefly used by the immigrants from East Punjab (by then in the newly-created India) as shelter, and

later by encroachers, from whom it came into the possession of the Department of Archaeology of Pakistan in 1967.

 

Within the complex, no building from the Mughal period is left standing, except the main entrance façade. There are also some remains of sandstone columns depicting the history of the laying of the foundations of the Sheikhupura Fort.

 

Today, what we can see standing, although dilapidated, is a crumbling six-storey haveli, identical to the haveli of Naunihal Singh, which is situated inside Mori Gate in Lahore.

 

The most vibrant aspect of the beauty of the haveli in the Sheikhupura Fort is its frescoes.

 

Sadly, precious wooden doors, windows and parts of the roof have already been whisked away by raiders and the haveli has turned into a haunted house.

 

Inside the ruins and rooms occupied by bats, we can still find signs of the former lifestyle through colourful and thematic paintings and other art work in the Kangra style. Fresco art work in the haveli of Raj Kaur portrays almost all aspects of daily life – ranging from worship to romantic love to military life. Colors are still vivid, the art work is glittering, but the haveli is now, due to institutional neglect, close to the end of its physical life.

 

Despite its poor condition, no contractor or labourer agrees to work as it is believed the fort is haunted by ghosts of the queens which used to live there.

 

This fort is closed to the public due to its bad structural condition; it took me at least three years to take permission to visit this place.

  

RUNNER UP

 

Martin Horton- Eddison (College of Arts and Humanities)

 

The image depicts the exchange of virtual currency for controlled narcotic substances between two anonymised actors. Those engaged in the transaction are not bound by state borders or geography; they are in the same space, yet in different places, at the same time.

 

The alley is comprised of servers and the pavement is a highway of binary code. The deal takes place under impotent state flags; the backdrop is a fractured representation of the international drug prohibition regime. This is a visual representation of an inherently ethereal subject.

 

The research investigates the transnational crypto-drug market phenomena and the associated challenges for drug control policy at the international level. It seeks to quantify how significantly anonymised online drug communities may impact the primacy of the state in the international system. How will the present analogue prohibition framework contend with the digital age?

 

Dedicated to Saint John, the cathedral of Lyon is one of the most prominent churches of France (it is also a UNESCO World Heritage site). Indeed, the archbishop of Lyon has borne the title of “Primate of the Gauls” since the 2nd century, as Lyon was the first bishopric ever created in the “three Gauls”, as the provinces of Lyon and the Alps, the Aquitaine, and Belgium, were known during the times of the Western Roman Empire. Lyon was then the capital of all those vast territories. This “primacy” conferred to the archbishop of Lyon authority over all other bishops, even that of Paris, the secular capital of more recent times. Now, the title is largely honorific.

 

The Saint-Jean Cathedral is mostly a Gothic church, and as such of limited interest to me. However, having been built over the span of three centuries, from 1175 to 1480, it was begun as a Romanesque church and there are indeed small parts and details that remain from that period, albeit few and far between.

 

I have visited that church several times, but I went again on the Saturday before Easter (2022) to try and locate a few of those parts and details...

 

The arcatures that run around the choir and apse are terribly reminiscent of the bandes lombardes we know well. They are from the Romanesque period. What you see here is the round part at the eastern end of the apse. The stones are marble and, above, choin, a kind of hard limestone typical of the region around Lyon.

Mary Cassatt - Teatime [1880] - Boston MFA

 

In the late 1870s and early 1880s, Cassatt made a number of images that show women participating in the domestic and social ritual of drinking tea. Among these works are two related oils, The Cup of Tea (about 1880–81) and Lady at the Tea Table (1883–85), both in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and a number of prints, among them the MFA’s Tea [M25007] and Afternoon Tea Party [41.811]. Cassatt’s painting The Tea is set in a contemporary drawing room, sometimes described as Cassatt’s own. The fine striped wallpaper and carved marble fireplace, ornamented with an elaborately framed painting and a porcelain jar, are typical of an upper-middle class Parisian interior, and the antique silver tea service on the foreground table implies a distinguished family history. The two women play the traditional roles of hostess and guest, although it appears that their conversation has lapsed: the hostess (on the left, in a simple brown day dress) rests her hand on her chin while her guest (wearing the hat, scarf, and gloves that indicate she has stepped in from outside) sips her tea. The hostess is often identified as Cassatt’s sister Lydia and the guest as a family friend, but it is equally likely the women were Cassatt’s usual models, one brunette and one blonde; the women appear in several of Cassatt’s contemporary scenes of women at the opera.

 

Despite these conservative and tasteful surroundings, Cassatt’s painting is a declaration of modernity that demonstrates her rejection of several traditional artistic conventions. First, Cassatt denies the human form its usual compositional primacy: the tea service seems larger in scale than the women themselves. This pictorial conceit of giving inanimate objects equal priority with figures was sometimes employed by Cassatt’s friend Degas. Cassatt further defies custom by obscuring the face of her subject, rendering the guest in the transitory act of drinking. The guest’s pose is a momentary one, for she will soon lift the delicate cup from her lips and replace it on the saucer she balances in her left hand. By selecting the only point in the action when her subject’s face is almost completely hidden by the teacup, Cassatt reiterates her modernist creed that her painting is not only about representing likeness, but also about design and color. She uses the oval shapes of cups and saucers, trays, hats, and faces as repetitive patterns, offsetting the strict graphic geometry of the gray and rose striped wallpaper.

 

Source: Boston MFA

collections.mfa.org/objects/32829

São Miguel dos Milagres é um município brasileiro do estado de Alagoas. Sua população estimada em 2004 era de 6.354 habitantes.

 

Chamava-se, antes, Freguesia de Nossa Senhora Mãe do Povo. Mudou sua denominação, segundo a tradição, depois que um pescador encontrou na praia uma peça de madeira coberta de musgos e algas marinhas. Ao levá-la para casa e fazer sua limpeza, descobriu que se tratava de uma imagem de São Miguel Arcanjo, provavelmente caída de alguma embarcação. Ao terminar o trabalho de limpeza, o pescador descobriu espantado, que uma ferida persistente que o afligia há tempos estava totalmente cicatrizada.

 

A notícia logo se espalhou, fazendo com que aparecessem pessoas em busca de cura para suas doenças e de novos milagres. Sua colonização tomou corpo durante o período da invasão holandesa, quando moradores da sofrida Porto Calvo fugiram em busca de um lugar seguro para abrigar suas famílias e de onde pudessem avistar com antecipação a chegada dos inimigos batavos. A capela inicial, que deu origem à freguesia estabelecida pela Igreja Católica, foi dedicada a Nossa Senhora Mãe do Povo.

 

Sua história está ligada, pela proximidade, à de Porto de Pedras e à de Porto Calvo, antigo Santo Antônio dos Quatro Rios ou, ainda, Bom Sucesso. Disputa com Porto de Pedras a primazia de ser a sede do Engenho Mata Redonda, onde ocorreu a célebre batalha do mesmo nome travada, entre o exército holandês e as forças luso-espanholas e vencida pelo General Artikchof. É compreensível a querela, uma vez que os atuais municípios não estavam formados e os limites eram imprecisos. Por muito tempo, o Engenho Democrata foi destaque na produção de açúcar na região. Igualmente, o povoado foi líder na produção de cocos, quando ainda pertencia a Porto de Pedras.

 

Foi elevado à vila em 09 de junho de 1864 e, a partir de 1941, um grupo de moradores, entre eles Augusto de Barros Falcão, José Braga, Aderbal da Costa Raposo e João Moraes vinham reivindicando sua emancipação do município de Porto de Pedras. A emancipação política começou no dia 6 de junho de 1960. E pela Lei 2.239, de 07 de junho de 1960, São Miguel dos Milagres emancipa-se, separando-se de Porto de Pedras.

 

Texto by: pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A3o_Miguel_dos_Milagres

 

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São Miguel dos Milagres is a municipality in the state of Alagoas. Its estimated population in 2004 was 6,354 inhabitants.

 

His name was before, Parish of Our Lady Mother of the People. It changed its name, according to tradition, after a fisherman found the beach a piece of wood covered with mosses and seaweed. To take it home and do your cleaning, she discovered that it was an image of St. Michael the Archangel probably fallen in some vessel. When you finish the cleaning work, the fisherman discovered amazed that a persistent wound that afflicted him for days was totally healed.

 

The news soon spread, causing appeared people seeking cures for their diseases and new miracles. Colonization took shape during the period of Dutch invasion when residents suffered Porto Calvo fled in search of a safe place to house their families and where they could sight in advance the arrival of the Batavians enemies. The original chapel, which gave rise to the parish established by the Catholic Church was dedicated to Our Lady Mother of the People.

 

Its history is linked by proximity to the Porto de Pedras and Porto Calvo, former St. Anthony of the Four Rivers, or even Bom Sucesso. Dispute with Porto de Pedras the primacy of being the seat of the Engenho Mata Redonda, where there was the famous battle of the same name fought between the Dutch army and the Luso-Spanish forces and won by General Artikchof. the complaint, since the current municipalities were not formed were inaccurate and limits is understandable. For a long time, the Democratic Engenho was featured in sugar production in the region. Also, the town was the leading producer of coconuts, when still belonged to Porto de Pedras.

 

It was elevated to the village on June 9, 1864, and from 1941, a group of residents, among them Augusto de Barros Falcão, José Braga, Adherbal Costa Raposo and John Moraes came claiming emancipation of Porto de Pedras municipality. Political emancipation began on June 6, 1960. And by Law 2239 of 07 June 1960, São Miguel dos Milagres is emancipated, by separating from Porto de Pedras.

Google Tradutor para empresas:Google Toolkit de tradução para appsTradutor de sitesGlobal Market Finder

 

St Patrick’s Church of Ireland Cathedral, Armagh (Irish: Ardeaglais Phádraig, Ard Mhacha) is the seat of the Anglican Archbishop of Armagh and Diocese of Armagh. Although the origins of the site are as a 5th century Irish stone monastery, said to have been founded by St. Patrick, and there has been a significant church on the site since, its present appearance largely dates from Lewis Nockalls Cottingham’s restoration in the years after 1834, although the fabric of Primate O’Scanlan’s 1268 building remains. Over the centuries, the church on the site has been at least partially destroyed and rebuilt 17 times.

 

Throughout the Middle Ages, the cathedral was the seat of the Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, and one of the most important churches in Gaelic Ireland. With the 16th-century Protestant Reformation, the cathedral was taken over by the Church of Ireland.

 

Following Catholic emancipation in the 19th century, a new Catholic cathedral was built in Armagh, also called St Patrick’s Cathedral, on another hilltop half a kilometre away.

 

Evidence suggests that the hilltop was originally a pagan sanctuary. By the 7th century, it had become the most important monastery and monastic school in the north of Ireland, and monastic settlement grew up around it. Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, visited Armagh in 1004, acknowledging it as the head cathedral of Ireland and bestowing it a large sum of gold. Brian was buried at Armagh cathedral after his death at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. Armagh’s claim to the primacy of Ireland was formally acknowledged at the Synod of Ráth Breasail in 1111.

 

The cathedral was renovated and restored under Dean Eoghan McCawell (1505–1549), having suffered from a devastating fire in 1511 and being in poor shape. Soon after his death the cathedral was described by Lord Chancellor Cusack as “one of the fairest and best churches in Ireland”. However, by the end of the Nine Years’ War which devastated Ulster between 1593 and 1603, Armagh lay in ruins.

 

Following the Nine Years’ War, Armagh came under English control and the town began to be settled by Protestants from Britain, as part of the Plantation of Ulster. During the Irish Rebellion of 1641, many Protestant settlers fled to Armagh cathedral for safety. After negotiations with the besieged settlers, Catholic rebels occupied the town until May 1642.

 

As mentioned above, the cathedral largely owes its current appearance to a rebuilding between 1834 and 1840 by Archbishop Lord John George Beresford and the architect Lewis Nockalls Cottingham. The fabric remains that of the mediaeval building but much restored. While Cottingham was heavy-handed in his restoration, the researches of T. G. F. Patterson and Janet Myles in the late twentieth century have shown the restoration to have been notably antiquarian for its time. The tracery of the nave windows in particular are careful restorations as is the copy of the font. The capital decoration of the two westernmost pillars of the nave (either side of the West Door internal porch) are mediaeval as are the bulk of the external gargoyle carvings (some resited) of the parapet of the Eastern Arm. Cottingham’s intention of retaining the richly cusped West Door with flanking canopied niches was over-ruled. Subsequent restorations have more radically altered the internal proportions of the mediaeval building, proportions which Cottingham had retained.

 

Many other Celtic and mediaeval carvings are to be seen within the cathedral which is also rich in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sculpture. There are works by Francis Leggatt Chantrey, Louis-François Roubiliac, John Michael Rysbrack, Carlo Marochetti and others.

(References:- K. Lal in his book Tarekh e Punjab & The crumbling glory of Sheikhupura Fort by Aown Ali)

 

In West Punjab (now in Pakistan), the town of Sheikhupura (about 35 km west of Lahore) is hailed a center of historically significant architecture.

 

The Hiran Minar (Minaret of the Antelope) and the Sheikhupura Fort make this stop a focal point of interest.

 

The town, now a district headquarters and one of the major industrial cities of Punjab, has grown from a village, originally called “Jahangirpura” when it was settled during the reign of the Mughal emperor, Jahangir, because of its proximity to Hiran Minar, a royal hunting resort.

 

The primary historical importance of the city relates to its Fort. It lays no claim to grandeur. Locally known as Qila Sheikhupura, it has gave its name to the town as well.

 

Construction of the fort began in the second year of Jahangir’s reign (1607). The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (autobiography of Jahangir) mentions that the emperor assigned the job of constructing a fort at that location to Sikandar Moeen during a hunting trip to Hiran Minar.

 

The two centuries that followed were mostly uneventful for the Fort. Neither a seat of government nor a target for invaders, it remained but a halt for imperial entourages heading on pleasure trips to Kashmir in the north, or towards Kabul in the west.

 

The Fort’s political importance did not emerge until the establishment of the Sikh Empire at the end of the 18th century.

 

A veteran historian and archeologist, Ihsan H. Nadiem, tells us that immediately before the consolidation of Punjab under the Sikhs, the Fort served as a convenient place for robbers looting the countryside.

 

The Durrani king, Shah Zaman, during his invasion of Lahore in 1797, briefly besieged the Fort, but only to purge it of the robbers. Soon after his departure, the Fort was once again occupied by the highwaymen.

 

Shortly thereafter, Lehna Singh Majithia (who also served as the Governor of Lahore. The son of General Lehna Singh, Sardar Dyal Singh, was perhaps the most significant Punjabi of the late 19th century in the British Punjab. He was the main force behind the founding of Punjab University), an ally of Ranjit Singh, invaded the fort and took occupation. After him, its ownership passed on to Bhai Singh, followed by Sahib Singh and Sahai Singh in 1808, at which point Ranjit Singh marched upon it and caused its surrender.

 

This whole story of Sheikhupura raid wrote by Hindu writer K. Lal in his book Tarekh e Punjab (Page 196-197) and it is as under:

 

“Mahraja Ranjeet was busy in handling state affairs, in the meantime a group of farmers belong to Sheikhpura came to his door, they wanted to seek help against brutal Sikh rulers Sardar Arbel Singh & Sardar Ameer Singh. These Sardars had occupied the Sheikhupura fort and land, there army looting common people up to that level that they were dying of hunger. That group of farmer said the people of Sheikhupura accepted the over lordship of the Maharaja and requested to take their territory under Mahraja rule and control to protect them from these two brutal Sardars.

Mahraja accepted the request and assigned his eldest son, the crown prince, Kharak Singh for Sheikhupura fort Campaign. He reached Sheikhupura; he has four thousand army troops and support of one Cannon artillery.

Sheikhupura fort was very well constructed with strong fortified walls, Mahraja himself selected best cannons from his cannon yard for this campaign and also assign one of his best army officer Sardar Hakma Singh for assisting Crown prince Kharak Singh in this campaign.

When this troop reached Sheikhupura, Crown Prince Kharak Singh called both the ruling Sardar’s to him, but instead of appearing in front of Prince they have further fortified the fort and get ready for war.

The Prince first sieges the fort and then orders Canon artillery to start fire on fort walls. The fort walls were strongly fortified and hold the Cannon artillery attack for days.

This result less campaign made Prince to think if he wanted to win this fight he has to reinforce his troops and artillery as well. For that purpose he wrote for help to his father Mahraja Ranjit Singh. When Maharaja saw this letter he got angry, he ordered to send biggest cannon of his artillery the Ahmad Shahi Gun. Which he forcefully took from Saheb Singh Guajarati)

(Ahmad Shahi Gun also known as zamzama gun…, The Zamzama Gun is a large bore cannon. It is also known as Kim’s Gun or Bhangianwali Taop. It was cast in 1757 in Lahore. At that time Lahore was a part of the Durrani Empire. The gun was used by Ahmed Shah in the battle of Panipat in 1761. In 1802, Ranjit Singh got hold of the gun and used it in the battles of Daska, Kasur, Sujanpur, Wazirabad and Multan. In the siege of Multan, the gun was badly damaged. It is currently on display in front of the Lahore Museum at The Mall Road, Lahore.)

The Maharaja also reached the Sheikhupura Fort with fresh troops and again the battle started.

After two days of fight, Maharaja ordered to place Ahmed Shah Gun in front of Main gate of Fort. It was tough task and took many lives of soldiers but at last it was placed there. Hundred rounds of guns were fired and main gate of fort completely destroyed. The Mahraja troops entered the fort and raise the winning flag on wall. Both Arbel & Ameer Singh were arrested.

Since the area of Sheikhupura won in name of Crown Prince Kharak Singh, the fort and “Jageer” of Sheikhupura bestowed to Prince by his father Mahraja Ranjeet Singh under the primacy of her mother Rani Datar Kaur (1801-1840), the mother of the crown prince, Kharak Singh. She was also known as Rani Raj Kaur or Mai Nakkain. She lived in the Fort till her death.”

 

She had a considerable role in the rehabilitation of this small, strategically unimportant and hitherto almost abandoned citadel. She built a wonderful haveli within it. The excellent frescoes in the distinctive Kangra style found in the parlour and in the two chambers on the first floor of this haveli, are attributed to Raj Kaur‘s excellent taste.

 

In mid-19th century, when the British invaded Punjab, they used the Fort to imprison the Sikh kingdom’s Regent, Rani Jind Kaur – “Jindaa(n)” - after taking her son, the child Emperor Duleep Singh, prisoner.

 

In a letter dated August 9, 1847 Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence, the British Resident in Punjab suggested to the Governor General that the Queen be banished from Punjab, to prevent the populace from rising under banner.

 

The 8-year old Emperor was removed from his palace in the Lahore Fort on August 19, 1847, and taken to the Shalimar Gardens, while his mother, the Queen, was confined to the distant Sheikhupura Fort.

 

Historian Himadri Banerjee describes how Jindaan was forcibly removed from Lahore between 8 and 9 pm under a heavy military escort. Accompanied by Sardar Arjan Singh Rangharnanglia and Gurmukh Singh Lamma, she was lodged in Sheikhupura Fort in the early hours of Friday, August 20, 1847, under the charge of Sardar Boor Singh.

 

Soon after her arrival at Sheikhupura, she wrote the following letter to the Resident at Lahore, protesting the ruthless separation from her young eight-year old.

 

With the Grace of the Great Guru

From Bibi Sahib to Lawrence Sahib,

 

We have arrived safely at Sheikhupura, You should send our luggage with care, As I was sitting in the Samman (Burj - Palace in Lahore Fort), in the same way I am in Sheikhupura. Both the places are same to me; you have been very cruel to me. You have snatched my son from me … In the name of the God you worship and in the name of the king whose salt you eat, restore my son to me. I cannot bear the pain of this separation … I shall reside in Sheikhupura. I shall not go to Lahore. Send my son to me. I will come to you at Lahore only during the days when you hold darbar. On that day I will send him. A great deal (of injustice) has been done to me. A great deal (of injustice) has been done to my son also. You have accepted what other people have said. Put an end to it now. Too much has been done.

 

The Queen resided in the Sheikhupura Fort for nine months. On the afternoon of May 15, 1848, she was taken away, to be imprisoned in Chunar Fort, near Benares (in current day Uttar Pradesh, India). She made a dramatic escape from there and fled to Nepal, where she remained until, years later, almost blind and dying, was finally allowed to visit her son, who was by then exiled in England.

 

The Sheikhupura Fort was thus witness to a number of crucial turning points during the half-century of the Sikh Raj.

 

The Empire had held played a crucial role as a bulwark against ongoing invasions through the subcontinent’s porous western borders. At its peak, it held sway from Tibet in the east to the Khyber Pass in the west, to Kashmir in the north and to Sindh in the south. It also, while Ranjit Singh was alive, kept the British at bay, even though the rest of the subcontinent had collapsed under them like a row of dominoes.

 

After the annexation of Punjab, the Sheikhupura Fort was temporarily used as administrative headquarters of the Gujranwala district from 1849 to 1851. However, upon the transfer of the district headquarters to Gujranwala town, it was turned into a military outpost.

 

After a split of administration jurisdictions in 1918, a new district was created in Sheikhupura. The Fort then passed on to house the police headquarters of the newly created district.

 

After the partition of Punjab and India in 1947, it was briefly used by the immigrants from East Punjab (by then in the newly-created India) as shelter, and

later by encroachers, from whom it came into the possession of the Department of Archaeology of Pakistan in 1967.

 

Within the complex, no building from the Mughal period is left standing, except the main entrance façade. There are also some remains of sandstone columns depicting the history of the laying of the foundations of the Sheikhupura Fort.

 

Today, what we can see standing, although dilapidated, is a crumbling six-storey haveli, identical to the haveli of Naunihal Singh, which is situated inside Mori Gate in Lahore.

 

The most vibrant aspect of the beauty of the haveli in the Sheikhupura Fort is its frescoes.

 

Sadly, precious wooden doors, windows and parts of the roof have already been whisked away by raiders and the haveli has turned into a haunted house.

 

Inside the ruins and rooms occupied by bats, we can still find signs of the former lifestyle through colourful and thematic paintings and other art work in the Kangra style. Fresco art work in the haveli of Raj Kaur portrays almost all aspects of daily life – ranging from worship to romantic love to military life. Colors are still vivid, the art work is glittering, but the haveli is now, due to institutional neglect, close to the end of its physical life.

 

Despite its poor condition, no contractor or labourer agrees to work as it is believed the fort is haunted by ghosts of the queens which used to live there.

 

This fort is closed to the public due to its bad structural condition; it took me at least three years to take permission to visit this place.

 

taken at Church of Peter Primacy, Israel

 

Week 5 Musical Interlude (1221 – 1225) 10/10 – 10/15/2021 ID 1225

 

Joan Snyder American 1940 -

Smashed Strokes Hope, 1971

 

Oil, acrylic, and spray enamel on canvas

 

Smashed Strokes Hope belongs to Joan Snyder’s breakthrough series of abstract paintings, sometimes referred to as “stroke paintings” because of the way they emphasize the primacy of the artist’s brushwork. Distinct areas of paint seem to have been sprayed on, smeared on haphazardly (perhaps with a hand or a cloth), or applied carefully to create vertical and horizontal clusters. Prominent drips, smears, and stains appear throughout the canvas. In this riot of color, there is a palpable tension between regularity and irregularity, pattern and chaos, control and spontaneity. Snyder once said, “I wanted to tell a story and I wanted there to be different sections. I wanted a beginning, middle and end, many different parts, happy, sad, tragic parts, many things happening at once, different instruments, different sounds, rhythms.”

 

Partial and Promised Gift of Stephanie Bernheim 2017 (2018.667)

 

From the Placard: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

 

www.metmuseum.org/

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Snyder

 

www.joansnyder.net/stroke-paintings

 

youtu.be/MRRbhBU0oE8

  

   

In 192 BC, the Romans conquered the area and founded the outpost Toletum. Due to its iron ore deposits, Toledo developed into an important settlement. Since the first barbarian invasions, the ancient walls were reinforced. In 411 the Alans and later the Visigoths conquered the city. Toledo was the capital of the Visigoths' empire from about 531 to 711.

 

The Moors conquered the place in 712. Toledo experienced its heyday during the period of Moorish rule as Ṭulayṭula during the Caliphate of Córdoba until its conquest by Alfonso VI in 1085, after a four-year siege. In 1088, only a few years after the conquest, Archbishop Bernard of Toledo obtained confirmation from Pope Urban II that Toledo should hold the "primatus in totis Hispaniarum regnis" (primacy in all the kingdoms of the Iberian dominions). The Archbishop of Toledo is still today the Primate of the Catholic Church of Spain.

 

In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Toledo school of translators translated ancient philosophical writings (Plato, Aristotle) that had been translated from Greek into Arabic, but also genuinely Arabic writings from the fields of astronomy, mathematics, Islamic religion and theology into Latin.

 

After the conquest by Alfonso VI, Toledo became the residence of the Kingdom of Castile in 1087 and remained the capital of Spain until 1561.

 

El Cristo de la Luz was erected in 999 as a mosque. It is in much the same state as it was when it was originally built. The Arabic inscription in Kufic on the building states that Musa Ibn Ali built it.

 

Legend has it that a shaft of light guided the king to a figurine of the crucified Christ that had been hidden for centuries. The legend says that King Alfonso VI arrived in Toledo after capturing the city in 1085 when his horse fell in front of this chapel.

 

In 1186, Alfonso VIII gave the building to the Knights of the Order of St John, who established it as the Chapel of the Holy Cross (Ermita de la Santa Cruz). It was at this time that the mosque was renamed and the apse was added.

 

The small, almost cubic mosque (side lengths and height are each about eight meters) has a square ground plan. About half of the building material used is fired brick and half is roughly hewn quarry stone, which is mostly arranged in horizontal bands, following the Roman model. After the conquest of Toledo in 1085, the mosque building was converted into a church. In the 12th century this was expanded in the Mudejar style.

  

INCREDIBLE INDIA

Dicono che passeggiare la sera lungo il molo dei defunti sia pericoloso. Non tanto per via degli spiriti, quanto per la presenza molto più terrena di vagabondi e ladruncoli comuni. Ma il buio della notte qui non è mai davvero buio. L’oscurità è punteggiata di fuochi. Alcune fiammelle se le porta via il Gange: sono luci di buon augurio, accese dentro piccole ceste di fiori di loto, e affidate alla corrente. Ormai trasportano perlopiù desideri e speranze di turisti di passaggio. Le fiamme della tradizione vera bruciano più verso le sponde, alitando in cielo fumi d’incenso, sandalo e carne bruciata: sono le pire che ardono incessantemente lungo i ghat, i moli in riva al Gange dove gli indù cremano i loro morti.

Per questo alcuni indiani conoscono Varanasi solo con il soprannome di Maha Shmashan Puri, che vuol dire "fuoco che non si ferma mai". Questa è la città santa dell’induismo: un luogo propizio per morire perché, secondo antiche credenze, esalando qui l’ultimo respiro ci si sottrae al ciclo delle reincarnazioni, e si accede direttamente al paradiso himalayano di Shiva, che si ritiene sia sul Monte Kailasa.

"Varanasi", scrisse una volta Mark Twain, "è più antica della storia, più antica della tradizione, più antica della leggenda, e appare vecchia il doppio di tutte queste cose messe insieme". Un luogo denso di misticismo, dove tutto sembra possibile. Ad esempio, che una famiglia collocata al gradino più basso della gerarchia sociale indiana, i cosiddetti "intoccabili", acquisisca tanto denaro e prestigio da divenire la famiglia più ricca e influente della città. Il loro nome è Dom, ma loro si fanno chiamare Dom Raja, poiché si considerano "i re del regno dei morti" (in indù "raja" significa "re"). La loro casa è la più bella e imponente del lungofiume.

I Dom custodiscono il cosiddetto "fuoco sacro", una fiamma che arde giorno e notte da tempo immemorabile all’interno di un tempio dedicato a Shiva. Nel complesso cerimoniale della cremazione, il fuoco sacro, con cui la pira funebre viene accesa al termine del rito, è considerato un elemento fondamentale. E per avervi accesso, le famiglie dei defunti fanno offerte anche cospicue.

Matru Dom è uno dei capifamiglia. In città lo conoscono tutti, ma non è facile arrivare a lui. Accetta di parlarmi solo grazie all’aiuto di un intermediario. E’ sera fatta, ormai, quando arrivo all’Harishchandra Ghat, un molo delle cremazioni tra i più antichi in città, e forse il più sacro in assoluto. Tutto intorno un fitto tramestio di fedeli e sacerdoti già impegnati nelle cerimonie funebri. Ci sono petali di rosa e fiori di loto sparsi un po’ ovunque, braci quasi consumate, roghi che bruciano con fiamme alte tre metri, legna accatastata in attesa dell’arrivo di una salma. "Aspetta qui", dice Sadhu, l’intermediario. Mi fa un cenno d’intesa, poi si arrampica leggero sulla scalinata che sale verso la città. Il Gange nero si appropria della visuale. Sembra accogliere con identica accondiscendenza i vivi e i morti che continuamente si riversano, o vengono riversati, nelle sue acque. Un vecchio, seduto su uno scalino in riva al fiume, tossisce e sputa in terra più volte. Poi torna a guardare l’acqua senza espressione. Alcuni anziani, all’approssimarsi della morte, vengono qui ad aspettare il destino. Un tempo anche i malati incurabili venivano abbandonati lungo le rive del fiume, all’interno di capanne fatte di rami. Non ci si attendeva che il Gange facesse il miracolo, come l’acqua di Lourdes, ma che accettasse lo spirito del defunto al momento della sua morte. Se il malato invece sopravviveva, si pensava che fosse stato rifiutato dagli dei, e pertanto veniva respinto dalla società e isolato tra i paria, gli intoccabili.

"Matru Dom, signore". Mi giro. Davanti a me c’è un uomo piccolo, avvolto in una sciarpa bianca che mette ancor più in risalto la sua carnagione scura (caratteristica di molti intoccabili). Ci sediamo sotto un piccolo portico di cemento. Parla un inglese stentato, ma sorprendentemente spolvera qualche parola di italiano. "Ciao amico", abbozza sorridendo, "bella Italia". Ricorda di aver imparato quelle parole da un missionario, qualche anno addietro. Poi torna serio, fa qualche cenno a dei ragazzi impegnati su un rogo ormai agli sgoccioli. Finalmente mi racconta dei Dom: "Non saprei dire da quanto tempo la mia famiglia faccia questo lavoro, nessuno può dirlo. Custodiamo il fuoco sacro da generazioni. Facciamo un lavoro onesto, e non chiediamo in cambio nulla, solo donazioni spontanee". Si mette in bocca una foglia di betel, avvolta in una miscela di spezie dal colore rosso: per gli indiani aiuta a digerire e profuma l’alito, ma non tutti gli amanti del betel sanno che è causa frequente di cancro alla bocca.

"La donazione più importante", prosegue, “venne dalla famiglia di un maraja: 5 milioni di rupie (quasi 90 mila euro, ndr). Ma noi accettiamo qualunque offerta. Anche 50 rupie". Secondo l’induismo, fare offerte di questo tipo consente a ciascuno di migliorare il proprio karma, una sorta di somma delle azioni passate dal quale dipende la reincarnazione dell’anima. Per questo quando c’è da fare offerte per cerimonie importanti come un funerale, le famiglie benestanti non badano a spese. E l’offerta per il fuoco sacro non è che una parte. "Ci vogliono 360 chili di legna e 3 ore di tempo affinché le fiamme consumino un corpo", racconta. "I più ricchi comprano legna di sandalo, che arde meglio ed è profumata, ma costa più di 100 rupie al chilo (circa 2 euro)".

Spesso, però, le famiglie più povere non possono permettersi abbastanza legna, e allora il corpo non brucia a sufficienza, rimangono dei pezzi intatti. I Dom sanno come gestire queste situazioni: rivoltano i corpi tra le fiamme, li colpiscono con un bastone, e riescono così a ridurre il tempo necessario alla cremazione. "Noi siamo esperti", sorride Matru. "Per questo tutti ci rispettano e nessuno si sognerebbe di affidare ad altri il proprio defunto". Si guarda attorno, osserva il lavoro dei Dom, con l’aria del re che scruta i suoi possedimenti. Poi mi confida: "Una volta noi Dom abbiamo bruciato anche la salma di un italiano". Soppesa per un attimo il mio sguardo meravigliato. "Proprio lì, vicino a quel mucchio di braci", aggiunge stringendo gli occhi e indicando con un gesto circolare una pira ormai estinta. Sputa il betel. Dopodiché continua: "Era un vecchio venuto a Varanasi ormai da qualche settimana. Lo vedevamo spesso, qui al ghat. Conoscevo anche il suo nome, ma ora non lo ricordo più. Veniva sempre da solo, un signore curioso con un berretto in testa. Aveva occhi strani, sembrava sereno di spirito, ma forse il suo corpo era malato". Riprende a masticare del betel. "Poi improvvisamente smise di venire, non lo vidi per un po’. Lo trovarono morto nella sua stanza d’albergo. E accanto al cadavere c’era un foglietto, nel quale chiedeva di essere cremato qui. Così la polizia telefonò alla sua famiglia, in Italia, e chiese il permesso per la cremazione. Dopo lo affidarono a noi Dom. Le ceneri, però, non le abbiamo buttate nel Gange. La famiglia le ha volute indietro, così, alla fine della cerimonia, le abbiamo raccolte in un’urna e sono partite per l’Italia con il primo aereo". Dalle sue parole traspare l’orgoglio per il rispetto che i Dom si sono guadagnati anche presso le forze dell’ordine, con il loro centenario lavoro di custodi delle cremazioni.

Un rispetto che sembra oltrepassare ogni barriera sociale. Matru ne è convinto e nega con forza l’esistenza di disparità tra i vari livelli della società indiana. "Non ci sentiamo affatto discriminati per la questione delle caste. Possiamo avere la pelle più scura, essere più o meno poveri, ma alla fine siamo fatti di carne e ossa, siamo tutti come fratello e sorella", dice, cercando con insistenza il contatto con le mie mani. Ma poi ci pensa un po’ su e ammette: "Certo, a volte succede che qualcuno delle caste più alte eviti di toccarci. Ma accade raramente. Non è più come un tempo. Oggi i bambini vanno a scuola, sono più acculturati. E capiscono che tra esseri umani non ci può essere differenza". Le pupille scure lampeggiano a tratti, illuminate dai bagliori delle pire che bruciano tutto intorno.

Si interrompe, indica un corteo di persone che scende al molo, portando un feretro. Cantano "Ram Nam Satya hei" (Rama, l’unica verità). "Quelli sono bengalesi", spiega. "Hanno canti diversi, tradizioni particolari: noi indù bruciamo il defunto con la testa rivolta verso Calcutta, dove il Gange sfocia nell’oceano. Loro invece preferiscono sistemare le spoglie con la testa verso la sorgente, e i piedi verso la foce". I bengalesi trasportano il defunto avvolto in un sudario su una barella di bambù. Si sistemano in riva al fiume e il bramino inizia il rituale illuminato dagli schermi di un paio di telefoni cellulari. Tradizione e tecnologia. Per tre volte l’acqua del fiume viene versata in bocca al cadavere, prima di adagiarlo sulla pira e accendere il rogo. Nessuno fa una piega quando dal feretro ormai avvolto dalle fiamme, un braccio del defunto esce dalle bende, ondeggiando inerte per qualche secondo prima di essere aggredito dal fuoco.

"Molti indù non hanno abbastanza denaro per finanziare un corteo funebre sino a Varanasi" riprende Matru. "Così bruciano il defunto a casa loro, e qui portano solo le ceneri, per disperderle sul Gange". Solo alcuni morti sono considerati puri, e non è quindi necessario bruciarne i corpi: si tratta dei neonati, dei morti per vaiolo o per morsi di serpente, e delle vacche. I loro corpi vengono sepolti, oppure gettati direttamente nel fiume. Non vedo donne, al ghat delle cremazioni. Chiedo spiegazione a Matru. "Non c’è un divieto codificato secondo cui le donne non possano assistere alle cremazioni", spiega. "Però le famiglie preferiscono così. Le donne spesso sopportano meno il dolore per la perdita di un parente, e potrebbero turbare la cerimonia funebre con pianti e lamenti". In effetti, non ci sono segni di disperazione, né scene di isteria di alcun tipo tra i parenti che assistono alla cremazione dei loro defunti. La cerimonia segue di solito un rituale preciso: dopo le parole pronunciate dal sacerdote è il primogenito del morto ad accendere il rogo, girandogli attorno cinque volte. La salma è avvolta in un sudario rosso se si tratta di una donna, bianco se si tratta di un uomo, giallo dorato se è una persona anziana, indipendentemente dal sesso.

"Vieni, in cima a questa scalinata c’è il fuoco sacro. Te lo mostro". Matru sale lentamente i gradini, rispondendo con cenni di benevolenza ai molti sguardi che incrociano il suo.

Il tempio che custodisce il fuoco sacro ha un aspetto molto meno scenografico di quanto il suo valore rituale lascerebbe presagire. Una brace debole espira il suo fumo all’interno di una nicchia di cemento dipinta di rosso. Nella parte alta, cinque icone immacolate riconducono il fornetto alla sua dimensione spirituale: Shiva il distruttore danza in mezzo alle fiamme che rappresentano il ritmo perpetuo della distruzione e della creazione; accanto alla sua icona, c’è quella del paffuto Ganesh, il dio dalla testa di elefante, solitamente legato al concetto di fortuna; poi c’è Kali "la nera", con la lunga lingua rossa e una ghirlanda di teschi umani appesa al collo, segni caratteristici della dea della morte; le ultime due mattonelle sono per Durga, moglie di Shiva che si batte per la difesa dell’ordine cosmico, e Vishnu il preservatore, associato al concetto di giustizia.

"Il fuoco per le cremazioni deve partire da qui", assicura Matru, soffiando piano sulla brace per mostrarmi che è ancora viva. "Vedi questi steli di paglia? La gente li accende qui al tempio, e poi li usa per attizzare le fiamme sulla pira. Ognuno dona quello che può", ripete. Invitandomi in maniera più o meno esplicita a contribuire con un’offerta. Gli metto in mano le poche rupie che ho in tasca. "Torna domattina all’alba", riprende lui, "voglio mostrarti la casa dei Dom Raja". Lascio Matru alle sue mansioni di custode del fuoco e mi incammino lungo il ghat, illuminato a squarci dai falò. Luci accese da vite spente. L’occhio mi cade su un oggetto conficcato in una brace ormai quasi esausta. Sembra un femore. Affretto il passo. Al Kedar Ghat è già in corso la puja della sera. E’ una cerimonia rituale che si svolge all’alba e al tramonto, e rappresenta l’offerta di luce al fiume. La cerimonia più importante si svolge al Dasaswamedh Ghat, qualche chilometro più avanti, con cinque sacerdoti che officiano il rito accompagnati da un chiassoso gruppo di musicisti armati di tamburo. Chi preferisce una spiritualità più raccolta si ferma al Dekar. Un solo sacerdote, in piedi su una piattaforma di legno collocata di fronte al Gange, spande un crescendo di luce con movimenti precisi e armoniosi, servendosi dapprima di candele, per passare poi a incensiere, candelabri e lampade infuocate. Un ragazzo accompagna i gesti del sacerdote con un tamburello. Al termine della puja, nel ghat tornano oscurità e silenzio. Ancora pochi metri incerti sui gradini di pietra, nella testa gli ammonimenti sui rischi della Varanasi notturna. Poi è un sollievo riconoscere nel buio l’insegna lampeggiante della guesthouse.

 

Sul Gange l’alba arriva prima. I ghat non dormono mai, e i canti religiosi si diffondono pian piano ben prima che la luce del sole nascente arrivi a lambire le acque del fiume.

Lungo le sponde i primi pellegrini hanno già iniziato il loro complesso rituale: uomini e donne di ogni età sono assorti nelle abluzioni che prevedono bagni e gesti simbolici, da eseguire secondo un ordine preciso. Ogni errore commesso nella sequenza può portare sventura. Un uomo, immerso fino alla vita, riempie d’acqua una brocca d’ottone, ne beve parte del contenuto, poi la ripone sotto il braccio: al termine del rituale la porterà su al tempio. Una signora anziana è nel fiume con tutti i vestiti. Raccoglie l’acqua nelle mani a coppa, poi, rivolta verso il sole, la lascia gocciolare attraverso le dita. Un’offerta ai propri antenati e alle divinità. Più al largo, due pescatori trafficano con le loro reti su una vecchia barca. Nessuno si cura dei turisti più mattinieri che, scarrozzati in barca dal personale degli hotel, scattano freneticamente con le loro macchinette fotografiche digitali, spesso a un palmo di distanza dai pellegrini.

Matru è gia al ghat. Ha appena comprato una nuova foglia di betel e sembra di buonumore. Saliamo su una piccola imbarcazione che ci traghetta verso la casa dei Dom. Sulla sponda del fiume, dove ieri ardeva una grande pira, sono rimasti solo cenere e frammenti di bambù e del sudario. Due bambini scalzi rovistano tra i resti del rogo. "Sono i nostri ragazzi", sorride Matru, scorgendo il mio sguardo interrogativo. "Prima di buttare le ceneri nel fiume setacciano per bene, in cerca dei gioielli che il defunto aveva addosso. Sono tutte cose che rimangono a noi".

La casa dei Dom Raja non è distante. Si staglia sul Gange come un piccolo castello, dalle mura intonacate, un bel po’ di tempo fa, di rosso e celeste. All’interno le stanze sono grandi e colorate, anche se arredate in maniera approssimativa, e con una patina di fumo scuro sulle pareti. Sulla grande terrazza c’è un tempio per le preghiere che si sporge direttamente sul Gange. Ai due angoli, affacciate sul fiume, due imponenti tigri di ceramica colorata rivendicano alla casa dei Dom il primato tra gli edifici bagnati dal fiume sacro. Molti di questi sono palazzi di Maharaja provenienti anche da città lontane, come Jaipur. Una selva curiosa di figlioletti e nipotini ci segue in ogni stanza. Alcuni hanno un tratto di carboncino sulla fronte. "Serve a proteggerli dagli sguardi dei malintenzionati", spiega Matru. "Il carboncino intorno agli occhi, invece, protegge dalla polvere nelle giornate di vento". Matru mostra con orgoglio il ritratto di un suo antenato, l’uomo che fece affari con un Maharaja, ottenendo in cambio forse la cospicua donazione che diede avvio alla vera fortuna dei Dom. Tre donne lavano i panni sulla grande terrazza assolata. I bambini le aiutano a stenderli su un fitto reticolo di pali e fili che occupa parte del terrazzo. C’è un cucciolo di cane, una sedia da giardino di plastica, un lettino in legno e vimini. Nulla lascia trasparire la grande ricchezza dei Dom, se non l’imponenza dell’edificio arroccato in posizione strategica sul fiume.

Torniamo alla barca, seguiamo a ritroso il percorso dell’andata. Il sole è alto, sulle sponde del fiume il flusso di pellegrini sembra cresciuto. Adesso ci sono anche i professionisti del lava-e-stendi, spediti dagli HOTEL A sciacquare le lenzuola sul fiume. Dagli stretti vicoli della città vecchia arriva anche un pastore con un’intera mandria di bufali, che si accomoda in acqua senza creare grande scompiglio.

Nei ghat delle cremazioni, i roghi sono ripresi a pieno ritmo. Enormi mucchi di legna da ardere sono impilati in cima alle scalinate, dove vengono pesati accuratamente su grosse bilance che stabiliscono il prezzo della cremazione. Fuoco sacro a parte. Mi affretto a nascondere la macchina fotografica. Scattare foto nella zona delle cremazioni è considerato sacrilegio. Anche se Matru mi fa capire che, pagando 50 euro al funzionario giusto, è possibile ottenere un’autorizzazione scritta che consente di scattare foto liberamente anche nei ghat sacri. Resta da scoprire come la moltitudine di indu impegnata nei riti funebri riesca a distinguere chi ha il permesso di fare foto da chi non lo ha.

Dietro le pire dei defunti che ardono, incombe una struttura che sembra morta anche lei. E’ il crematorio elettrico di Varanasi, voluto dal Governo per tentare di porre argine all’inquinamento del Gange, dove spesso, nonostante il lavoro dei Dom, vengono gettati cadaveri non del tutto bruciati. Si calcola siano almeno quarantacinque mila ogni anno. Ma l’elettricità, nella città santa, va e viene in continuazione. E il crematorio è diventato presto un monumento alle buone intenzioni. Così come il sistema di depuratori installato in diversi punti del fiume, e mai veramente funzionante. Doveva depurare una striscia di fiume dove 30 cloache scaricano contemporaneamente i propri liquami. Gli investimenti per 25 milioni di dollari, riversati tra il 1986 e il 1993 dopo forti pressioni sul governo, si sono rivelati inutili.

Il livello d’inquinamento del Gange a Varanasi raggiunge livelli talmente alti che l’acqua è praticamente priva di ossigeno disciolto. Studi recenti hanno mostrato che in 100 ml di acqua del fiume sono presenti un milione e mezzo di colibatteri fecali…un valore che in acque balneabili non dovrebbe essere superiore a 500.

Anni fa si era tentato anche di affidarsi a spazzini naturali: tartarughe carnivore, introdotte nel fiume con la speranza di eliminare ciò che restava di rifiuti organici e cremazioni imperfette. Ma le tartarughe sono scomparse in pochissimo tempo. E la gente, sul Gange, continua a fare quello che ha sempre fatto: i pescatori pescano, i pellegrini eseguono le abluzioni rituali, i bambini si fanno il bagno e tutti lavano qui i propri panni.

Eppure il Gange ha una velocità di "autodepurazione" che continua a sfidare la scienza. Il vibrione del colera, che in acqua distillata sopravvive 24 ore, nell’acqua del Gange resiste appena 3 ore. Per gli scienziati è un rompicapo, al quale Mark Twain, sempre lui, diede una spiegazione dissacrante: "Nessun microbo che si rispetti saprebbe vivere in un’acqua simile". Una considerazione che i "figli del Gange" non esiterebbero a definire profana.

Matru allarga le braccia e spiega: "Il Gange è nostra madre. E una madre non farebbe mai del male ai propri figli. Vedi la gente che si bagna nel fiume? Non è mai accaduto nulla di male. Nessun incidente, nessuna malattia. Se fosse successo, tutti sarebbero stati molto più cauti. Ma non è mai accaduto. E mai accadrà". Poi si guarda attorno e, prudentemente, aggiunge: "Se Shiva vorrà", con un ampio sorriso che scopre i denti macchiati dal rosso del betel.

(Tratto da I Re Intoccabili di Varanasi)

They say that an evening stroll along the pier of the deceased is dangerous. Not so much because of the spirits, but for the much more earthly presence of vagrants and common thieves. But the darkness of the night here is never really dark. The darkness is punctuated by fireworks. Some flames if the port via the Ganges lights are a good omen, turned into small baskets of lotus flowers, and assigned to the current. Now carrying mostly desires and hopes of passing tourists. The flames burn more true of the tradition to the shores, breathed in the sky fumes of incense, sandalwood and burned flesh: are the pyres that burn incessantly along the ghats, jetties along the Ganges where Hindus cremate their dead.

For this reason, some Indians know Varanasi only by the nickname Shmashan Puri Maha, which means "fire that never stops." This is the holy city of Hinduism: a place conducive to die because, according to ancient beliefs, exhaling the last breath here one escapes the cycle of reincarnation, and leads directly to the Himalayan paradise of Shiva, who is believed to be on the Mount Kailasa.

"Varanasi" Mark Twain once wrote, "is older than history, older than tradition, older than legend and looks twice as old all these things put together." A place full of mysticism, where everything seems possible. For example, a family that placed at the lowest rung of the social hierarchy of India, the so-called "untouchables", acquires much money and prestige to become the richest and most influential families of the city. Their name is Dom, but they call themselves Dom Raja, because they consider it "the king of the kingdom of the dead" (in Hindu "raja" means "king"). Their home is the most beautiful and impressive of the riverfront.

The Sun guard the "sacred fire", a flame that burns day and night since time immemorial inside a temple dedicated to Shiva. Overall the cremation ceremony, the sacred fire, which is lit the funeral pyre at the end of the rite, is considered a key element. And to access them, the families of the deceased are also offered substantial.

Matru Dom is one of the householders. In the city everyone knows, but it is not easy to get to him. Agree to talk only with the help of an intermediary. And 'evening made ​​now, when I get all'Harishchandra Ghat, a dock of cremations among the oldest in the city, and perhaps the most sacred of all. All around a busy bustle of faithful and priests who were already engaged in funeral ceremonies. There are rose petals and lotus flowers scattered 'everywhere, almost consumed embers, fires that burn with flames three meters high, firewood stacked awaiting the arrival of a corpse. "Wait here," says Sadhu, the intermediary. He gives me a nod, then climbs slightly on the stairway leading to the city. The Ganges black appropriates the visual. There appears to be identical with appeasing the living and the dead who continually pour, or be reversed, in its waters. An old man, sitting on a step in the river, coughs and spits on the ground several times. Then come back and watch the water without expression. Some seniors, at the approach of death, come here to wait for destiny. At one time even the incurably ill were abandoned along the banks of the river, in huts made of branches. Not expected that the Ganges did the miracle, like the water of Lourdes, but he accepted the spirit of the deceased at the time of his death. If the patient survived the other hand, it was thought that it had been rejected by the gods, and was therefore rejected by society and isolated among the pariahs, the untouchables.

"Matru Dom, sir." I turn around. In front of me there is a small man, wrapped in a white scarf that puts even more emphasis on his dark complexion (a characteristic of many untouchables). We sit under a small concrete porch. He speaks broken English, but surprisingly sprinkle a few words of Italian. "Hello friend," outlines a smile, "Beautiful Italy". Remember to have learned those words from a missionary, a few years ago. Then come back seriously, does nod to some of the guys working on a pyre now running out. I finally told the Sun: "I do not know how long my family to do this work, no one can tell. We guard the sacred fire for generations. Do an honest job, and do not ask anything in return, only spontaneous donations." You put in your mouth a betel leaf, wrapped in a blend of spices from the red: for the Indians helps to digest and smells the breath, but not all lovers of betel know that it is a frequent cause of mouth cancer.

"The most important gift," he says, "came from the family of a maharajah: 5 million rupees (almost 90 thousand euro, ed.) But we accept any offer. Even 50 rupees. "According to Hinduism, making offerings of this type allows everyone to improve their karma, a sort of summation of past actions upon which the reincarnation of the soul.'s Why when it comes to bidding for important ceremonies such as a funeral, wealthy families spare no expense. and the offer for the sacred fire is but a part. "It takes 360 pounds of wood and 3 hours of time so that the flames consume a body," he says. "the richest buy sandal wood, which burns better and is fragrant, but it costs more than 100 rupees per kilo (about 2 euro)."

Often, however, the poorest families can not afford enough wood, and then the body does not burn enough, the pieces remain intact. Dom I know how to handle these situations: turn over the bodies in the flames, hit them with a stick, and can thus reduce the time required for cremation. "We are the experts," he smiles Matru. "That's why we all respect and nobody would entrust to others their own dead." He looks around, observing the work of the Sun, with the air of a king who searches his possessions. Then he tells me: "Once we have Dom also burned the body of an Italian." Weigh for a moment my gaze in wonder. "Right there, next to that pile of embers," adds squinting and gesturing circulated a pyre now extinct. He spits the betel. Then he continues: "It was an old man came to Varanasi for a few weeks now. We saw him often here at the ghat. Knew even his name, but now I no longer remember. Always came alone, a curious gentleman with a beret on his head. his eyes were strange, he seemed serene in spirit, but perhaps her body was sick. "Starts to chew betel. "Then suddenly he stopped coming, did not see him for a while. 'They found him dead in his HOTEL ROOM. And beside the corpse there was a piece of paper, in which he asked to be cremated here. So the police phoned his family in Italy, and asked permission for the cremation. entrusted to us after the Sun's Ashes, however, we have not thrown in the Ganges.'s family wanted them back, so at the end of the ceremony, we have collected in a 'urn and left for Italy with the first plane. "From his words reflected the pride in the respect that they have earned Dom also at the police, with their centenary work as custodians of cremations.

A respect that seems to go beyond any social barrier. Matru is convinced and strongly denies the existence of disparities between the various levels of Indian society. "We do not feel discriminated at all to the issue of caste., We have darker skin, be more or less poor, but in the end we are made of flesh and bones, we all like brother and sister," he says, looking earnestly contact with my hands. But then we think a bit 'up and admits: "Sure, sometimes it happens that some of the higher castes avoid touching., But rarely happens.'s Not like the past. Nowadays children go to school, they are more educated. E understand that among human beings there can be no difference. "The dark eyes flashing at times, illuminated by the glow of the pyres burning all around.

It stops, shows a procession of people coming down to the dock, carrying a coffin. They sing "Ram Nam Satya hei" (Rama, the only truth). "Those are Bengalis," he explains. "They have different songs, particular traditions: we Hindus burn the dead with her ​​head turned towards Calcutta, where the Ganges meets the ocean. They prefer to fix the spoils with his head towards the source, and the feet towards the mouth." The Bengalis carrying the deceased wrapped in a shroud on a bamboo stretcher. They settle in the river and the Brahmin ritual begins lit by a couple of screens of mobile phones. Tradition and technology. Three times the river water is poured into the mouth of the corpse, before you lay it on the pyre and light the pyre. No one bat an eyelid when the coffin is now engulfed in flames, an arm of the deceased comes from the bandages, swaying inert for a few seconds before being attacked by fire.

"Many Hindus do not have enough money to finance a funeral procession up to Varanasi" Matru resumes. "So burn the deceased at their home, and here only carry the ashes to scatter them on the Ganges." Only a few deaths are considered pure, and it is therefore necessary to burn the bodies: they are infants, deaths from smallpox or snake bites, and the cows. Their bodies are buried, or dumped directly into the river. I do not see women at the cremation ghat. I ask for explanation Matru. "There is a ban encoded according to which women can not attend the cremation," he explains. "But the families prefer it that way. Women often bear less pain for the loss of a relative, and might upset the funeral with weeping, and with mourning." In fact, there are signs of desperation, or scenes of hysteria of any kind between the relatives attending the cremation of their dead. The ceremony usually follows a precise ritual: after the words spoken by the priest is the firstborn of the dead to light the pyre, girandogli around five times. The body is wrapped in a shroud red if it is a woman, whether it is a white man, golden yellow if it is an older person, regardless of gender.

"Come, on top of this staircase is the sacred fire. I'll show you." Matru slowly climbs the stairs, responding with nods of kindness to many looks that cross her.

The temple which houses the sacred fire looks a lot less dramatic than its ritual value would leave portend. A brace weak exhale the smoke within a niche of concrete painted red. In the upper part, five icons immaculate bring back the oven to its spiritual dimension: the destroyer Shiva dance in the flames that represent the perpetual rhythm of destruction and creation; next to its icon, there is that of chubby Ganesh, the elephant-headed god, usually linked to the concept of luck; Then there is Kali "the black," with the long red tongue and a garland of human skulls hung around his neck, characteristic marks of the goddess of death; the last two tiles are for Durga, wife of Shiva who is fighting for the defense of the cosmic order, and Vishnu the preserver, associated with the concept of justice.

"The focus for the cremations must start from here," assures Matru, blowing on the embers plan to show that it is still alive. "See these stalks of straw? Them people on here at the temple, and then use them to stoke the flames on the pyre. Everyone gives what he can," he repeats. Inviting more or less explicitly to contribute with an offer. I put my hand in the few rupees in my pocket. "Come back tomorrow morning at dawn," he resumed, "I want to show the house of the Dom Raja". I leave Matru to his duties as guardian of the fire and walked along the ghats, illuminated by bonfires gashes. Lights to screw off. My eye falls on an object stuck in a brace now almost exhausted. It looks like a femur. Hasten the pace. At the Kedar Ghat is already underway puja in the evening. It 'a ritual ceremony that takes place at dawn and dusk, and represents the range of light to the river. The most important ceremony takes place at Dasaswamedh Ghat, a few kilometers further on, with five priests who officiate the ceremony accompanied by a boisterous group of musicians armed with drum. Those who prefer a more intimate spirituality stops at Dekar. One priest, standing on a wooden platform placed in front of the Ganges, spreading a crescendo of light with precise movements and harmonious, using first candle, then move on to incense, candlesticks and lamps burning. A boy accompanies the gestures of the priest with a tambourine. At the end of the puja, in return ghat darkness and silence. Just a few meters uncertain on the stone steps, in the head the warnings on the risks of Varanasi night. Then it is a relief to recognize the sign flashing in the darkness of the guesthouse.

 

On the Ganges before dawn arrives. The ghats never sleep, and religious songs spread gradually well before the light of the rising sun arrives to lap the waters of the river.

Along the banks of the first pilgrims have already started the whole ritual: men and women of all ages are absorbed in the ablutions that provide bathrooms and symbolic gestures, to be performed in a specific order. Any error in the sequence can lead misfortune. A man immersed to the waist, fills a water jug brass, do you drink the contents, then shoves it under his arm at the end of the ritual will bring about the temple. An elderly lady is in the river with all the dresses. Collects water in cupped hands, then, facing the sun, the leaves drip through your fingers. An offer to their ancestors and the gods. Further offshore, two fishermen traffic in their networks on an old boat. Nobody cares tourists risers that scarrozzati by boat from the staff of the hotel, click frantically with their cameras digital, often a few inches away from the pilgrims.

Matru is already at the ghat. He just bought a new betel leaf and seems in good spirits. We go on a small boat that ferries us to the house of the Sun On the bank of the river, where a great fire was burning yesterday, there are only ashes and fragments of bamboo and cloth. Two barefoot children rummaging through the remains of the fire. "They are our kids," Matru smiles, seeing my quizzical look. "Before you throw the ashes into the river scour for good, in search of the jewels that the deceased was wearing. Things are all that remain to us."

The home of Dom Raja is not far away. It stands on the Ganges as a small castle, the walls plastered, a nice little 'time ago, red and blue. Inside, the rooms are big and colorful, although furnished approximate, and with a patina of dark smoke on the walls. On the large terrace there is a temple for prayers that leans directly on the Ganges. The two corners, overlooking the river, two huge tigers colorful ceramic claiming the house of Dom primacy among the buildings bathed in the sacred river. Many of these buildings are of Maharaja also from distant cities, such as Jaipur. A mass of curious little children and grandchildren following us in every room. Some have a stretch of charcoal on the forehead. "We need to protect them from the eyes of the bad guys," says Matru. "The charcoal around the eyes, on the other hand, protects against dust on windy days." Matru proudly displays the portrait of his ancestor, the man who did business with a Maharaja, perhaps in exchange for the generous donation that started the fortune of the Sun Three Women wash clothes on the large sun terrace. The children help to lay them out on a dense network of poles and wires which occupies part of the terrace. There is a puppy dog, a plastic garden chair, a cot in wood and wicker. Nothing reveals the great wealth of the Sun, if not the grandeur of the building perched in a strategic position on the river.

Let's get back to the boat, we follow back the route. The sun is up, on the banks of the stream of pilgrims seem grown up. Now there are also professionals in the lava-and-stretch, consigned by A HOTEL wash the sheets on the river. From the narrow streets of the old town comes a shepherd with a herd of buffalo, which sits on the water without creating a commotion.

In the cremation ghat, the fires were resumed in full swing. Huge piles of firewood are stacked on top of the stairs, where they are weighed accurately on large scales that determine the price of cremation. Sacred Fire apart. I hasten to hide the camera. Take pictures of cremations in the area is considered sacrilege. Although Matru makes me realize that paying 50 euro to the official right, you can get a written authorization allowing you to take pictures freely even in the sacred ghat. It remains to find out how the multitude of Hindu funeral rites committed to be able to differentiate who is allowed to take pictures from those who did not.

Behind the blazing pyres of the dead, a looming structure that seems dead too. E 'the electric crematorium in Varanasi, wanted by the government for groped to put an embankment to the pollution of the Ganges, where often, despite the work of Dom, corpses are thrown completely burned. It is estimated to be at least forty-five thousand each year. But electricity, in the holy city comes and goes constantly. And the crematorium soon became a monument to good intentions. As well as the system of scrubbers installed at different points of the river, and never really working. He had to clean up a stretch of river where 30 sewers discharge their sewage at the same time. Investments for $ 25 million, paid between 1986 and 1993, after strong pressure on the government, proved futile.

The level of pollution of the Ganges in Varanasi reaches levels so high that the water is virtually free of dissolved oxygen. Recent studies have shown that in 100 ml of water of the river there are a million and a half of fecal coliform ... a value in bathing waters should not be more than 500.

Years ago it was also attempted to rely on natural scavengers: carnivorous turtles, which were introduced into the river with the hope of eliminating the remnants of organic waste and cremations imperfect. But the turtles are gone in no time. And the people, on the Ganges, continues to do what it has always done: most fishermen, the pilgrims perform the ritual ablutions, children bathe and wash all their clothes here.

Yet the Ganges has a speed of "self-purification" that continues to defy science. The vibrio cholerae, which survives 24 hours in distilled water, the water of the Ganges resists just 3 hours. For scientists it is a puzzle game, in which Mark Twain, he always gave a debunking explanation: "No self-respecting microbe know how to live in water like that." One consideration that the "sons of the Ganges" would not hesitate to define profane.

Matru opens his arms and says: "The Ganga is our mother. And a mother would never do harm to their children. See people who bathes in the river? There is nothing bad ever happened. Were no incidents, no disease. If had happened, all would have been much more cautious., but it never happened. it never happens. "Then you look around and prudently adds: "If you want to Shiva", with a broad smile that turns your teeth stained red from betel.

(Taken from The Untouchables King of Varanasi)

São Miguel dos Milagres é um município brasileiro do estado de Alagoas. Sua população estimada em 2004 era de 6.354 habitantes.

 

Chamava-se, antes, Freguesia de Nossa Senhora Mãe do Povo. Mudou sua denominação, segundo a tradição, depois que um pescador encontrou na praia uma peça de madeira coberta de musgos e algas marinhas. Ao levá-la para casa e fazer sua limpeza, descobriu que se tratava de uma imagem de São Miguel Arcanjo, provavelmente caída de alguma embarcação. Ao terminar o trabalho de limpeza, o pescador descobriu espantado, que uma ferida persistente que o afligia há tempos estava totalmente cicatrizada.

 

A notícia logo se espalhou, fazendo com que aparecessem pessoas em busca de cura para suas doenças e de novos milagres. Sua colonização tomou corpo durante o período da invasão holandesa, quando moradores da sofrida Porto Calvo fugiram em busca de um lugar seguro para abrigar suas famílias e de onde pudessem avistar com antecipação a chegada dos inimigos batavos. A capela inicial, que deu origem à freguesia estabelecida pela Igreja Católica, foi dedicada a Nossa Senhora Mãe do Povo.

 

Sua história está ligada, pela proximidade, à de Porto de Pedras e à de Porto Calvo, antigo Santo Antônio dos Quatro Rios ou, ainda, Bom Sucesso. Disputa com Porto de Pedras a primazia de ser a sede do Engenho Mata Redonda, onde ocorreu a célebre batalha do mesmo nome travada, entre o exército holandês e as forças luso-espanholas e vencida pelo General Artikchof. É compreensível a querela, uma vez que os atuais municípios não estavam formados e os limites eram imprecisos. Por muito tempo, o Engenho Democrata foi destaque na produção de açúcar na região. Igualmente, o povoado foi líder na produção de cocos, quando ainda pertencia a Porto de Pedras.

 

Foi elevado à vila em 09 de junho de 1864 e, a partir de 1941, um grupo de moradores, entre eles Augusto de Barros Falcão, José Braga, Aderbal da Costa Raposo e João Moraes vinham reivindicando sua emancipação do município de Porto de Pedras. A emancipação política começou no dia 6 de junho de 1960. E pela Lei 2.239, de 07 de junho de 1960, São Miguel dos Milagres emancipa-se, separando-se de Porto de Pedras.

 

Texto by: pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A3o_Miguel_dos_Milagres

 

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São Miguel dos Milagres is a municipality in the state of Alagoas. Its estimated population in 2004 was 6,354 inhabitants.

 

His name was before, Parish of Our Lady Mother of the People. It changed its name, according to tradition, after a fisherman found the beach a piece of wood covered with mosses and seaweed. To take it home and do your cleaning, she discovered that it was an image of St. Michael the Archangel probably fallen in some vessel. When you finish the cleaning work, the fisherman discovered amazed that a persistent wound that afflicted him for days was totally healed.

 

The news soon spread, causing appeared people seeking cures for their diseases and new miracles. Colonization took shape during the period of Dutch invasion when residents suffered Porto Calvo fled in search of a safe place to house their families and where they could sight in advance the arrival of the Batavians enemies. The original chapel, which gave rise to the parish established by the Catholic Church was dedicated to Our Lady Mother of the People.

 

Its history is linked by proximity to the Porto de Pedras and Porto Calvo, former St. Anthony of the Four Rivers, or even Bom Sucesso. Dispute with Porto de Pedras the primacy of being the seat of the Engenho Mata Redonda, where there was the famous battle of the same name fought between the Dutch army and the Luso-Spanish forces and won by General Artikchof. the complaint, since the current municipalities were not formed were inaccurate and limits is understandable. For a long time, the Democratic Engenho was featured in sugar production in the region. Also, the town was the leading producer of coconuts, when still belonged to Porto de Pedras.

 

It was elevated to the village on June 9, 1864, and from 1941, a group of residents, among them Augusto de Barros Falcão, José Braga, Adherbal Costa Raposo and John Moraes came claiming emancipation of Porto de Pedras municipality. Political emancipation began on June 6, 1960. And by Law 2239 of 07 June 1960, São Miguel dos Milagres is emancipated, by separating from Porto de Pedras.

Google Tradutor para empresas:Google Toolkit de tradução para appsTradutor de sitesGlobal Market Finder

 

(References:- K. Lal in his book Tarekh e Punjab & The crumbling glory of Sheikhupura Fort by Aown Ali)

  

In West Punjab (now in Pakistan), the town of Sheikhupura (about 35 km west of Lahore) is hailed a center of historically significant architecture.

 

The Hiran Minar (Minaret of the Antelope) and the Sheikhupura Fort make this stop a focal point of interest.

 

The town, now a district headquarters and one of the major industrial cities of Punjab, has grown from a village, originally called “Jahangirpura” when it was settled during the reign of the Mughal emperor, Jahangir, because of its proximity to Hiran Minar, a royal hunting resort.

 

The primary historical importance of the city relates to its Fort. It lays no claim to grandeur. Locally known as Qila Sheikhupura, it has gave its name to the town as well.

 

Construction of the fort began in the second year of Jahangir’s reign (1607). The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (autobiography of Jahangir) mentions that the emperor assigned the job of constructing a fort at that location to Sikandar Moeen during a hunting trip to Hiran Minar.

 

The two centuries that followed were mostly uneventful for the Fort. Neither a seat of government nor a target for invaders, it remained but a halt for imperial entourages heading on pleasure trips to Kashmir in the north, or towards Kabul in the west.

 

The Fort’s political importance did not emerge until the establishment of the Sikh Empire at the end of the 18th century.

 

A veteran historian and archeologist, Ihsan H. Nadiem, tells us that immediately before the consolidation of Punjab under the Sikhs, the Fort served as a convenient place for robbers looting the countryside.

 

The Durrani king, Shah Zaman, during his invasion of Lahore in 1797, briefly besieged the Fort, but only to purge it of the robbers. Soon after his departure, the Fort was once again occupied by the highwaymen.

  

Shortly thereafter, Lehna Singh Majithia (who also served as the Governor of Lahore. The son of General Lehna Singh, Sardar Dyal Singh, was perhaps the most significant Punjabi of the late 19th century in the British Punjab. He was the main force behind the founding of Punjab University), an ally of Ranjit Singh, invaded the fort and took occupation. After him, its ownership passed on to Bhai Singh, followed by Sahib Singh and Sahai Singh in 1808, at which point Ranjit Singh marched upon it and caused its surrender.

 

This whole story of Sheikhupura raid wrote by Hindu writer K. Lal in his book Tarekh e Punjab (Page 196-197) and it is as under:

 

“Mahraja Ranjeet was busy in handling state affairs, in the meantime a group of farmers belong to Sheikhpura came to his door, they wanted to seek help against brutal Sikh rulers Sardar Arbel Singh & Sardar Ameer Singh. These Sardars had occupied the Sheikhupura fort and land, there army looting common people up to that level that they were dying of hunger. That group of farmer said the people of Sheikhupura accepted the over lordship of the Maharaja and requested to take their territory under Mahraja rule and control to protect them from these two brutal Sardars.

Mahraja accepted the request and assigned his eldest son, the crown prince, Kharak Singh for Sheikhupura fort Campaign. He reached Sheikhupura; he has four thousand army troops and support of one Cannon artillery.

Sheikhupura fort was very well constructed with strong fortified walls, Mahraja himself selected best cannons from his cannon yard for this campaign and also assign one of his best army officer Sardar Hakma Singh for assisting Crown prince Kharak Singh in this campaign.

When this troop reached Sheikhupura, Crown Prince Kharak Singh called both the ruling Sardar’s to him, but instead of appearing in front of Prince they have further fortified the fort and get ready for war.

The Prince first sieges the fort and then orders Canon artillery to start fire on fort walls. The fort walls were strongly fortified and hold the Cannon artillery attack for days.

This result less campaign made Prince to think if he wanted to win this fight he has to reinforce his troops and artillery as well. For that purpose he wrote for help to his father Mahraja Ranjit Singh. When Maharaja saw this letter he got angry, he ordered to send biggest cannon of his artillery the Ahmad Shahi Gun. Which he forcefully took from Saheb Singh Guajarati)

(Ahmad Shahi Gun also known as zamzama gun…, The Zamzama Gun is a large bore cannon. It is also known as Kim’s Gun or Bhangianwali Taop. It was cast in 1757 in Lahore. At that time Lahore was a part of the Durrani Empire. The gun was used by Ahmed Shah in the battle of Panipat in 1761. In 1802, Ranjit Singh got hold of the gun and used it in the battles of Daska, Kasur, Sujanpur, Wazirabad and Multan. In the siege of Multan, the gun was badly damaged. It is currently on display in front of the Lahore Museum at The Mall Road, Lahore.)

The Maharaja also reached the Sheikhupura Fort with fresh troops and again the battle started.

After two days of fight, Maharaja ordered to place Ahmed Shah Gun in front of Main gate of Fort. It was tough task and took many lives of soldiers but at last it was placed there. Hundred rounds of guns were fired and main gate of fort completely destroyed. The Mahraja troops entered the fort and raise the winning flag on wall. Both Arbel & Ameer Singh were arrested.

Since the area of Sheikhupura won in name of Crown Prince Kharak Singh, the fort and “Jageer” of Sheikhupura bestowed to Prince by his father Mahraja Ranjeet Singh under the primacy of her mother Rani Datar Kaur (1801-1840), the mother of the crown prince, Kharak Singh. She was also known as Rani Raj Kaur or Mai Nakkain. She lived in the Fort till her death.”

 

She had a considerable role in the rehabilitation of this small, strategically unimportant and hitherto almost abandoned citadel. She built a wonderful haveli within it. The excellent frescoes in the distinctive Kangra style found in the parlour and in the two chambers on the first floor of this haveli, are attributed to Raj Kaur‘s excellent taste.

 

In mid-19th century, when the British invaded Punjab, they used the Fort to imprison the Sikh kingdom’s Regent, Rani Jind Kaur – “Jindaa(n)” - after taking her son, the child Emperor Duleep Singh, prisoner.

 

In a letter dated August 9, 1847 Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence, the British Resident in Punjab suggested to the Governor General that the Queen be banished from Punjab, to prevent the populace from rising under banner.

 

The 8-year old Emperor was removed from his palace in the Lahore Fort on August 19, 1847, and taken to the Shalimar Gardens, while his mother, the Queen, was confined to the distant Sheikhupura Fort.

 

Historian Himadri Banerjee describes how Jindaan was forcibly removed from Lahore between 8 and 9 pm under a heavy military escort. Accompanied by Sardar Arjan Singh Rangharnanglia and Gurmukh Singh Lamma, she was lodged in Sheikhupura Fort in the early hours of Friday, August 20, 1847, under the charge of Sardar Boor Singh.

 

Soon after her arrival at Sheikhupura, she wrote the following letter to the Resident at Lahore, protesting the ruthless separation from her young eight-year old.

 

With the Grace of the Great Guru

From Bibi Sahib to Lawrence Sahib,

 

We have arrived safely at Sheikhupura, You should send our luggage with care, As I was sitting in the Samman (Burj - Palace in Lahore Fort), in the same way I am in Sheikhupura. Both the places are same to me; you have been very cruel to me. You have snatched my son from me … In the name of the God you worship and in the name of the king whose salt you eat, restore my son to me. I cannot bear the pain of this separation … I shall reside in Sheikhupura. I shall not go to Lahore. Send my son to me. I will come to you at Lahore only during the days when you hold darbar. On that day I will send him. A great deal (of injustice) has been done to me. A great deal (of injustice) has been done to my son also. You have accepted what other people have said. Put an end to it now. Too much has been done.

 

The Queen resided in the Sheikhupura Fort for nine months. On the afternoon of May 15, 1848, she was taken away, to be imprisoned in Chunar Fort, near Benares (in current day Uttar Pradesh, India). She made a dramatic escape from there and fled to Nepal, where she remained until, years later, almost blind and dying, was finally allowed to visit her son, who was by then exiled in England.

 

The Sheikhupura Fort was thus witness to a number of crucial turning points during the half-century of the Sikh Raj.

 

The Empire had held played a crucial role as a bulwark against ongoing invasions through the subcontinent’s porous western borders. At its peak, it held sway from Tibet in the east to the Khyber Pass in the west, to Kashmir in the north and to Sindh in the south. It also, while Ranjit Singh was alive, kept the British at bay, even though the rest of the subcontinent had collapsed under them like a row of dominoes.

 

After the annexation of Punjab, the Sheikhupura Fort was temporarily used as administrative headquarters of the Gujranwala district from 1849 to 1851. However, upon the transfer of the district headquarters to Gujranwala town, it was turned into a military outpost.

  

After a split of administration jurisdictions in 1918, a new district was created in Sheikhupura. The Fort then passed on to house the police headquarters of the newly created district.

 

After the partition of Punjab and India in 1947, it was briefly used by the immigrants from East Punjab (by then in the newly-created India) as shelter, and

later by encroachers, from whom it came into the possession of the Department of Archaeology of Pakistan in 1967.

 

Within the complex, no building from the Mughal period is left standing, except the main entrance façade. There are also some remains of sandstone columns depicting the history of the laying of the foundations of the Sheikhupura Fort.

 

Today, what we can see standing, although dilapidated, is a crumbling six-storey haveli, identical to the haveli of Naunihal Singh, which is situated inside Mori Gate in Lahore.

 

The most vibrant aspect of the beauty of the haveli in the Sheikhupura Fort is its frescoes.

 

Sadly, precious wooden doors, windows and parts of the roof have already been whisked away by raiders and the haveli has turned into a haunted house.

 

Inside the ruins and rooms occupied by bats, we can still find signs of the former lifestyle through colourful and thematic paintings and other art work in the Kangra style. Fresco art work in the haveli of Raj Kaur portrays almost all aspects of daily life – ranging from worship to romantic love to military life. Colors are still vivid, the art work is glittering, but the haveli is now, due to institutional neglect, close to the end of its physical life.

 

Despite its poor condition, no contractor or labourer agrees to work as it is believed the fort is haunted by ghosts of the queens which used to live there.

 

This fort is closed to the public due to its bad structural condition; it took me at least three years to take permission to visit this place.

    

Vienna Baroque

Doris Binder

 

The center of Baroque art was undisputable Vienna, as a special promoter appeared the Emperor Charles VI., under whose reign not only the Karlskirche was built, but also numerous buildings have been newly planned or built. The passion for building of the High Baroque is not only founded by the destructions of the Turks, but also has its causes in the backward economic structure and its lack of production plants. Whether nobleman, cleric or commoner, all those with sufficient capital put it rather in construction funds into practice than not make use of it. Responsible for this was a deep distrust to the imperial fiscal policy and concern about the currency and a possible bankruptcy.

The Baroque emerged within the civil peace (*) Burgfrieden) of the city of Vienna, had at the beginning of the High Baroque era still dominated religious buildings, so the cityscape changed in just four decades. Vienna was transformed into a "palace city", by the year 1740, the number of pleasure palaces, gardens and belvederes had doubled. The Baroque style, which by crown, church and nobility was forced upon the citizens, is considered of Felix Czeike as "authority art". The existing social gap should be camouflaged by the rubberneck culture in festivities, receptions and parades.

 

*) Burgfrieden (The term truce or Castle peace referred to a jurisdiction in the Middle Ages around a castle, in which feuds, so hostilities of private individuals among themselves, under penalty of ostracism were banned. Today the term is mainly used in a figurative sense.

 

Due to the return of Fischer von Erlach to Vienna in 1686 and a decade later, Lukas von Hildebrandt, the primacy of the Italians in architecture was broken and the victory parade of Austrian Baroque began. The connection between the spiritual and secular powers found its mode of expression in the Baroque, which the appearance of the city of Vienna should characterize in a decisive manner.

 

Construction of Charles Church

The Karlskirche was built by Emperor Charles VI. commemorating the plague saint, Charles Borromeo. In 1713 the plague raged in Vienna and claimed about 8,000 human lives, in February 1714 the plague disappeared and as a sign of gratitude was began with the construction of the church, this should become the most important religious building of Vienna in the 18th century.

In a contest was decided on the builder - participants were Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt and Ferdinando Galli-Bibienas. As winner emerged the famous architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, he died in 1723 and did not live to the achievement of the Church. The supervision was transferred to the imperial court architect Anton Erhard Martinelli, as Fischer von Erlach died, his son, Joseph Emmanuel, finished his work. On 28 October 1737 St. Charles Church was solemnly by the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Sigismund Count Kollowitz, inaugurated. The spiritual care ceded Emperor Karl VI. to the chivalric Order of the Cross with the Red Star, since 1783 is the Karlskirche imperial patronage parish.

The church at that time lay still behind the regulated river Wien (Wienfluss) and in the open field. The directed towards the city face side of the Charles Church, which stood on the edge of the suburb of Wieden, was target point of a line of sight the Hofburg and St. Charles Church in the sense of a "via triumphalis" connecting. On the temple-like front building of the Karlskirche the dedication inscription is clearly visible "Vota mea Reddam in conspectu timentium Deum" - "I will fulfill my vow before those who fear God."

Already during the construction by Fischer von Erlach (senior), there were several project phases, three of which have been preserved:

 

1. Medaillon by Daniel Warou for the groundbreaking ceremony

2. Fore stitches in Fischer's draft of a historical architecture 1721

3. Viennese view of work by Klein and Pfeffel 1722 (1724)

 

Due to the death of Fischer von Erlach, occured recent changes made by his son, Joseph Emmanuel most of all being concerned the dome (much higher and steeper), the priest choir (omitted) and the interior (simpler). The entire project took a total of 21 years and the costs amounted to 304 045 guilders and 22 ¼ cruisers. The construction costs were shouldered by all crown lands of the Empire, but also Spain, Milan and the Netherlands had to make a contribution.

The Karlskirche is the most important Baroque building of the city and represents the most convincing the so-called Empire style in which for the last time an empire awareness in the architecture of the capital of the Holy Roman Empire after the victorious ended wars against the Turks and the French was expressed.

Symbolism of the Karlskirche

The Karlskirche consists of a central rotunda with a dome, preceded by a column structure like a Greek temple, of two high pillars illustrated on the model of Trajan's Column in Rome and of two lateral gate pavilions. The illustrated columns represent Charles VI. as a wise and strong secular ruler, the two great pillars were created by Marder and Matielli. The columns are crowned by golden eagles, symbolizing the two virtues of the Emperor - fortitudo (bravery) and constantia (resistance). The two pillars are evocative of the two pillars before the temple in Jerusalem - Jachin and Boaz. However, the illustration of the two columns does not match the model of the Trajan columns in Rome, portraying war deeds, but these tell the life story of St. Borromeo. In the front view of the Karlskirche a wide range of different symbols become one whole - the Roman emperors Trajan and Augustus, the Temple of Solomon, St. Peter's Church in Rome, Hagia Sophia, Charlemagne and the Empire of Charles V. - through the skillfully used symbols should be shown the claim of the house of Habsburg to the European domination.

The plan view of the church is, as in baroque typical, ellipsoid. In the interior of the Karlskirche the great Baroque sculpture is immediately noticeable, representing St. Borromeo. At the base the four Latin Fathers of the Church are depicted. The interior of the Karlskirche is dominated by the tremendous fresco in the oval dome room, it was created by the eminent Baroque painter Johann Michael Rottmayr between 1725-1730. The fresco shows the Mother of God representing the intercession of the patron Saint of the Church to help head off the plague, surrounded is the scene by the cardinal virtues (faith, hope and love). In the left entrance wing is situated the tomb for the Austrian poet Heinrich Joseph von Collin (17771-1811).

Inside the St. Charles Church, there is a museum where the most valuable pieces are exhibited.

These include: the vestments of St. Borromeo, a reliquary of gold and silver - a donation of Emperor Charles VI. and a rococo monstrance (1760) containing a drop of blood of the saint. Thomas Aquinas.

Even the image of the architect Fischer von Erlach, painted by Jacob von Schuppen, is one of the church treasures.

The iconographic program of the Charles Church was written by Carl Gustav Haerus, by this the Saint Charles Borromeo should be connected to the imperial founder.

www.univie.ac.at/hypertextcreator/ferstel/site/browse.php...

"Reign, O Mother and Queen,

by showing us the path of holiness

and by guiding and assisting us

that we may never stray from it.

In the heights of heaven

you exercise your primacy

over the choirs of angels

who acclaim you as their sovereign,

and over the legions of saints

who delight in beholding your dazzling beauty.

So, too, reign over the entire human race,

above all by opening the path of faith

to those who do not yet know your Divine Son."

– from a prayer of Pope Pius XII.

 

This painting is by Annibale Caracci, made for a Roman cardinal sometime after the artist’s arrival in Rome in 1595. It is housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC.

From Wikipedia:

 

Bagan (formerly Pagan) is an ancient city located in the Mandalay Region of Burma (Myanmar). From the 9th to 13th centuries, the city was the capital of the Kingdom of Pagan, the first kingdom to unify the regions that would later constitute modern Myanmar. During the kingdom's height between the 11th and 13th centuries, over 10,000 Buddhist temples, pagodas and monasteries were constructed in the Bagan plains alone, of which the remains of over 2200 temples and pagodas still survive to the present day.

 

(...)

 

The prosperous city grew in size and grandeur, and became a cosmopolitan center for religious and secular studies, specializing in Pali scholarship in grammar and philosophical-psychological (abhidhamma) studies as well as works in a variety of languages on prosody, phonology, grammar, astrology, alchemy, medicine, and legal studies. The city attracted monks and students from as far as India, Ceylon as well as the Khmer Empire.

 

The culture of Bagan was dominated by religion. The religion of Bagan was fluid, syncretic and by later standards, unorthodox. It was largely a continuation of religious trends in the Pyu era where Theravada Buddhism co-existed with Mahayana Buddhism, Tantric Buddhism, various Hindu (Saivite, and Vaishana) schools as well as native animist (nat) traditions. While the royal patronage of Theravada Buddhism since the mid-11th century had enabled the Buddhist school to gradually gain primacy, other traditions continued to thrive throughout the Pagan period to degrees later unseen.

  

I have fond memories of taking this picture. After a day of exploring the temples and ruins I thought that this would be nicest place to watch the sunset. I was confirmed in this when a film crew arrived shortly after me. It turned out to be the BBC, with Peter Ustinov presenting. So here I was sitting with my two cold cans of Heineken listening to Mr. Ustinov's deep voice explaining me the city's history.

Curators' styatement:

 

"Ritualisation is one of the primitive placemaking agencies. It puts human at the center of architectural operation by comprehending order as an instrument connecting human and the world. This establishment of order becomes the core operational method, as opposed to emphasising the primacy of form that evidently discriminates other senses and pleasures of the only one: the eyes. As David Michael Levin points out that the will to power of the eyes is so strong to the extent of having “tendency in vision to grasp and fixate, to reify, and totalise; a tendency to dominate, secure, and control”. Hence, architectural experience is trapped by this visual centric approach and geometrical gimmicks. The pavilion Sunyata aims to demonstrate a production of architectural space by embracing Emptiness as a cultural-based method to liberate spatial experience from ocularcentrism and oppression of grids. By emphasising to the very core of volumetric spatial order instead of the elemental ones, an interplay of scale-proportion and tactility are the main apparatus to make the exhibition engaging to the audience."

 

P7102104.

Vienna Baroque

Doris Binder

 

The center of Baroque art was undisputable Vienna, as a special promoter appeared the Emperor Charles VI., under whose reign not only the Karlskirche was built, but also numerous buildings have been newly planned or built. The passion for building of the High Baroque is not only founded by the destructions of the Turks, but also has its causes in the backward economic structure and its lack of production plants. Whether nobleman, cleric or commoner, all those with sufficient capital put it rather in construction funds into practice than not make use of it. Responsible for this was a deep distrust to the imperial fiscal policy and concern about the currency and a possible bankruptcy.

The Baroque emerged within the civil peace (*) Burgfrieden) of the city of Vienna, had at the beginning of the High Baroque era still dominated religious buildings, so the cityscape changed in just four decades. Vienna was transformed into a "palace city", by the year 1740, the number of pleasure palaces, gardens and belvederes had doubled. The Baroque style, which by crown, church and nobility was forced upon the citizens, is considered of Felix Czeike as "authority art". The existing social gap should be camouflaged by the rubberneck culture in festivities, receptions and parades.

 

*) Burgfrieden (The term truce or Castle peace referred to a jurisdiction in the Middle Ages around a castle, in which feuds, so hostilities of private individuals among themselves, under penalty of ostracism were banned. Today the term is mainly used in a figurative sense.

 

Due to the return of Fischer von Erlach to Vienna in 1686 and a decade later, Lukas von Hildebrandt, the primacy of the Italians in architecture was broken and the victory parade of Austrian Baroque began. The connection between the spiritual and secular powers found its mode of expression in the Baroque, which the appearance of the city of Vienna should characterize in a decisive manner.

 

Construction of Charles Church

The Karlskirche was built by Emperor Charles VI. commemorating the plague saint, Charles Borromeo. In 1713 the plague raged in Vienna and claimed about 8,000 human lives, in February 1714 the plague disappeared and as a sign of gratitude was began with the construction of the church, this should become the most important religious building of Vienna in the 18th century.

In a contest was decided on the builder - participants were Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt and Ferdinando Galli-Bibienas. As winner emerged the famous architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, he died in 1723 and did not live to the achievement of the Church. The supervision was transferred to the imperial court architect Anton Erhard Martinelli, as Fischer von Erlach died, his son, Joseph Emmanuel, finished his work. On 28 October 1737 St. Charles Church was solemnly by the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Sigismund Count Kollowitz, inaugurated. The spiritual care ceded Emperor Karl VI. to the chivalric Order of the Cross with the Red Star, since 1783 is the Karlskirche imperial patronage parish.

The church at that time lay still behind the regulated river Wien (Wienfluss) and in the open field. The directed towards the city face side of the Charles Church, which stood on the edge of the suburb of Wieden, was target point of a line of sight the Hofburg and St. Charles Church in the sense of a "via triumphalis" connecting. On the temple-like front building of the Karlskirche the dedication inscription is clearly visible "Vota mea Reddam in conspectu timentium Deum" - "I will fulfill my vow before those who fear God."

Already during the construction by Fischer von Erlach (senior), there were several project phases, three of which have been preserved:

 

1. Medaillon by Daniel Warou for the groundbreaking ceremony

2. Fore stitches in Fischer's draft of a historical architecture 1721

3. Viennese view of work by Klein and Pfeffel 1722 (1724)

 

Due to the death of Fischer von Erlach, occured recent changes made by his son, Joseph Emmanuel most of all being concerned the dome (much higher and steeper), the priest choir (omitted) and the interior (simpler). The entire project took a total of 21 years and the costs amounted to 304 045 guilders and 22 ¼ cruisers. The construction costs were shouldered by all crown lands of the Empire, but also Spain, Milan and the Netherlands had to make a contribution.

The Karlskirche is the most important Baroque building of the city and represents the most convincing the so-called Empire style in which for the last time an empire awareness in the architecture of the capital of the Holy Roman Empire after the victorious ended wars against the Turks and the French was expressed.

Symbolism of the Karlskirche

The Karlskirche consists of a central rotunda with a dome, preceded by a column structure like a Greek temple, of two high pillars illustrated on the model of Trajan's Column in Rome and of two lateral gate pavilions. The illustrated columns represent Charles VI. as a wise and strong secular ruler, the two great pillars were created by Marder and Matielli. The columns are crowned by golden eagles, symbolizing the two virtues of the Emperor - fortitudo (bravery) and constantia (resistance). The two pillars are evocative of the two pillars before the temple in Jerusalem - Jachin and Boaz. However, the illustration of the two columns does not match the model of the Trajan columns in Rome, portraying war deeds, but these tell the life story of St. Borromeo. In the front view of the Karlskirche a wide range of different symbols become one whole - the Roman emperors Trajan and Augustus, the Temple of Solomon, St. Peter's Church in Rome, Hagia Sophia, Charlemagne and the Empire of Charles V. - through the skillfully used symbols should be shown the claim of the house of Habsburg to the European domination.

The plan view of the church is, as in baroque typical, ellipsoid. In the interior of the Karlskirche the great Baroque sculpture is immediately noticeable, representing St. Borromeo. At the base the four Latin Fathers of the Church are depicted. The interior of the Karlskirche is dominated by the tremendous fresco in the oval dome room, it was created by the eminent Baroque painter Johann Michael Rottmayr between 1725-1730. The fresco shows the Mother of God representing the intercession of the patron Saint of the Church to help head off the plague, surrounded is the scene by the cardinal virtues (faith, hope and love). In the left entrance wing is situated the tomb for the Austrian poet Heinrich Joseph von Collin (17771-1811).

Inside the St. Charles Church, there is a museum where the most valuable pieces are exhibited.

These include: the vestments of St. Borromeo, a reliquary of gold and silver - a donation of Emperor Charles VI. and a rococo monstrance (1760) containing a drop of blood of the saint. Thomas Aquinas.

Even the image of the architect Fischer von Erlach, painted by Jacob von Schuppen, is one of the church treasures.

The iconographic program of the Charles Church was written by Carl Gustav Haerus, by this the Saint Charles Borromeo should be connected to the imperial founder.

www.univie.ac.at/hypertextcreator/ferstel/site/browse.php...

 

"And so, supported by the clear witness of Holy Scripture, and adhering to the manifest and explicit decrees both of our predecessors the Roman Pontiffs and of general councils, we promulgate anew the definition of the ecumenical Council of Florence, which must be believed by all faithful Christians, namely that the "holy Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff hold a world-wide primacy, and that the Roman Pontiff is the successor of blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, true vicar of Christ, head of the whole Church and father and teacher of all Christian people. To him, in blessed Peter, full power has been given by our Lord Jesus Christ to tend, rule and govern the universal Church. All this is to be found in the acts of the ecumenical councils and the sacred canons."

– Pastor Æternus, chapter 3, para. 1.

 

Today, 18 July 2020, is the 150th anniversary of the dogmatic constitution of the First Vatican Council, 'Pastor Æternus' which defined the dogma of papal infallibility.

 

This stained glass window is in Brussels Cathedral.

Seeing this magnificent old tree made me wonder why yews are so associated with churchyards. Research revealed numerous intriguing possible reasons, but nothing verifiable.

They frequently featured in pre-christian burial sites and earthworks, which were appropriated by missionaries, so may simply predate their companion churches.

Another interesting theory is that they were planted in a good source of... fertiliser in order to grow wood for bows; the status of consecrated ground might also have inhibited unauthorised harvesting by people wanting military-grade bows to oppose the church and crown.

Yet another is that churchyards were off-limits to livestock, protecting them from nibbling the extremely poisonous trees.

Then there's Celtic symbolism, feeding into christianity: yews have always been associated with death, but also rebirth.

 

Dunkeld is on the north bank of the River Tay (with Birnam opposite on the south bank, accessed by Telford's 1809 bridge). If the presence of a cathedral is the sole criterion, it's a city, but otherwise it's more of a village.

Twenty-four kilometres north of Perth, it occupies a steep-sided valley on the Highland Boundary Fault, rendering it the 'Gateway to the Highlands' both geologically and as a primary rail and road access route.

 

I've struggled with conflicting chronologies, but it seems that there was a Columban monastery in Dunkeld by c730AD; essentially a community of wattle huts. This seems to have been formalised by the construction of a reddish sandstone church either by Causantín mac Fergusa (d. 820) or by Cináed mac Ailpín (Kenneth MacAlpin, Kenneth I of Scotland 843–58) in 848.

In 849 or 850, relics of St Columba, including his bones, were brought from Iona to protect them from Viking raids (other relics went to Kells, Co. Meath, Ireland) and Dunkeld was declared the religious centre of Scotland.

Unfortunately, the Vikings later explored inland via the rivers of the eastern coast: Danes raided Dunkeld in 903.

 

Though Dunkeld yielded the Primacy to St Andrews in the 10th century, construction of a new grey sandstone cathedral began here in 1260. Built in stages over the next 241 years, it's therefore a mixture of Norman and Gothic elements. The much-restored choir is the oldest part of the original church, completed in 1350, and contains some of its predecessor's red stone.

The cathedral lost its rich furnishings to the iconoclasm of the mid-16th Century Reformation, when the relics of St Columba were 'evacuated' to Ireland, and the nave and porch have been roofless since the early 17th Century. However, the choir was remodeled as the parish church and remains in use. The Church of Scotland has neither cathedrals nor bishops, but the name was retained.

 

I presume the loss of the nave roof was a result of the 1689 Battle of Dunkeld, when the Government's Cameronian Regiment of Foot defended the cathedral against Jacobite Highlanders – in the absence of town walls, this was the nearest thing to a castle. Holes made by musket-balls are still apparent in its nearest (east) wall.

Most of the town was destroyed during the 16-hour battle, but the rebuilt 18th Century country town of Dunkeld is one of the most complete in Scotland.

Part of the Infinity Bridge, a foot and cycle bridge over the River Tees. Its name, suggested by the public, comes from the similarity of the shape of the bridge and its reflection to the infinity symbol. (The combination looks more like a bowling pin to me.)

 

The arched section is nearly 200 yards (180 metres) long, the decking extending some way either side. The bridge connects a university campus to a development area. Its deck is concrete and its arches made of box-section steel. Blue and white lights illuminate the deck at night (photo here).

 

Work on the bridge began in 2007 and was completed in 2009. Responsibility for its design is disputed, Spence Associates and Expedition Engineering both claiming primacy. Wikipedia has more about the structure.

 

Thornaby, Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham.

Pablo Picasso (/pɪˈkɑːsoʊ, -ˈkæsoʊ/; Spanish: [ˈpaβlo piˈkaso]; 25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright who spent most of his adult life in France. Regarded as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937), a dramatic portrayal of the bombing of Guernica by the German and Italian airforces.Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a naturalistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. After 1906, the Fauvist work of the slightly older artist Henri Matisse motivated Picasso to explore more radical styles, beginning a fruitful rivalry between the two artists, who subsequently were often paired by critics as the leaders of modern art.Picasso's work is often categorized into periods. While the names of many of his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1904–1906), the African-influenced Period (1907–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919), also referred to as the Crystal period. Much of Picasso's work of the late 1910s and early 1920s is in a neoclassical style, and his work in the mid-1920s often has characteristics of Surrealism. His later work often combines elements of his earlier styles.Exceptionally prolific throughout the course of his long life, Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments, and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art.Picasso was baptized Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso,[1] a series of names honouring various saints and relatives.[9] Ruiz y Picasso were included for his father and mother, respectively, as per Spanish law. Born in the city of Málaga in the Andalusian region of Spain, he was the first child of Don José Ruiz y Blasco (1838–1913) and María Picasso y López.[10] His mother was of one quarter Italian descent, from the territory of Genoa.[11] Though baptized a Catholic, Picasso would later on become an atheist.[12] Picasso's family was of middle-class background. His father was a painter who specialized in naturalistic depictions of birds and other game. For most of his life Ruiz was a professor of art at the School of Crafts and a curator of a local museum. Ruiz's ancestors were minor aristocrats.Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age. According to his mother, his first words were "piz, piz", a shortening of lápiz, the Spanish word for "pencil".[13] From the age of seven, Picasso received formal artistic training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting. Ruiz was a traditional academic artist and instructor, who believed that proper training required disciplined copying of the masters, and drawing the human body from plaster casts and live models. His son became preoccupied with art to the detriment of his classwork.

The family moved to A Coruña in 1891, where his father became a professor at the School of Fine Arts. They stayed almost four years. On one occasion, the father found his son painting over his unfinished sketch of a pigeon. Observing the precision of his son's technique, an apocryphal story relates, Ruiz felt that the thirteen-year-old Picasso had surpassed him, and vowed to give up painting, though paintings by him exist from later years.In 1895, Picasso was traumatized when his seven-year-old sister, Conchita, died of diphtheria.[15] After her death, the family moved to Barcelona, where Ruiz took a position at its School of Fine Arts. Picasso thrived in the city, regarding it in times of sadness or nostalgia as his true home.[16] Ruiz persuaded the officials at the academy to allow his son to take an entrance exam for the advanced class. This process often took students a month, but Picasso completed it in a week, and the jury admitted him, at just 13. The student lacked discipline but made friendships that would affect him in later life. His father rented a small room for him close to home so he could work alone, yet he checked up on him numerous times a day, judging his drawings. The two argued frequently.Picasso's father and uncle decided to send the young artist to Madrid's Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, the country's foremost art school.At age 16, Picasso set off for the first time on his own, but he disliked formal instruction and stopped attending classes soon after enrolment. Madrid held many other attractions. The Prado housed paintings by Diego Velázquez, Francisco Goya, and Francisco Zurbarán. Picasso especially admired the works of El Greco; elements such as his elongated limbs, arresting colours, and mystical visages are echoed in Picasso's later work.Picasso's training under his father began before 1890. His progress can be traced in the collection of early works now held by the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, which provides one of the most comprehensive records extant of any major artist's beginnings.[17] During 1893 the juvenile quality of his earliest work falls away, and by 1894 his career as a painter can be said to have begun.The academic realism apparent in the works of the mid-1890s is well displayed in The First Communion (1896), a large composition that depicts his sister, Lola. In the same year, at the age of 14, he painted Portrait of Aunt Pepa, a vigorous and dramatic portrait that Juan-Eduardo Cirlot has called "without a doubt one of the greatest in the whole history of Spanish painting."In 1897, his realism began to show a Symbolist influence, for example, in a series of landscape paintings rendered in non-naturalistic violet and green tones. What some call his Modernist period (1899–1900) followed. His exposure to the work of Rossetti, Steinlen, Toulouse-Lautrec and Edvard Munch, combined with his admiration for favourite old masters such as El Greco, led Picasso to a personal version of modernism in his works of this period.Picasso made his first trip to Paris, then the art capital of Europe, in 1900. There, he met his first Parisian friend, journalist and poet Max Jacob, who helped Picasso learn the language and its literature. Soon they shared an apartment; Max slept at night while Picasso slept during the day and worked at night. These were times of severe poverty, cold, and desperation. Much of his work was burned to keep the small room warm. During the first five months of 1901, Picasso lived in Madrid, where he and his anarchist friend Francisco de Asís Soler founded the magazine Arte Joven (Young Art), which published five issues. Soler solicited articles and Picasso illustrated the journal, mostly contributing grim cartoons depicting and sympathizing with the state of the poor. The first issue was published on 31 March 1901, by which time the artist had started to sign his work Picasso; before he had signed Pablo Ruiz y Picasso.Picasso's Blue Period (1901–1904), characterized by sombre paintings rendered in shades of blue and blue-green, only occasionally warmed by other colours, began either in Spain in early 1901, or in Paris in the second half of the year.[22] Many paintings of gaunt mothers with children date from the Blue Period, during which Picasso divided his time between Barcelona and Paris. In his austere use of colour and sometimes doleful subject matter – prostitutes and beggars are frequent subjects – Picasso was influenced by a trip through Spain and by the suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas. Starting in autumn of 1901 he painted several posthumous portraits of Casagemas, culminating in the gloomy allegorical painting La Vie (1903), now in the Cleveland Museum of Art..Pablo Picasso, 1905, Au Lapin Agile (At the Lapin Agile) (Arlequin tenant un verre), oil on canvas, 99.1 × 100.3 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The same mood pervades the well-known etching The Frugal Repast (1904),] which depicts a blind man and a sighted woman, both emaciated, seated at a nearly bare table. Blindness is a recurrent theme in Picasso's works of this period, also represented in The Blindman's Meal (1903, the Metropolitan Museum of Art) and in the portrait of Celestina (1903). Other works include Portrait of Soler and Portrait of Suzanne Bloch.The Rose Period (1904–1906)[25] is characterized by a lighter tone and style utilizing orange and pink colours, and featuring many circus people, acrobats and harlequins known in France as saltimbanques. The harlequin, a comedic character usually depicted in checkered patterned clothing, became a personal symbol for Picasso. Picasso met Fernande Olivier, a bohemian artist who became his mistress, in Paris in 1904.[15] Olivier appears in many of his Rose Period paintings, many of which are influenced by his warm relationship with her, in addition to his increased exposure to French painting. The generally upbeat and optimistic mood of paintings in this period is reminiscent of the 1899–1901 period (i.e. just prior to the Blue Period) and 1904 can be considered a transition year between the two periods.Portrait of Gertrude Stein, 1906, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. When someone commented that Stein did not look like her portrait, Picasso replied, "She will".By 1905, Picasso became a favourite of American art collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein. Their older brother Michael Stein and his wife Sarah also became collectors of his work. Picasso painted portraits of both Gertrude Stein and her nephew Allan Stein. Gertrude Stein became Picasso's principal patron, acquiring his drawings and paintings and exhibiting them in her informal Salon at her home in Paris. At one of her gatherings in 1905, he met Henri Matisse, who was to become a lifelong friend and rival. The Steins introduced him to Claribel Cone and her sister Etta who were American art collectors; they also began to acquire Picasso and Matisse's paintings. Eventually Leo Stein moved to Italy. Michael and Sarah Stein became patrons of Matisse, while Gertrude Stein continued to collect Picasso.In 1907 Picasso joined an art gallery that had recently been opened in Paris by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Kahnweiler was a German art historian and art collector who became one of the premier French art dealers of the 20th century. He was among the first champions of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and the Cubism that they jointly developed. Kahnweiler promoted burgeoning artists such as André Derain, Kees van Dongen, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, Maurice de Vlaminck and several others who had come from all over the globe to live and work in Montparnasse at the time.Picasso's African-influenced Period (1907–1909) begins with his painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Picasso painted this composition in a style inspired by Iberian sculpture, but repainted the faces of the two figures on the right after being powerfully impressed by African artefacts he saw in June 1907 in the ethnographic museum at Palais du Trocadéro.[30] When he displayed the painting to acquaintances in his studio later that year, the nearly universal reaction was shock and revulsion; Matisse angrily dismissed the work as a hoax.[31] Picasso did not exhibit Le Demoiselles publicly until 1916.Other works from this period include Nude with Raised Arms (1907) and Three Women (1908). Formal ideas developed during this period lead directly into the Cubist period that follows.Analytic cubism (1909–1912) is a style of painting Picasso developed with Georges Braque using monochrome brownish and neutral colours. Both artists took apart objects and "analyzed" them in terms of their shapes. Picasso and Braque's paintings at this time share many similarities.Synthetic cubism (1912–1919) was a further development of the genre of cubism, in which cut paper fragments – often wallpaper or portions of newspaper pages – were pasted into compositions, marking the first use of collage in fine art. In Paris, Picasso entertained a distinguished coterie of friends in the Montmartre and Montparnasse quarters, including André Breton, poet Guillaume Apollinaire, writer Alfred Jarry, and Gertrude Stein. Apollinaire was arrested on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911. Apollinaire pointed to his friend Picasso, who was also brought in for questioning, but both were later exonerated.Between 1915 and 1917, Picasso began a series of paintings depicting highly geometric and minimalist Cubist objects, consisting of either a pipe, a guitar or a glass, with an occasional element of collage. "Hard-edged square-cut diamonds", notes art historian John Richardson, "these gems do not always have upside or downside".[33][34] "We need a new name to designate them," wrote Picasso to Gertrude Stein: Maurice Raynal suggested "Crystal Cubism".[33][35] These "little gems" may have been produced by Picasso in response to critics who had claimed his defection from the movement, through his experimentation with classicism within the so-called return to order following the war.At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Picasso was living in Avignon. Braque and Derain were mobilized and Apollinaire joined the French artillery, while the Spaniard Juan Gris remained from the Cubist circle. During the war, Picasso was able to continue painting uninterrupted, unlike his French comrades. His paintings became more sombre and his life changed with dramatic consequences. Kahnweiler’s contract had terminated on his exile from France. At this point Picasso’s work would be taken on by the art dealer Léonce Rosenberg. After the loss of Eva Gouel, Picasso had an affair with Gaby Lespinasse. During the spring of 1916, Apollinaire returned from the front wounded. They renewed their friendship, but Picasso began to frequent new social circles.Towards the end of World War I, Picasso made a number of important relationships with figures associated with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Among his friends during this period were Jean Cocteau, Jean Hugo, Juan Gris, and others. In the summer of 1918, Picasso married Olga Khokhlova, a ballerina with Sergei Diaghilev's troupe, for whom Picasso was designing a ballet, Erik Satie's Parade, in Rome; they spent their honeymoon near Biarritz in the villa of glamorous Chilean art patron Eugenia Errázuriz.After returning from his honeymoon, and in desperate need of money, Picasso started his exclusive relationship with the French-Jewish art dealer Paul Rosenberg. As part of his first duties, Rosenberg agreed to rent the couple an apartment in Paris at his own expense, which was located next to his own house. This was the start of a deep brother-like friendship between two very different men, that would last until the outbreak of World War II.Khokhlova introduced Picasso to high society, formal dinner parties, and all the social niceties attendant to the life of the rich in 1920s Paris. The two had a son, Paulo Picasso,.who would grow up to be a dissolute motorcycle racer and chauffeur to his father. Khokhlova's insistence on social propriety clashed with Picasso's bohemian tendencies and the two lived in a state of constant conflict. During the same period that Picasso collaborated with Diaghilev's troupe, he and Igor Stravinsky collaborated on Pulcinella in 1920. Picasso took the opportunity to make several drawings of the composer.In 1927 Picasso met 17-year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter and began a secret affair with her. Picasso's marriage to Khokhlova soon ended in separation rather than divorce, as French law required an even division of property in the case of divorce, and Picasso did not want Khokhlova to have half his wealth. The two remained legally married until Khokhlova's death in 1955. Picasso carried on a long-standing affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter and fathered a daughter with her, named Maya. Marie-Thérèse lived in the vain hope that Picasso would one day marry her, and hanged herself four years after Picasso's death.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso

 

Crystal Cubism (French: Cubisme cristal or Cubisme de cristal) is a distilled form of Cubism consistent with a shift, between 1915 and 1916, towards a strong emphasis on flat surface activity and large overlapping geometric planes. The primacy of the underlying geometric structure, rooted in the abstract, controls practically all of the elements of the artwork.This range of styles of painting and sculpture, especially significant between 1917 and 1920 (also referred to as the Crystal Period, classical Cubism, pure Cubism, advanced Cubism, late Cubism, synthetic Cubism, or the second phase of Cubism), was practiced in varying degrees by a multitude of artists; particularly those under contract with the art dealer and collector Léonce Rosenberg—Henri Laurens, Jean Metzinger, Juan Gris and Jacques Lipchitz most noticeably of all. The tightening of the compositions, the clarity and sense of order reflected in these works, led to its being referred to by the French poet and art critic Maurice Raynal as 'crystal' Cubism.Considerations manifested by Cubists prior to the outset of World War I—such as the fourth dimension, dynamism of modern life, the occult, and Henri Bergson's concept of duration—had now been vacated, replaced by a purely formal frame of reference that proceeded from a cohesive stance toward art and life.As post-war reconstruction began, so too did a series of exhibitions at Léonce Rosenberg's Galerie de L'Effort Moderne: order and the allegiance to the aesthetically pure remained the prevailing tendency. The collective phenomenon of Cubism once again—now in its advanced revisionist form—became part of a widely discussed development in French culture. Crystal Cubism was the culmination of a continuous narrowing of scope in the name of a return to order; based upon the observation of the artists relation to nature, rather than on the nature of reality itself.Crystal Cubism, and its associative rappel à l’ordre, has been linked with an inclination—by those who served the armed forces and by those who remained in the civilian sector—to escape the realities of the Great War, both during and directly following the conflict. The purifying of Cubism from 1914 through the mid-1920s, with its cohesive unity and voluntary constraints, has been linked to a much broader ideological transformation towards conservatism in both French society and French culture. In terms of the separation of culture and life, the Crystal Cubist period emerges as the most important in the history of Modernism.Cubism, from its inception, stems from the dissatisfaction with the idea of form that had been in practiced since the Renaissance. This dissatisfaction had already been seen in the works of the Romanticist Eugene Delacroix, in the Realism of Gustave Courbet, in passing through the Symbolists, Les Nabis, the Impressionists and the Neo-Impressionists. Paul Cézanne was instrumental, as his work marked a shift from a more representational art form to one that was increasingly abstract, with a strong emphasis on the simplification of geometric structure. In a letter addressed to Émile Bernard dated 15 April 1904, Cézanne writes: "Interpret nature in terms of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone; put everything in perspective, so that each side of an object, of a plane, recedes toward a central point."Cézanne was preoccupied by the means of rendering volume and space, surface variations (or modulations) with overlapped shifting planes. Increasingly in his later works, Cézanne achieves a greater freedom. His work became bolder, more arbitrary, more dynamic and increasingly nonrepresentational. As his color planes acquired greater formal independence, defined objects and structures began to lose their identity.'Walpurgis Night, and The Angel that other master Alfred Kubin the Western Window (whose hero is the esoteric scholar John Dee). Picasso was also a member of this Order And it seems the same is true about Picasso, if we can trust the word of Marijo Ariens-Volker, who in her article "Alchemical, Kabbalistic, and Occult Symbolism in the Work of His Contemporaries (discussed in chapter 4), brings up several disturbing arguments. According to this researcher, Picasso, at the beginning of his stay in Paris, lived with his friend Ricardo Vines, who frequented the Librairie du Merveilleux, the general headquarters of the "independent group of esoteric studies" created by Papus. Among those closest to the painter at this time, we find André Salmon, who makes reference to Papus, the Martinists, and the Masons in several of his texts There were also Juan Gris an extremely assiduous Mason 38 Max Jacob, who considered kabbalah as his "life philosophy" and will be, before being expelled by Breton for impenitent Catholicism, frequently published in Littérature, and Guillaume Apollinaire who often spoke of Hermes Tres megistus and whose library held many books by Papus and other Martinists, as well as the official journals of the Order and even a document from the 1908 Spiritualist Congress. According to his grandson, Olivier Widmaier, Picasso was extremely well versed in the kabbalah, read the Zohar, and was a spiritualist his conversations with Brassai, Picasso admitted he had been a "member of an Order during his cubist period," probably the Martinist Order: some of the collages he made at this ime even bear signs that Ariens-Volker analyzes as allusions to the Martinist grade of unknown superior 40 210 Papus (whose "confused mysticism" would be denounced by Gérard Legrand in Médium in November 1953) claimed he had received Martinist initiation from the son of a close friend of Saint-Martin, but he also spent time with the "famous" theoretician of modern occultism, the "priest" (and Mason) Alphonse Louis Constant, alias Eliphas Levi 211 (Osiris is a black god," Breton writes in Arcanum 1 and was part of Helena Blavatsky and Colonel Henry Steel Olcott's Theosophical Society. He wanted to make the Martinist order which was connected with Christian illuminism-a mystical society, "a school of moral chivalry that would strive to develop the spirituality of its members by the study of the invisible world and its laws through the exercise of devotion and intellectual assistance, and by the creation in each spirit of a faith that would be more solid by being based on by Papus's son Phillipe d'Encausse.

 

"Deriving directly from Christian Illuminism, Martinism had to adopt the principles [...]

The Order as a whole is above all a school of moral chivalry, striving to develop the spirituality of its members by studying the invisible world and its laws, by exercising devotion and intellectual assistance and by the creation in each spirit of a faith all the more solid as it is based on observation and on science.

Martinists do not do magic, either white or black. They study, they pray, and they forgive the insults as best they can.

Accused of being devils by some, clerics by others, and black magicians or insane by the gallery, we will simply remain fervent knights of Christ, enemies of violence and revenge, resolute synarchists, opposed to any anarchy from above or from below, in a word from the Martinists. ”

Papus, The Initiation, November 1906

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Cubism

 

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Other components of Picasso’s references: esotericism, the Rosicrucian movement and opium.

< Summary

> Credits

The magico-religious aspect of the Gosolan ceremonies, as well as their pagan and esoteric roots, must have attracted Picasso, who was superstitious and had been initiated into the occult by two masters, his close friends Max Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire68. In Gósol, the painter had the opportunity to enrich his training with in situ practices.

 

The Gosolan rites highlighted the continuity between the pagan world and the Christian one. This continuity was maintained by the Neoplatonists and, once the Inquisition was abolished, secret circles that had preserved the “living” tradition resurfaced, such as the Rosicrucians led by Sâr Péladan. The Grand Master sought, among other things, to merge the Rosicrucian movement with Christianity. Their ideas influenced Picasso’s entourage69 and Picasso’s Gosolan work reflects this union between pagan and Christian symbols.

 

Furthermore, opium, which Picasso and his circle appreciated, was linked to ancient mystery religions, in particular the cult of wheat presided over by Demeter and Persephone (fig.16). Opium facilitated access to knowledge, immortality of the soul and states of revelation. The flower from which opium is extracted, the poppy, is one of the emblems of the goddess Persephone. It is the flower that Picasso drew in his Gosolan notebook, his Carnet Catalan. Opium pipes are also represented in this notebook where the word “opium” is written, as well as a prescription for laudanum.

Opium, as Jean Cocteau, Sir Harold Acton, or Fernande71 explain, provides the opium smoker with the ability to constantly metamorphose, the sensation of being able to get anywhere he wants without the slightest effort, and an out-of-body experience that allows one to contemplate everything, oneself and the world, with impartiality72. Cocteau called opium “the flying carpet” and Picasso considered the scent of opium to be “the most intelligent of odors.”73

 

Opium placed these artists on the level of the ancient initiates, and the capacity for metamorphosis that it gave them allowed them to feel and see like them. The theatrical stagings of the ancient initiatory Mysteries in Parisian esoteric circles74 found some of their last real vestiges in Gósol.

 

Notes

 

68. RICHARDSON, JOHN, op. cit., Vol. I (1881-1906), pp. 207, 216, 331 and 334.

 

69. See the number of publications by Papus and Sâr Péladan, among other occultists, in the Apollinaire library: BOUDAR, GILBERT and DÉ-CAUDIN, MICHEL The library of Guillaume Apollinaire. Paris, Éditions du Center National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1983. See also M. FREIXA, op. cit., pp. 435-439; Gabriela di Milia, “Picasso and Canudo, a Couple of Transplants” in AA.VV. Picasso: the Italian journey 1917-1924, under the direction of Jean Clair, London, Thames and Hudson, 1998, pp. 75-77 and RICHARDSON, JOHN, op cit., Vol. I (1881-1906), p. 340.

 

70. According to Fernande Olivier, Picasso stopped smoking opium in 1908 following the suicide of a friend due to multiple intoxication. In Gósol, they were still smoking opium. The couple took refuge in the small village of Rue-des-Bois, in the suburbs of Paris, in 1908 to put an end to their opium addiction. OLIVIER, FERNANDE, op. cit., p. 183.

 

71. OLIVIER, FERNANDE Recuerdos íntimos. Escritos para Picasso. Barcelona. Ed. Parsifal. 1990 (1st ed. Souvenirs intimes: écrits pour Picasso, Calmann-Lévy, 1988), pp. 149 and 150 and OLIVIER, FERNANDE Picasso y sus amigos. Madrid. Taurus Ediciones. 1964 (Picasso and his friends, Stock, Paris, 1933), pp. 45 and p. 46.

 

72. COCTEAU, JEAN Opio. Buenos Aires, Editorial Sudamericana, 2002 and ACTON, HAROLD Memorias de un esteta (originally Memoirs of an Aesthete), Valencia, Ed. Pre Textos, 2010, pp. 522 and 523.

 

73. RICHARDSON, JOHN El aprendiz de brujo. Madrid, Alianza Editorial, 2001. (1st edition The sorcerer’s Apprentice, 1991), pp. 313 and 314.

 

74. Sâr Péladan had organized theatrical performances of the ancient Mysteries. Reference consulted on May 9, 2011 on fratreslucis.netfirms.com/Peladan01.html

 

www.picasso.fr/details/ojo-les-archives-mars-2013-ojo-21-...

 

ANDRÉ BRETON AND HERMETICISM. FROM << MAGNETIC FIELDS >>> TO << THE KEY TO THE FIELDS >>>

 

Communication by Mrs. A. BALAKIAN (New York)

 

at the XIVth Congress of the Association, July 26, 1962.

 

In one of his most recent essays, "Before the Curtain," André Breton accused academic criticism of having made no formal effort to establish the esoteric schemes of art and poetry: "By abstaining until now from taking them into account, academic criticism has devoted itself purely and simply to inanity... thus the great emotional movements that still agitate us, the sensitive charter that governs us, would they proceed, whether we like it or not, from a tradition completely different from that which is taught: on this tradition the most unworthy, the most vindictive silence is kept (1)." Would not our investigation, "Hermeticism and Poetry," be a denial of this reproach?

 

It is true that hermeticism in all its forms has served as a cult for surrealism since Les Champs Magnétiques, the first surrealist document, until André Breton's last collection of essays, published under the cryptographic title of La Clé des Champs, which sums up the definitive position he reached after having searched for more than a quarter of a century for the occult foundations of the human pyramid. Already in he First Manifesto of the Magician Shepherd of the Magnetic Fields had proclaimed that Rimbaud's Alchemy of the Word should be taken literally. In the article, "Why I am Taking the Direction of the Surrealist Revolution", which dates from 1925, he had considered the surrealists as an army of adventurers who act under the orders of the marvelous. On many occasions he has traced the underground framework that, according to him, unites poetic minds since what he calls "the admirable fourteenth century" when Flamel mysteriously received the manuscript of the book of Abraham Juif, through the work of the alchemists of the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, passing through the work of Martinès, Saint-Martin, Fabre d'Olivet, Abbé Contant, through that of the enlightened ones of the nineteenth century: Hugo, Lautréamont, Rimbaud, to a certain degree Mallarmé, and more recently up to the work of Jarry, Apollinaire, and Raymond Roussel; Breton thus marks the parallel between the occultists and the poets. The philosopher's stone does not simply transform metals but takes on a symbolic meaning; according to Breton it unleashes the human imagination, a word to which he attributes a very special meaning. It is not a deceptive faculty but a liberating one. Without it we are forced to live under the empire of rationalism, that is to say on the surface of things and according to the evident current of phenomena. According to Breton, imagination alone would be capable of delivering us from this condition. Indeed, he attributes to imagination this special characteristic of the human being that Hermes Trismegistus would have defined as "the intimate union of sensation and thought" . This faculty, not inert but latent, "domesticated" (the word is Breton's) for centuries, could find its repressed impulses to make us envisage an unexpected and dynamic rather than organized order of the world. The hermetic tradition that is perpetuated in an underground way at all times and under any form of culture, does not constitute a conscious influence; it is rather a kind of transfusion that at each new mystical crisis of humanity strengthens those

 

(1) La Clé des Champs, Sagittaire, 1953, p. 93.

 

www.persee.fr/doc/caief_0571-5865_1963_num_15_1_2248

Ernst der Bekenner, Herzog zu Braunschweig-Lüneburg

Ernst (1497-1546) war als zweitgeborener Sohn vorerst nicht für die Regierung im Fürstentum Lüneburg bestimmt. Nachdem aber der Vater, Herzog Heinrich der Mittlere (1468-1532), bei der Kaiserwahl im Jahre 1519 nicht auf der Seite des neugewählten Habsburgers Karl V. stand, sondern den französischen König Franz I. unterstütze, wurde ihm durch den neuen Machthaber aus Österreich die Reichsacht auferlegt. Heinrich der Mittlere flüchtete daraufhin nach Frankreich. So kam es, dass Herzog Ernst gemeinsam mit seinem älteren Bruder, Otto (1495-1549), im Jahre 1520 in Celle die Regierung für das Fürstentum Lüneburg übernehmen musste. Sein Bruder Otto schreckte aber vor den hohen Schulden im Fürstentum zurück und trat freiwillig von der Regierung ab. Dabei erhielt er eine hohe Apanage und das Amt Harburg als kleine Herrschaft zugesprochen. Damit gründete Otto die welfische Nebenlinie Harburg, die aber im Jahre 1642 nach dem Tod von Herzog Wilhelm von Harburg wieder an Lüneburg zurückfiel. Herzog Ernst erhielt ab 1512 seine Ausbildung an der Universität in Wittenberg und wurde dort von Luthers Lehre sehr geprägt. Ernst zog 1530 zum Reichstag nach Augsburg und unterschrieb das evangelische Glaubensbekenntnis. Hier lernte er den Prediger Urban Regius kennen. Herzog Ernst ernannte den evangelischen Prediger Regius zum Generalsuperintendenten für das Fürstentum Lüneburg. Mit seiner Hilfe führte Herzog Ernst die Reformation weiter im Lande ein. Die Klöster wurden kaum erhalten und fielen, wie das gesamte Kirchenwesen im Fürstentum Lüneburg, unter das so genannte landesherrliche Kirchenregiment. Die kirchlichen Verhältnisse wurden damit neu geordnet und überholte Strukturen aufgehoben. Bisher konnten Papst und Kaiser die Lehre der Kirche bestimmen. Seit 1527 griff Herzog Ernst mit seinem "Artikelbuch" nun selbst in die Kirchenlehre des Fürstentums ein. Der Herzog nahm Visitationen vor, dabei sollten alle kirchlichen Einrichtungen im Lande zum neuen Glauben geführt werden. Unter Herzog Ernst kannte die Landeskirche aber noch keine allgemeine Kirchenordnung wie in anderen protestantischen Ländern des Reiches. Die erste gedruckte Lüneburger Kirchenordnung erschien im Jahre 1564. Die Reformation war aber keine reine Bekenntnisbildung, sie war immer mit weltlicher Herrschaft und ihren Interessen verbunden gewesen. Die Reformation führte u.a. zu Auseinandersetzungen des Herzogs mit den Ständen um die Finanzierung der leeren Staatskasse. Herzog Ernst lebte ganz nach seinem Wahlspruch: "Anderen diene ich, mich selber verzehre ich". Er starb im Alter von 49 Jahren und hinterließ aus seiner Ehe mit Sophie von Mecklenburg - Schwerin vier minderjährige, erbberechtigte Söhne: Franz Otto (1530-1559), Friedrich (1532-1553) und Heinrich (1533-1598). Sein jüngster Sohn, Wilhelm der Jüngere (1535-1592), führte ab 1569 alleine die Regierung in Celle fort.

www.welfen.de/ErnstBek.htm

 

Memorial church of Protestation (Speyer)

The Memorial church of protestation in Speyer was built from the year 1893 to 1904 on the memory of the in 1529 at the Diet of Speyer followed protestation of Speyer. Its tower is with 100 m the highest church tower of the Palatinate and the highest German church tower west of the Rhine between Cologne and Strasbourg.

Reason for remembrance: the protestation in 1529

At the Diet of Speyer in 1529 the princes who supported Luther's doctrine not wanted to accept the fact that it should be decided by a vote on religious affiliation. They expressed their opposition in the protestation at Speyer, hence the term Protestant. This event led to the separation of the Christian denominations in Catholic and Protestant.

The idea for the church construction

In the late 19th century, at the time of the Kulturkampf (culture war), the relations between Protestants and Catholics were heavily loaded due to the proclamation of the dogma of papal infallibility and Pope's primacy on the first Vatican Council. Those conflicts had their impact on the church building. The Memorial Church should become a main church of the whole Protestant Christianity, a goal that was much too high. The Memorial Church is hardly known in Germany and even less abroad. Even among the Protestants were the opinions not unanimous, therefore elapsed between the initial idea and the laying of the foundation stone for the Memorial Church more than 35 years, with some heated discussions.

The construction of the Memorial church was a response to the structural renovation and decoration of the Speyer Cathedral by Johann Schraudolph in the years 1846 to 1856. Initially, the Trinity Church near the cathedral should be renovated, but then the decision was made instead of repairing this originating from the Baroque period church to tackle a new building.

 

Gedächtniskirche der Protestation (Speyer)

Die Gedächtniskirche der Protestation in Speyer wurde in den Jahren 1893 bis 1904 zur Erinnerung an die im Jahre 1529 auf dem Reichstag zu Speyer erfolgte Protestation zu Speyer errichtet. Ihr Turm ist mit 100 m der höchste Kirchturm der Pfalz und der höchste deutsche Kirchturm westlich des Rheins zwischen Köln und Straßburg.

Gedächtnisgrund: die Protestation 1529

Farbspiel im Inneren

Auf dem Reichstag zu Speyer im Jahr 1529 wollten die Fürsten, die Luthers Lehre anhingen, sich nicht damit abfinden, dass durch eine Abstimmung über die Religionszugehörigkeit entschieden werden sollte. Sie äußerten ihren Widerstand in der Protestation zu Speyer, daher der Begriff Protestant. Dieses Ereignis führte zu der Trennung der christlichen Konfessionen in katholisch und protestantisch.

Die Idee zum Kirchenbau

Im ausgehenden 19. Jahrhundert, zur Zeit des Kulturkampfes, waren die Beziehungen zwischen Protestanten und Katholiken infolge der Verkündigung des Dogmas der päpstlichen Unfehlbarkeit und des Papst-Primats auf dem ersten vatikanischen Konzil stark belastet. Diese Auseinandersetzungen hatten ihre Auswirkungen auch auf den Kirchenbau. Die Gedächtniskirche sollte eine Hauptkirche der gesamten protestantischen Christenheit werden, ein Ziel, das viel zu hoch gegriffen war. Die Gedächtniskirche ist in Deutschland kaum bekannt und noch weniger im Ausland. Auch unter den Protestanten waren die Meinungen nicht einhellig, deshalb vergingen zwischen der ersten Idee und der Grundsteinlegung zur Gedächtniskirche mehr als 35 Jahre mit teilweise heftigen Diskussionen.

Der Bau der Gedächtniskirche war eine Reaktion auf die bauliche Erneuerung und Ausmalung des Speyerer Doms durch Johann von Schraudolph in den Jahren 1846 bis 1856. Ursprünglich sollte die Dreifaltigkeitskirche unweit des Doms renoviert werden, dann aber fiel die Entscheidung, anstelle der Instandsetzung dieser aus der Barockzeit stammenden Kirche einen Neubau in Angriff zu nehmen.

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ged%C3%A4chtniskirche_der_Protestat...(Speyer)

Vienna Baroque

Doris Binder

 

The center of Baroque art was undisputable Vienna, as a special promoter appeared the Emperor Charles VI., under whose reign not only the Karlskirche was built, but also numerous buildings have been newly planned or built. The passion for building of the High Baroque is not only founded by the destructions of the Turks, but also has its causes in the backward economic structure and its lack of production plants. Whether nobleman, cleric or commoner, all those with sufficient capital put it rather in construction funds into practice than not make use of it. Responsible for this was a deep distrust to the imperial fiscal policy and concern about the currency and a possible bankruptcy.

The Baroque emerged within the civil peace (*) Burgfrieden) of the city of Vienna, had at the beginning of the High Baroque era still dominated religious buildings, so the cityscape changed in just four decades. Vienna was transformed into a "palace city", by the year 1740, the number of pleasure palaces, gardens and belvederes had doubled. The Baroque style, which by crown, church and nobility was forced upon the citizens, is considered of Felix Czeike as "authority art". The existing social gap should be camouflaged by the rubberneck culture in festivities, receptions and parades.

 

*) Burgfrieden (The term truce or Castle peace referred to a jurisdiction in the Middle Ages around a castle, in which feuds, so hostilities of private individuals among themselves, under penalty of ostracism were banned. Today the term is mainly used in a figurative sense.

 

Due to the return of Fischer von Erlach to Vienna in 1686 and a decade later, Lukas von Hildebrandt, the primacy of the Italians in architecture was broken and the victory parade of Austrian Baroque began. The connection between the spiritual and secular powers found its mode of expression in the Baroque, which the appearance of the city of Vienna should characterize in a decisive manner.

 

Construction of Charles Church

The Karlskirche was built by Emperor Charles VI. commemorating the plague saint, Charles Borromeo. In 1713 the plague raged in Vienna and claimed about 8,000 human lives, in February 1714 the plague disappeared and as a sign of gratitude was began with the construction of the church, this should become the most important religious building of Vienna in the 18th century.

In a contest was decided on the builder - participants were Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt and Ferdinando Galli-Bibienas. As winner emerged the famous architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, he died in 1723 and did not live to the achievement of the Church. The supervision was transferred to the imperial court architect Anton Erhard Martinelli, as Fischer von Erlach died, his son, Joseph Emmanuel, finished his work. On 28 October 1737 St. Charles Church was solemnly by the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Sigismund Count Kollowitz, inaugurated. The spiritual care ceded Emperor Karl VI. to the chivalric Order of the Cross with the Red Star, since 1783 is the Karlskirche imperial patronage parish.

The church at that time lay still behind the regulated river Wien (Wienfluss) and in the open field. The directed towards the city face side of the Charles Church, which stood on the edge of the suburb of Wieden, was target point of a line of sight the Hofburg and St. Charles Church in the sense of a "via triumphalis" connecting. On the temple-like front building of the Karlskirche the dedication inscription is clearly visible "Vota mea Reddam in conspectu timentium Deum" - "I will fulfill my vow before those who fear God."

Already during the construction by Fischer von Erlach (senior), there were several project phases, three of which have been preserved:

 

1. Medaillon by Daniel Warou for the groundbreaking ceremony

2. Fore stitches in Fischer's draft of a historical architecture 1721

3. Viennese view of work by Klein and Pfeffel 1722 (1724)

 

Due to the death of Fischer von Erlach, occured recent changes made by his son, Joseph Emmanuel most of all being concerned the dome (much higher and steeper), the priest choir (omitted) and the interior (simpler). The entire project took a total of 21 years and the costs amounted to 304 045 guilders and 22 ¼ cruisers. The construction costs were shouldered by all crown lands of the Empire, but also Spain, Milan and the Netherlands had to make a contribution.

The Karlskirche is the most important Baroque building of the city and represents the most convincing the so-called Empire style in which for the last time an empire awareness in the architecture of the capital of the Holy Roman Empire after the victorious ended wars against the Turks and the French was expressed.

Symbolism of the Karlskirche

The Karlskirche consists of a central rotunda with a dome, preceded by a column structure like a Greek temple, of two high pillars illustrated on the model of Trajan's Column in Rome and of two lateral gate pavilions. The illustrated columns represent Charles VI. as a wise and strong secular ruler, the two great pillars were created by Marder and Matielli. The columns are crowned by golden eagles, symbolizing the two virtues of the Emperor - fortitudo (bravery) and constantia (resistance). The two pillars are evocative of the two pillars before the temple in Jerusalem - Jachin and Boaz. However, the illustration of the two columns does not match the model of the Trajan columns in Rome, portraying war deeds, but these tell the life story of St. Borromeo. In the front view of the Karlskirche a wide range of different symbols become one whole - the Roman emperors Trajan and Augustus, the Temple of Solomon, St. Peter's Church in Rome, Hagia Sophia, Charlemagne and the Empire of Charles V. - through the skillfully used symbols should be shown the claim of the house of Habsburg to the European domination.

The plan view of the church is, as in baroque typical, ellipsoid. In the interior of the Karlskirche the great Baroque sculpture is immediately noticeable, representing St. Borromeo. At the base the four Latin Fathers of the Church are depicted. The interior of the Karlskirche is dominated by the tremendous fresco in the oval dome room, it was created by the eminent Baroque painter Johann Michael Rottmayr between 1725-1730. The fresco shows the Mother of God representing the intercession of the patron Saint of the Church to help head off the plague, surrounded is the scene by the cardinal virtues (faith, hope and love). In the left entrance wing is situated the tomb for the Austrian poet Heinrich Joseph von Collin (17771-1811).

Inside the St. Charles Church, there is a museum where the most valuable pieces are exhibited.

These include: the vestments of St. Borromeo, a reliquary of gold and silver - a donation of Emperor Charles VI. and a rococo monstrance (1760) containing a drop of blood of the saint. Thomas Aquinas.

Even the image of the architect Fischer von Erlach, painted by Jacob von Schuppen, is one of the church treasures.

The iconographic program of the Charles Church was written by Carl Gustav Haerus, by this the Saint Charles Borromeo should be connected to the imperial founder.

www.univie.ac.at/hypertextcreator/ferstel/site/browse.php...

 

The Czech Republic is one of about ten countries in the world, which can be regarded as the cradle of motoring. Motor cars have been produced in this country continuously since the end of the 19th century. Production of the first of these was started in 1897 by a railway wagon plant, Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau-Fabriks-Gesellschaft A.G. in Kopřivnice in North Moravia, known later as the Tatra car plant. The car was given the name Präsident and immediately after its completion was driven from Kopřivnice to Vienna on 21 and 22 May 1898 to an exhibition commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the rule of Emperor Franz Josef I. Also exhibited there was a car from the Vienna firm of Jacob Lohner & Co,. with which the Kopřivnice car plant shares primacy in the launching of factory production of cars in the monarchy. The NW Präsident car, the first car made in the Czech Lands, has been in the National Technical Museum since 1919.

 

Passenger car with a water-cooled four-stroke horizontally opposed twin-cylinder engine placed cross-wise above the rear axle and with rear-wheel drive.

 

Producer: NesselsdorferWaagenbau-Fabriks-Gesellschaft A.G., Kopřivnice, Moravia

Engine capacity: 2,714 cm³

Power: 6 hp

Top speed: 21 km/h

 

National Technical Museum - Národní technické muzeum, Prague

Zoo Rostock; DARWINEUM

Lumix GX1 + SIGMA 2.8/30 EX DN / without a tripod: ISO 400; aperture: f/2.8; exposure time: 1s

 

Saint Patrick’s Church of Ireland Cathedral stands on the hill from which the City of Armagh derives its name – Ard Mhacha the Height of Macha. Less than half a mile away, on the neighbouring hill, is our sister, St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Cathedral.

 

Armagh owes everything to its traditional association with St Patrick. As early as the seventh century, Armagh’s primacy was recognized over all the churches of Ireland. As the seat of both Catholic and Anglican Archbishops, it is still the ‘Ecclesiastical Capital’ of Ireland. The legacy of its eighteenth century renaissance is due to the energy of an Anglican Archbishop, Richard Robinson. The landmark Catholic Cathedral was built by three nineteenth-century Primates, William Crolly, Joseph Dixon and Daniel McGettigan.

 

On the Hill around which Armagh first grew, this Cathedral is, above all, a place of Christian prayer and worship. You are welcome to join us for the Eucharist, Choral Evensong, or, on weekdays, Morning Prayer, all in the Anglican tradition. If you come as a visitor, we hope you will be touched by the beauty of this place, by a spiritual inheritance of over 1500 years, and by the history all around you.

 

May you leave with the knowledge of God’s presence and love.

Vienna Baroque

Doris Binder

 

The center of Baroque art was undisputable Vienna, as a special promoter appeared the Emperor Charles VI., under whose reign not only the Karlskirche was built, but also numerous buildings have been newly planned or built. The passion for building of the High Baroque is not only founded by the destructions of the Turks, but also has its causes in the backward economic structure and its lack of production plants. Whether nobleman, cleric or commoner, all those with sufficient capital put it rather in construction funds into practice than not make use of it. Responsible for this was a deep distrust to the imperial fiscal policy and concern about the currency and a possible bankruptcy.

The Baroque emerged within the civil peace (*) Burgfrieden) of the city of Vienna, had at the beginning of the High Baroque era still dominated religious buildings, so the cityscape changed in just four decades. Vienna was transformed into a "palace city", by the year 1740, the number of pleasure palaces, gardens and belvederes had doubled. The Baroque style, which by crown, church and nobility was forced upon the citizens, is considered of Felix Czeike as "authority art". The existing social gap should be camouflaged by the rubberneck culture in festivities, receptions and parades.

 

*) Burgfrieden (The term truce or Castle peace referred to a jurisdiction in the Middle Ages around a castle, in which feuds, so hostilities of private individuals among themselves, under penalty of ostracism were banned. Today the term is mainly used in a figurative sense.

 

Due to the return of Fischer von Erlach to Vienna in 1686 and a decade later, Lukas von Hildebrandt, the primacy of the Italians in architecture was broken and the victory parade of Austrian Baroque began. The connection between the spiritual and secular powers found its mode of expression in the Baroque, which the appearance of the city of Vienna should characterize in a decisive manner.

 

Construction of Charles Church

The Karlskirche was built by Emperor Charles VI. commemorating the plague saint, Charles Borromeo. In 1713 the plague raged in Vienna and claimed about 8,000 human lives, in February 1714 the plague disappeared and as a sign of gratitude was began with the construction of the church, this should become the most important religious building of Vienna in the 18th century.

In a contest was decided on the builder - participants were Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt and Ferdinando Galli-Bibienas. As winner emerged the famous architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, he died in 1723 and did not live to the achievement of the Church. The supervision was transferred to the imperial court architect Anton Erhard Martinelli, as Fischer von Erlach died, his son, Joseph Emmanuel, finished his work. On 28 October 1737 St. Charles Church was solemnly by the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Sigismund Count Kollowitz, inaugurated. The spiritual care ceded Emperor Karl VI. to the chivalric Order of the Cross with the Red Star, since 1783 is the Karlskirche imperial patronage parish.

The church at that time lay still behind the regulated river Wien (Wienfluss) and in the open field. The directed towards the city face side of the Charles Church, which stood on the edge of the suburb of Wieden, was target point of a line of sight the Hofburg and St. Charles Church in the sense of a "via triumphalis" connecting. On the temple-like front building of the Karlskirche the dedication inscription is clearly visible "Vota mea Reddam in conspectu timentium Deum" - "I will fulfill my vow before those who fear God."

Already during the construction by Fischer von Erlach (senior), there were several project phases, three of which have been preserved:

 

1. Medaillon by Daniel Warou for the groundbreaking ceremony

2. Fore stitches in Fischer's draft of a historical architecture 1721

3. Viennese view of work by Klein and Pfeffel 1722 (1724)

 

Due to the death of Fischer von Erlach, occured recent changes made by his son, Joseph Emmanuel most of all being concerned the dome (much higher and steeper), the priest choir (omitted) and the interior (simpler). The entire project took a total of 21 years and the costs amounted to 304 045 guilders and 22 ¼ cruisers. The construction costs were shouldered by all crown lands of the Empire, but also Spain, Milan and the Netherlands had to make a contribution.

The Karlskirche is the most important Baroque building of the city and represents the most convincing the so-called Empire style in which for the last time an empire awareness in the architecture of the capital of the Holy Roman Empire after the victorious ended wars against the Turks and the French was expressed.

Symbolism of the Karlskirche

The Karlskirche consists of a central rotunda with a dome, preceded by a column structure like a Greek temple, of two high pillars illustrated on the model of Trajan's Column in Rome and of two lateral gate pavilions. The illustrated columns represent Charles VI. as a wise and strong secular ruler, the two great pillars were created by Marder and Matielli. The columns are crowned by golden eagles, symbolizing the two virtues of the Emperor - fortitudo (bravery) and constantia (resistance). The two pillars are evocative of the two pillars before the temple in Jerusalem - Jachin and Boaz. However, the illustration of the two columns does not match the model of the Trajan columns in Rome, portraying war deeds, but these tell the life story of St. Borromeo. In the front view of the Karlskirche a wide range of different symbols become one whole - the Roman emperors Trajan and Augustus, the Temple of Solomon, St. Peter's Church in Rome, Hagia Sophia, Charlemagne and the Empire of Charles V. - through the skillfully used symbols should be shown the claim of the house of Habsburg to the European domination.

The plan view of the church is, as in baroque typical, ellipsoid. In the interior of the Karlskirche the great Baroque sculpture is immediately noticeable, representing St. Borromeo. At the base the four Latin Fathers of the Church are depicted. The interior of the Karlskirche is dominated by the tremendous fresco in the oval dome room, it was created by the eminent Baroque painter Johann Michael Rottmayr between 1725-1730. The fresco shows the Mother of God representing the intercession of the patron Saint of the Church to help head off the plague, surrounded is the scene by the cardinal virtues (faith, hope and love). In the left entrance wing is situated the tomb for the Austrian poet Heinrich Joseph von Collin (17771-1811).

Inside the St. Charles Church, there is a museum where the most valuable pieces are exhibited.

These include: the vestments of St. Borromeo, a reliquary of gold and silver - a donation of Emperor Charles VI. and a rococo monstrance (1760) containing a drop of blood of the saint. Thomas Aquinas.

Even the image of the architect Fischer von Erlach, painted by Jacob von Schuppen, is one of the church treasures.

The iconographic program of the Charles Church was written by Carl Gustav Haerus, by this the Saint Charles Borromeo should be connected to the imperial founder.

www.univie.ac.at/hypertextcreator/ferstel/site/browse.php...

 

 

PERIYAR E.V.RAMASAMY and WOMEN RIGHTS

 

With regards to marriage, Periyar has stated that it is one of the worst customs in India. He claimed that the marriage principle, briefly, involves the enslavement of a woman by her husband and nothing else. This enslavement is concealed under the cover of marriage rites to deceive the women concerned by giving the wedding the false name of a divine function.[7]

 

There have been numerous papers in South India reporting how husbands have killed their wives, suspecting immoral behavior. The husband's suspicion of his wife's character has often led to murders. Those who believe in the divine dispensation, according to Periyar, do not have the knowledge to ask themselves why marriages conducted according to religious rites and the approval of God end in this fashion.[7]

 

Periyar further states that the very idea that the only proper thing for women to do is to be slaves of domesticity, bear children and bring them up, is a faulty one. As long as these restrictions are imposed on women, we can be sure that women have to be subservient to men and depend on men for help. If women have to live on terms of equality with men, they must have the liberty, like men, to have the kind of education they like and also to do unhampered, any work suitable to their knowledge, ability and taste.[8]

 

Furthermore, Periyar objected to terms like "giving of a maid" and "given in marriage". They are, "Sanskrit terms" and treat woman as a thing. He advocated the substitution of the word for marriage taken from the Tirukkual "Valkai thunai" or "life partner".[9]

 

Expenses[edit]

With marriage comes the expenses. Periyar stated that in our country, and particularly in Hindu society, a marriage is a function causing a lot of difficulties and waste to all people concerned. But those who conduct the marriage function and those who are getting married do not appear to notice the attendant difficulties because they think that social life necessitates wasteful expense and many difficulties and therefore they must necessarily face those inconveniences and hardships.[10]

 

Wedding feast, jewels, expensive clothes, procession, pandal, dance, music—money is spent on all these to satisfy the vanity of the organizers. Whatever may be the amount of money spent on the wedding and however pompous each of the items may be, the mirth and jollity associated with these are over in two or three days. In a week's time the prestige and honor connected with these are forgotten.[10] But the wedding expenses leave many families crushed; for many poor families these expenses leave an enormous burden and the debts remain uncleared for a number of years.[11]

 

However, if the money intended for the wedding expense is not borrowed and belongs to either of the marriage parties, then that amount could be used by her to bring up her children and to educate them. Such a procedure would be highly beneficial to her.[12]

 

Arranged marriages[edit]

In South Asia we mostly hear of arranged marriages as part of custom, heritage, and religions. Periyar thought that the Aryan wedding methods were barbarous because of the Aryan religion and art: Vedas, Sastras, Puranas, and Epics belong to the barbaric age. He further stated that is the reason why their wedding methods involve the parents giving the girl, prostituting the girl children and some stranger carrying the girl away by force or stealth.[13]

 

Arranged marriages in general were meant to enable the couple to live together throughout life and derive happiness, satisfaction and a good reputation, even years after the sexual urge and sexual pleasure are forgotten.[14]

 

But, with the selfish manipulation of this pact, Periyar claimed that women find 'pleasure' in slavish marriage because they have been brought up by their parents without education, independence and self-respect and because they have been made to believe that marriage means subordination to males. The inclusion of such slavish women in the group of 'chaste' women is another lure to them, leading them to find pleasure in such marriages.

 

Because a man is also married before he has understood the nature of life, its problems and its pleasures, he is satisfied with the slavish nature of the wife and the sexual pleasure she gives. If he finds any incompatibility, he adapts himself to his partner and the circumstances and puts up with his lot.[14]

 

Love marriages[edit]

Love marriages, claims Periyar, on the other hand will suit only those who have no ideals in life. Such a wedding gives primacy to sexual union along and it is doubtful if it indicates an agreement between the couple for good life. Sexual compatibility alone does not ensure happy married life; the couple should be able to live together cheerfully. Suitability for life or living together can be determined only if the man and woman get used to the company of each other, and are satisfied with each other. Only then, they can enter into an agreement to live together.[13]

 

Periyar further states that love marriages can give pleasure only as long as there is lust and the ability to satisfy that lust. If there is no compatibility between the partners in other respects, such marriages end only in the enslavement of women. The lies of such women resemble the lives of bullocks which are tied to a cart, beaten up and made to labor endlessly until they die.[14]

 

Therefore, there is a proverb stating, "A deeply loving girl is unfit for family life; a suitable life partner is unfit for love." Periyar believed that the agreement between partners to live together will constitute a better marriage than a love marriage.[14]

 

Self-respect marriages[edit]

In a leading article of Viduthalai, Periyar states that a self-respect wedding is based on rationalism. Rationalism is based on the individual's courage. Some may have the courage to conduct it during the time which almanacs indicate as the time of the planet Rahu and that, particularly in the evening. Some others may have just enough daring to avoid the Brahmin priest and his mother tongue - the Sanskrit language.[15] Some may feel nervous about not keeping the traditional lamp burning in broad daylight. Some others may have the rotten thought that conducting a wedding without 'mangala sutra' is disgraceful.

 

Still, the self-respect weddings conducted during the past thirty years have some basic limits. They are: Brahmins and their mantras should be utterly avoided; meaningless rituals, piling mud pots, one on another, having the traditional lamp during day time, ritual smoke - all these should be avoided. Rationalism does not approve of these. Periyar then asks why can't the government pass an Act that legalizes weddings which avoid the above-mentioned superstitious practices. If all these details cannot be accommodated in the Act, the latter can legalize weddings which don't have Brahmin priests, the Sanskrit language and the so called holy fire.[16]

 

Thus, marriages styled as Self-Respect marriages carried a threefold significance: a) replacing the Purohit, b) inter-caste equality, c) man-woman equality. Periyar claimed to have performed Self-Respect marriages unofficially since 1925 and officially since 1928.[17] Self-Respect marriages were legalized in 1967 by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) Government.[18]

 

Widow-remarriage[edit]

On the remarriage of widows, Periyar states that among the atrocities perpetrated by the Hindu male population against women, here we have to consider the treatment meted out to widows alone. If a girl loses her husband, even before knowing anything of worldly pleasures, she is compelled to close her eyes to everything in the world and die broken-hearted. Even in Periyar's community at the time, there were widowed girls below the age of 13 years. Periyar stated how it is a touching sight to see the parents of those widowed children treating them like untouchables.[19]

 

He goes on to say that whatever may be the reason for the present state of the Hindu society, my firm belief that the low position given permanently to widows may prove to be the reason for the utter ruin of the Hindu religion and the Hindu society.[20]

 

If we try to find the reason for such conduct, we will have to conclude that they instinctively feel that women are slaves, subservient to men and that they must be kept under control. That is why these people treat women like animals. They seem to feel that giving freedom to women is equivalent to committing a very serious crime. The result of this attitude is that there is no independence or freedom to one half of the human race. This wicked enslavement of half of the human race is due to the fact that men are physically a little stronger than women. This principle applies to all spheres of life and the weaker are enslaved by the stronger.

 

If slavery has to be abolished in society, the male arrogance and wickedness which lead to the enslavement of women must be abolished first. Only when this is achieved, the tender sprouts of freedom and equality will register growth.[21]

 

One of the reasons why Periayr hated Hinduism and the orthodoxy practiced in the name of Hinduism was the practice of child marriage. Many of the girl children who were married before they were ten or twelve years old became widows before they knew the meaning of the word. According to the 1921 All India Census the details of the child widows reported living in the country that time were as follows:[22]

 

1 year baby widows - 497

1 to 2 year child widows - 494

2 to 3 year child widows - 1,257

3 to 4 year child widows - 2,837

4 to 5 year child widows - 6,707

Total number of widows - 11,342

5 to 10 year young widows - 85,037

10 to 15 year young widows - 232,147

15 to 20 year young widows - 396,172

20 to 25 year young widows - 742,820

25 to 30 year young widows - 1,163,720

Total number of widows - 2,631,238[22][23]

Periyar was deeply disturbed when he realized that among the widows in India, 11,892 were little children below 5 years and that young widows below 15 years numbering 232,147 were denied the pleasures of life.[24]

 

With regards to the re-marriage of widows, Periyar stated that it is the practice of our people to refer to such a wedding as "a widow's marriage". Such an expression is used only with reference to women and in connection with men. Just as this lady is marrying another husband after the death of the first husband, many men marry again after the death of the first wife. But the second marriage of a man is not referred to as "a widower's marriage", though that is the proper thing to do.

 

Periyar himself was a widower. After becoming one, he took a second wife. He claimed that in the ancient days, both men and women in the country had this practice. There were numerous instances in sastras and puranas of women getting married again after the death of their first husband. Periyar further stated that this is not an unusual practice in the rest of the world though it might appear strange for us at the present time. Christian and Muslim women marry again after the death of the first husband. 90 percent of women in Muslim countries get married again soon after the death of the first husband. This may be unusual in certain sections of Indian societies. But it is a common practice in certain other sections of our society which are called very backward communities.[25]

 

Further, inter-caste marriages and remarriage of widows are on the increase in India. Brahmins oppose these because they are afraid that they cannot exploit the people any more in the name of sastras. For the same reason they oppose the Sharada Act which is necessary for social well-being.[26]

 

Child marriage[edit]

In all the meetings of the non-Brahmins and the Self-Respectors, Periyar condemned child marriages and emphasized the need for educating all girl children and giving right to young widows to get married again.

 

Periyar has been very much against child marriage and stated that it reflects the cruelty to which innocent girls were subjected by their well-meaning parents. Periyar asked that if these parents can be considered civilized in any sense of the term. There was no other leader other than Periyar who reacted against this practice of child marriage.[24]

 

Those who supported child marriage were strongly against Periyar's condemnation of this act. Take for example, the Sharada Act. Those who opposed this Act say that it was against the Sastras to conduct the marriage of a girl after she has attained puberty. They further say that those who conduct such marriages are committing a sin and therefore will go to hell.[27]

 

Chastity[edit]

Periyar claimed that "household duties" have risen out of the foolishness of people and were not natural duties.[28] He went on to say that it was our selfish greed which has multiplied our household work. Nobody need worry that without household work, the women will lose their "chastity". On chastity, Periyar went on to say that it is something that belongs to women and is not a pledge to men. Whatever, chastity is, it was something that belonged to individuals.

 

In society, it was believed that if people lose their chastity, they will get divine punishment. Others are not going to get that punishment. Referring to the doctrines of institutionalized orthodox religions, he went on to say that men need not to worry themselves that women are committing a sin by not doing household work. Thus, let men realize that women are not slaves and that men are not their masters or guardians. Women should be allowed to develop the competence to protect themselves and their chastity and men need not be their watchdogs. He also believed that it was derogatory for men to play such a role.[citation needed]

 

It was said by the orthodox[who?] that women will develop diseases if they lose their chastity. The disease that a woman gets affects the husbands also. If we[who?] educate the women, they will develop the capability to keep themselves and their husbands pure. Thus, Periyar stated in the Kudi Arasu for the society to think deeply about taking a decision and do the right thing for their sisters and girl children.[29]

 

Periyar kindled the thoughts of everybody by also ridiculing the use of the word chastity only with reference to women. (Periyar-Father of Tamil 32) He stated that character is essential for both men and women and that speaking of chastity only with reference to women degraded not merely women but men also. He extended this thought and said that in any sphere of activity, civilized society cannot think of one law for men and another for women. He also said that the way most men treated their women was far worse than the way the upper class people treated the lower class, the way in which rich men treated the poor and the way in which a master treated his slave.[30]

 

Education[edit]

On education, Periyar stated that some foolish parents believe that if girls get educated, they will correspond with their secret lovers. That it is a very foolish and mischievous notion. No parent need be anxious about it. If a girl writes a letter, it will only be to a male. We can even now caution men not to read any love letter addressed to them by a woman and, even if they read it, not to reply to it. If men do not listen to this advice, they, as well as the girls who write them must be punished. It will be a hopelessly bad thing, if parents keep their girl children uneducated for this reason.[29]

 

At a speeched delivered by Periyar at the Prize Distribution function in the Municipal School for Girls at Karungal Palayam, Erode, he stated that girl children should be taught active and energetic exercises like running, high jump, long jump,and wrestling so that they may acquire the strength and courage of men. Their time and energy should not be wasted in light pastimes like Kummi (groups going in a circle, clapping their hands rhythmically) and in Kolatam (striking with sticks rhythmically).

 

In ancient Tamil literature, poets have stressed the value of education for women. In a famous verse, a poet by the name of Naladiar stated that, "What gives beauty to a woman is not the hair style or the patter of her dress or the saffron on her face but only education".[31] In a verse of Eladhi it states, "Beauty does not lie in the style of wailing or in the charm of a blush but only in the combination of numbers and letters (education).[32]

 

In a 1960 issue of Viduthalai Periyar stated that "There should be a drastic revolution in the desires and ideals of Indian women. They should equip themselves to do all types of work that men are doing. They should have good domestic life without allowing nature's obstacles in their own lives. Therefore, there should be a welcome change in the minds of our women. The administrators also most pay special attention to the advancement of women".[33]

 

Armed forces[edit]

Periyar advocated for women to be given weapons to protect themselves in reply to a question put in the Central Legislature. He stated that we have no hope that the state governments will do anything in this sphere because most of the state ministers hold the orthodox belief that women are slavish creatures.[34] Though here and there we[who?] find women also as ministers, they are old-fashioned traditionalists who will say, "We don't want any kind of freedom. We are perfectly happy with slavery".[33]

 

In Periyar's time he explained that ""Indian" women had no self-determination in any sphere of life like education property and marriage. They thought that modern civilization meant dressing themselves like British and American women and adorning themselves. Even our educated women do not entertain any thought that they must enter the police and army departments and learn to pilot airplanes like the women of Russia and Turkey. Just as modern education has made men cowards an book-worms, it has made our women decoratie [sic] dolls and weaklings".[33]

 

In a leading article written by Periyar in Viduthalai in 1946, he claimed that unless there is a drastic, fundamental and revolutionary change in our[who?] administrative machinery, it is impossible to make our women independent beings.[33]

 

Periyar goes on to explain that in our country also, there are thousands of women with the courage, competence and desire to work in the police department. Just as girls going to school was considered wonderful and cycle-riding by girls was considered funny, a few years ago, women on police duty may appear to be wonderful or strange for a few years. Then, in course of time, this will be considered natural.[33]

 

We[who?] need methods that will effect an astounding revolution in the world of women. Until we acquire those methods, we will be moving forward like a tortoise and writing and talking about Drowpath and Sita.[35]

 

Periyar, in a 1932 article of Kudi Arasu, explained that "women should develop physical strength like men. They must take exercise and get training in the use of weapons. They must acquire the ability to protect themselves when any sex-mad person tries to molest them. They should get the necessary training to join the armey [sic] when need arises and fight the enemy. This is the view of all civilized people. Women also wholeheartedly support this view. When the general view in the world is like this, who can accept the statement of some people that there is no use in giving higher education to women?"[33]

 

Birth control[edit]

"Others advocate birth-control, with a view of preserving the health of women and conserving family property; but we advocate it for the liberation of women."[36]

In the Kudi Arasu of 1932, Periyar explained the basic differences between the reasons given to us for contraception and the reasons given by others for this. We say that contraception is necessary for women to gain freedom. Others advocate contraception taking into consideration many problems like the health of women, the health and energy of the children, the poverty of the country and the maintenance of the family property. Many Westerners also support contraception for the same reasons. Our view is not based on these considerations. We recommend that women should stop delivering children altogether because conception stands in the way of women enjoying personal freedom. Further, begetting a number of children prevents men also from being free and independent. This truth will be clear if we listen to talk of men and women when their freedom is hampered.[33]

 

He went on to say how birth control does not aim at preventing the birth of children altogether, but aims only at limiting births. A man and his wife may have two children, or at the most, three children. This birth control policy is against bringing forth an unlimited number of children.[37]

 

While Periyar and the Self-Respect movement were advocating for birth control, Rajaji (C. Rajagopalachariar) very strongly opposed it. Others who opposed birth control was Thiru Adhithanar, the publisher of an extremely popular newspaper, Dina Thandhi at the time. In response to Rajaji's stand against birth control, Periyar explained that he was against this since he was of the Vedic Brahmin community that staunchly engrossed in the Manu Dharma. Thus, limiting births of overpopulation would limit diseases and death from many and therefore leave Brahmin priests without a job of doing ceremonies for the sick and funerals. In a 1959 article of Viduthalai he exclaimed that "If people like Rajaji discover new islands, make the forests habitable, do propaganda for the birth of more and more children and have farms for the upbringing of children, we may be in a position to understand them."[38]

 

During the late 1950s, 80 percent of the men and 90 percent of the women in Tamil Nadu were illiterate. Siriyar argued in a 1959 article in Viduthalai that "in this situation, if birth control is not practiced and people are allowed to have any number of children, the result will be the multiplication of castes among the "Sudras", like washermen, barbers, pot-makers, kuravas or gypsies, hunters, fishermen, famers [sic], toddy tappers, padayachies, pillars, cobblers, pariahs, and a thousand others and a limitless increase in population. The increase in population will force the 'Sudras' to preserve themselves from starvation by standing with folded hands before lazy fellows and calling them 'swami', 'master' and 'landlord'. What good result can we expect if birth control is not adopted?"[39]

 

Previously in a 1933 article of the Kudi Arasu, Periyar, in his words, explained that "even a High Court Judge in India does not know the amount of trouble that a mother takes to bring up a child. If a husband is kind to his wife and shows concern for her health and happiness, he must adopt the contraceptive method. Otherwise, he must be one who could manage to see that in delivery and in the brining [sic] up of children, she does not have much trouble. Therefore, the proper thing to do now is to drastically cut the expenses mentioned above and spend money on the proper upbringing of children with the help of nurses."[40]

 

Property rights and divorce[edit]

With regards to property rights for women, Periyar stated that there was no difference between men and women. He went on to say that like men, women should have the right to own property and enjoy its benefits. With regards to divorce or separations, he advocated that a woman can lie away from her husband if he is an undesirable person and if he has nay virulent disease. When a woman has to live apart from her husband in these circumstances, she is entitled to maintenance allowance and a claim on the husband's property. Even if a widow gets remarried, she must be given the right to claim a share of the first husband's property.[41]

 

On February 4, 1946, the Central Legislature passed an Act giving the right the Hindu married woman to get from her husband in certain circumstances a separate place to live in and a maintenance allowance. Periyar explained how that it was a useless Act. since it seems that the members of the Hindu Mahasabha and Sanadahnis agitated against the grant of even this right.[42]

 

Dowry[edit]

On the Dowry system practiced widely throughout the Indian sub-continent not only by Hindus but Christians too, Periyar calls it a "serious disease that was spreading fast amongst Tamilians". He went on to state that the disease was also found in its virulent form among the Andhras and the Brahmins of Tamil Nadu. Periyar also argued that if a man with property worth one lakh has three daughters, he has to become a beggar by the time these daughters are married. In the name of dowry, the parents of the young men who marry the three daughters, squeeze the man's property out of him.[43]

 

In the 1959 issue of Viduthalai, Periyar stated that, "according to a new legislation, women have the right to a share of the parents' property. Therefore every girl will definitely get her legitimate share from the parents' wealth - if the parents are wealth. It is inhuamane [sic] on the part of the parents of a boy to dump on him a girl whom he does not like and to plan to such as much as they can from the property of the girl's father. There is basically no difference between selling education and love for money and selling one's chastity for money. 'Prostitute' is a germ of contempt for a woman; a boy should not be reduced by his avaricous [sic] parents to get the name, 'a prostituted boy' or 'a boy that has been sold'. A father-in-law who has means, however miserly he may be by nature, will not be indifferent when his daughter suffers out of poverty. Therefore, it is very shameful on the part of the bridegroom's parents to demand from the bride's father that at the time of the marriage he should gie jewels worth so many thousands along with so many thousand rupees as dowry and that he should provide the bridegroom with a house and a care. The fact that another party makes such demands at the time of his daughter's marriage does not justify any parent's demands at the time of his son's wedding. All people must realize that both demanding and giving dowry are wrong and they must boldly declare this when occasion arises."[44]

 

Periyar calls the dowry an evil and exploitative practice depriving tens of thousands of talented and beautiful young women with sound character remaining spinsters without any chance of getting married.[45]

 

Devadasis[edit]

Among the atrocities the Tamil society committed against women was the practice of keeping some women attached to temples as Devadasis. Dr. Muthulakshmi proposed the resolution at the Madras Legislature that the Devadasi system should be abolished. The Government wanted comments on that from all important people. Periyar in his statement pointed out that the Devadasi system was a disgrace to Hindu religion. The fact that, in the name of a temple or a god, some women are kept as common property is an insult to all the women in the society. He also remarked that the prevalence of this system encouraged immorality among men and thus set the pattern for unprincipled life in many families. This was stoutly opposed in the Assembly by Satyamurthi Iyer, an orthodox Congress member, under the pretext of safeguarding the Hindu traditions. It should be said to the credit of Dr. Muthulakshmi and the leaders like Periyar that the proposal of the Doctor was accepted and a law was enacted against the Devadasi system.[30]

 

Periyar's example of the degradation of women in the Devadasi system is explained that "if a man's physical passion is aroused when his wife is not with him, he immediately goes to a prostitute. Rough stones are planted where cows and bufaloes [sic] graze to facilitate the animals to rub against the stones when they feel like it.[46] Likewise, Devadasis served in temples and in all villages rough stones planted on the borders and they say that these two (employing devadasis and the planting rough stones) are aamong [sic] the 32 dharmas mentioned in the sastras. When we consider why his kindness to the suffering and also the 32 dharmas are all bogus".[46]

 

Resolutions passed[edit]

As the Self-Respect conference held in Chengalpattu, Tamil Nadu in 1929, the following were among the many resolutions passed with regards for women's rights:

 

Women should be given equal right along with men for the family property.

There should be no objection to employing women to any job for which they are qualified.[47]

Schools, particularly schools, should try to employ only women teachers.

At the conference held in Erode in 1930, the same resolutions were passed again reminding the delegates and others that the interest of women was still uppermost in Periyar's mind. M.R. Jayakar who presided oer the Erode conference was greatly impressed by the progressive views of Periyar and other members. He was particularly happy that the movement included not merely non-Brahmin Hindus but Christians and Muslims too. He pointed out that the Self-Respect movement was more progressive than Congress. Furthermore, at the Virudhnagar conference the women members held a separate conference and passed some resolutions demanding that women should have the right to select their life partners without any consideration of religion or community and that weddings should not involve wasteful expenditure and elaborate ceremonies.[47]

Vienna Baroque

Doris Binder

 

The center of Baroque art was undisputable Vienna, as a special promoter appeared the Emperor Charles VI., under whose reign not only the Karlskirche was built, but also numerous buildings have been newly planned or built. The passion for building of the High Baroque is not only founded by the destructions of the Turks, but also has its causes in the backward economic structure and its lack of production plants. Whether nobleman, cleric or commoner, all those with sufficient capital put it rather in construction funds into practice than not make use of it. Responsible for this was a deep distrust to the imperial fiscal policy and concern about the currency and a possible bankruptcy.

The Baroque emerged within the civil peace (*) Burgfrieden) of the city of Vienna, had at the beginning of the High Baroque era still dominated religious buildings, so the cityscape changed in just four decades. Vienna was transformed into a "palace city", by the year 1740, the number of pleasure palaces, gardens and belvederes had doubled. The Baroque style, which by crown, church and nobility was forced upon the citizens, is considered of Felix Czeike as "authority art". The existing social gap should be camouflaged by the rubberneck culture in festivities, receptions and parades.

 

*) Burgfrieden (The term truce or Castle peace referred to a jurisdiction in the Middle Ages around a castle, in which feuds, so hostilities of private individuals among themselves, under penalty of ostracism were banned. Today the term is mainly used in a figurative sense.

 

Due to the return of Fischer von Erlach to Vienna in 1686 and a decade later, Lukas von Hildebrandt, the primacy of the Italians in architecture was broken and the victory parade of Austrian Baroque began. The connection between the spiritual and secular powers found its mode of expression in the Baroque, which the appearance of the city of Vienna should characterize in a decisive manner.

 

Construction of Charles Church

The Karlskirche was built by Emperor Charles VI. commemorating the plague saint, Charles Borromeo. In 1713 the plague raged in Vienna and claimed about 8,000 human lives, in February 1714 the plague disappeared and as a sign of gratitude was began with the construction of the church, this should become the most important religious building of Vienna in the 18th century.

In a contest was decided on the builder - participants were Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt and Ferdinando Galli-Bibienas. As winner emerged the famous architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, he died in 1723 and did not live to the achievement of the Church. The supervision was transferred to the imperial court architect Anton Erhard Martinelli, as Fischer von Erlach died, his son, Joseph Emmanuel, finished his work. On 28 October 1737 St. Charles Church was solemnly by the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Sigismund Count Kollowitz, inaugurated. The spiritual care ceded Emperor Karl VI. to the chivalric Order of the Cross with the Red Star, since 1783 is the Karlskirche imperial patronage parish.

The church at that time lay still behind the regulated river Wien (Wienfluss) and in the open field. The directed towards the city face side of the Charles Church, which stood on the edge of the suburb of Wieden, was target point of a line of sight the Hofburg and St. Charles Church in the sense of a "via triumphalis" connecting. On the temple-like front building of the Karlskirche the dedication inscription is clearly visible "Vota mea Reddam in conspectu timentium Deum" - "I will fulfill my vow before those who fear God."

Already during the construction by Fischer von Erlach (senior), there were several project phases, three of which have been preserved:

 

1. Medaillon by Daniel Warou for the groundbreaking ceremony

2. Fore stitches in Fischer's draft of a historical architecture 1721

3. Viennese view of work by Klein and Pfeffel 1722 (1724)

 

Due to the death of Fischer von Erlach, occured recent changes made by his son, Joseph Emmanuel most of all being concerned the dome (much higher and steeper), the priest choir (omitted) and the interior (simpler). The entire project took a total of 21 years and the costs amounted to 304 045 guilders and 22 ¼ cruisers. The construction costs were shouldered by all crown lands of the Empire, but also Spain, Milan and the Netherlands had to make a contribution.

The Karlskirche is the most important Baroque building of the city and represents the most convincing the so-called Empire style in which for the last time an empire awareness in the architecture of the capital of the Holy Roman Empire after the victorious ended wars against the Turks and the French was expressed.

Symbolism of the Karlskirche

The Karlskirche consists of a central rotunda with a dome, preceded by a column structure like a Greek temple, of two high pillars illustrated on the model of Trajan's Column in Rome and of two lateral gate pavilions. The illustrated columns represent Charles VI. as a wise and strong secular ruler, the two great pillars were created by Marder and Matielli. The columns are crowned by golden eagles, symbolizing the two virtues of the Emperor - fortitudo (bravery) and constantia (resistance). The two pillars are evocative of the two pillars before the temple in Jerusalem - Jachin and Boaz. However, the illustration of the two columns does not match the model of the Trajan columns in Rome, portraying war deeds, but these tell the life story of St. Borromeo. In the front view of the Karlskirche a wide range of different symbols become one whole - the Roman emperors Trajan and Augustus, the Temple of Solomon, St. Peter's Church in Rome, Hagia Sophia, Charlemagne and the Empire of Charles V. - through the skillfully used symbols should be shown the claim of the house of Habsburg to the European domination.

The plan view of the church is, as in baroque typical, ellipsoid. In the interior of the Karlskirche the great Baroque sculpture is immediately noticeable, representing St. Borromeo. At the base the four Latin Fathers of the Church are depicted. The interior of the Karlskirche is dominated by the tremendous fresco in the oval dome room, it was created by the eminent Baroque painter Johann Michael Rottmayr between 1725-1730. The fresco shows the Mother of God representing the intercession of the patron Saint of the Church to help head off the plague, surrounded is the scene by the cardinal virtues (faith, hope and love). In the left entrance wing is situated the tomb for the Austrian poet Heinrich Joseph von Collin (17771-1811).

Inside the St. Charles Church, there is a museum where the most valuable pieces are exhibited.

These include: the vestments of St. Borromeo, a reliquary of gold and silver - a donation of Emperor Charles VI. and a rococo monstrance (1760) containing a drop of blood of the saint. Thomas Aquinas.

Even the image of the architect Fischer von Erlach, painted by Jacob von Schuppen, is one of the church treasures.

The iconographic program of the Charles Church was written by Carl Gustav Haerus, by this the Saint Charles Borromeo should be connected to the imperial founder.

www.univie.ac.at/hypertextcreator/ferstel/site/browse.php

John Heer, an eminent witness to Catholic truth and pastoral charity, was born in Cologne, Germany at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and entered the Order in his native city. He was sent to Holland, to serve as parish priest at Hoornaer, where Catholics were being subjected to severe persecution by the Calvinists. In 1572, Calvinist forces took the city of Gorcum and imprisoned its Catholic clergy; when Saint John went to minister to them, he was himself captured. They were all taken to Briel, where they were offered their freedom if they would deny the primacy of the Pope and abandon the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist; they refused and Saint John and was hanged, along with eighteen other priests and religious, on the night of 8/9 July 1572; their bodies were dismembered. They were beatified by Pope Clement X on 24 November 1675 and canonised by Pius IX on 29 June 1867.

 

This stained glass window of St John is in St Dominic's church in San Francisco.

 

Vienna Baroque

Doris Binder

 

The center of Baroque art was undisputable Vienna, as a special promoter appeared the Emperor Charles VI., under whose reign not only the Karlskirche was built, but also numerous buildings have been newly planned or built. The passion for building of the High Baroque is not only founded by the destructions of the Turks, but also has its causes in the backward economic structure and its lack of production plants. Whether nobleman, cleric or commoner, all those with sufficient capital put it rather in construction funds into practice than not make use of it. Responsible for this was a deep distrust to the imperial fiscal policy and concern about the currency and a possible bankruptcy.

The Baroque emerged within the civil peace (*) Burgfrieden) of the city of Vienna, had at the beginning of the High Baroque era still dominated religious buildings, so the cityscape changed in just four decades. Vienna was transformed into a "palace city", by the year 1740, the number of pleasure palaces, gardens and belvederes had doubled. The Baroque style, which by crown, church and nobility was forced upon the citizens, is considered of Felix Czeike as "authority art". The existing social gap should be camouflaged by the rubberneck culture in festivities, receptions and parades.

 

*) Burgfrieden (The term truce or Castle peace referred to a jurisdiction in the Middle Ages around a castle, in which feuds, so hostilities of private individuals among themselves, under penalty of ostracism were banned. Today the term is mainly used in a figurative sense.

 

Due to the return of Fischer von Erlach to Vienna in 1686 and a decade later, Lukas von Hildebrandt, the primacy of the Italians in architecture was broken and the victory parade of Austrian Baroque began. The connection between the spiritual and secular powers found its mode of expression in the Baroque, which the appearance of the city of Vienna should characterize in a decisive manner.

 

Construction of Charles Church

The Karlskirche was built by Emperor Charles VI. commemorating the plague saint, Charles Borromeo. In 1713 the plague raged in Vienna and claimed about 8,000 human lives, in February 1714 the plague disappeared and as a sign of gratitude was began with the construction of the church, this should become the most important religious building of Vienna in the 18th century.

In a contest was decided on the builder - participants were Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt and Ferdinando Galli-Bibienas. As winner emerged the famous architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, he died in 1723 and did not live to the achievement of the Church. The supervision was transferred to the imperial court architect Anton Erhard Martinelli, as Fischer von Erlach died, his son, Joseph Emmanuel, finished his work. On 28 October 1737 St. Charles Church was solemnly by the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Sigismund Count Kollowitz, inaugurated. The spiritual care ceded Emperor Karl VI. to the chivalric Order of the Cross with the Red Star, since 1783 is the Karlskirche imperial patronage parish.

The church at that time lay still behind the regulated river Wien (Wienfluss) and in the open field. The directed towards the city face side of the Charles Church, which stood on the edge of the suburb of Wieden, was target point of a line of sight the Hofburg and St. Charles Church in the sense of a "via triumphalis" connecting. On the temple-like front building of the Karlskirche the dedication inscription is clearly visible "Vota mea Reddam in conspectu timentium Deum" - "I will fulfill my vow before those who fear God."

Already during the construction by Fischer von Erlach (senior), there were several project phases, three of which have been preserved:

 

1. Medaillon by Daniel Warou for the groundbreaking ceremony

2. Fore stitches in Fischer's draft of a historical architecture 1721

3. Viennese view of work by Klein and Pfeffel 1722 (1724)

 

Due to the death of Fischer von Erlach, occured recent changes made by his son, Joseph Emmanuel most of all being concerned the dome (much higher and steeper), the priest choir (omitted) and the interior (simpler). The entire project took a total of 21 years and the costs amounted to 304 045 guilders and 22 ¼ cruisers. The construction costs were shouldered by all crown lands of the Empire, but also Spain, Milan and the Netherlands had to make a contribution.

The Karlskirche is the most important Baroque building of the city and represents the most convincing the so-called Empire style in which for the last time an empire awareness in the architecture of the capital of the Holy Roman Empire after the victorious ended wars against the Turks and the French was expressed.

Symbolism of the Karlskirche

The Karlskirche consists of a central rotunda with a dome, preceded by a column structure like a Greek temple, of two high pillars illustrated on the model of Trajan's Column in Rome and of two lateral gate pavilions. The illustrated columns represent Charles VI. as a wise and strong secular ruler, the two great pillars were created by Marder and Matielli. The columns are crowned by golden eagles, symbolizing the two virtues of the Emperor - fortitudo (bravery) and constantia (resistance). The two pillars are evocative of the two pillars before the temple in Jerusalem - Jachin and Boaz. However, the illustration of the two columns does not match the model of the Trajan columns in Rome, portraying war deeds, but these tell the life story of St. Borromeo. In the front view of the Karlskirche a wide range of different symbols become one whole - the Roman emperors Trajan and Augustus, the Temple of Solomon, St. Peter's Church in Rome, Hagia Sophia, Charlemagne and the Empire of Charles V. - through the skillfully used symbols should be shown the claim of the house of Habsburg to the European domination.

The plan view of the church is, as in baroque typical, ellipsoid. In the interior of the Karlskirche the great Baroque sculpture is immediately noticeable, representing St. Borromeo. At the base the four Latin Fathers of the Church are depicted. The interior of the Karlskirche is dominated by the tremendous fresco in the oval dome room, it was created by the eminent Baroque painter Johann Michael Rottmayr between 1725-1730. The fresco shows the Mother of God representing the intercession of the patron Saint of the Church to help head off the plague, surrounded is the scene by the cardinal virtues (faith, hope and love). In the left entrance wing is situated the tomb for the Austrian poet Heinrich Joseph von Collin (17771-1811).

Inside the St. Charles Church, there is a museum where the most valuable pieces are exhibited.

These include: the vestments of St. Borromeo, a reliquary of gold and silver - a donation of Emperor Charles VI. and a rococo monstrance (1760) containing a drop of blood of the saint. Thomas Aquinas.

Even the image of the architect Fischer von Erlach, painted by Jacob von Schuppen, is one of the church treasures.

The iconographic program of the Charles Church was written by Carl Gustav Haerus, by this the Saint Charles Borromeo should be connected to the imperial founder.

www.univie.ac.at/hypertextcreator/ferstel/site/browse.php

  

In 192 BC, the Romans conquered the area and founded the outpost Toletum. Due to its iron ore deposits, Toledo developed into an important settlement. Since the first barbarian invasions, the ancient walls were reinforced. In 411 the Alans and later the Visigoths conquered the city. Toledo was the capital of the Visigoths' empire from about 531 to 711.

 

The Moors conquered the place in 712. Toledo experienced its heyday during the period of Moorish rule as Ṭulayṭula during the Caliphate of Córdoba until its conquest by Alfonso VI in 1085, after a four-year siege. In 1088, only a few years after the conquest, Archbishop Bernard of Toledo obtained confirmation from Pope Urban II that Toledo should hold the "primatus in totis Hispaniarum regnis" (primacy in all the kingdoms of the Iberian dominions). The Archbishop of Toledo is still today the Primate of the Catholic Church of Spain.

 

In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Toledo school of translators translated ancient philosophical writings (Plato, Aristotle) that had been translated from Greek into Arabic, but also genuinely Arabic writings from the fields of astronomy, mathematics, Islamic religion and theology into Latin.

 

After the conquest by Alfonso VI, Toledo became the residence of the Kingdom of Castile in 1087 and remained the capital of Spain until 1561.

In the 12th century, more than 12,000 Jews lived in Toledo.

 

According to an inscription, this synagogue was built in 1180, but it probably only acquired its current appearance in the 13th century. It is considered the oldest synagogue building in Europe still standing. After the attacks on the Jewish quarter in 1355 and 1391 and the emigration of many Jews, it was converted into a Catholic church in 1405.

 

The synagogue is a Mudéjar construction, created by Moorish architects. But it can also be considered one of the finest examples of Almohad architecture. The plain white interior walls as well as the use of brick and of pillars instead of columns are characteristics of Almohad architecture.

  

See also: www.albelli.nl/onlinefotoboek-bekijken/66948188-f350-4898...

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And, as Apollo punished him (Marsyas), he cried, “Ah-h-h! why are you now tearing me apart? A flute has not the value of my life!”

 

Even as he shrieked out in his agony, his living skin was ripped off from his limbs, till his whole body was a flaming wound, with nerves and veins and viscera exposed.

 

But all the weeping people of that land, and all the Fauns and Sylvan Deities, and all the Satyrs, and Olympus, his loved pupil—even then renowned in song, and all the Nymphs, lamented his sad fate; and all the shepherds, roaming on the hills, lamented as they tended fleecy flocks.

 

And all those falling tears, on fruitful Earth, descended to her deepest veins, as drip the moistening dews,—and, gathering as a fount, turned upward from her secret-winding caves, to issue, sparkling, in the sun-kissed air, the clearest river in the land of Phrygia,—through which it swiftly flows between steep banks down to the sea: and, therefore, from his name, ’tis called “The Marsyas” to this very day.

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Apamea Cibotus, Apamea ad Maeandrum (on the Maeander), Apamea or Apameia (Ancient Greek: Ἀπάμεια, Ancient Greek: κιβωτός) was an ancient city in Anatolia founded in the 3rd century BC by Antiochus I Soter, who named it after his mother Apama. It was in Hellenistic Phrygia, but became part of the Roman province of Pisidia. It was near, but on lower ground than, Celaenae (Kelainai).

 

The site is now partly occupied by the city of Dinar (sometimes locally known also as Geyikler, "the gazelles," perhaps from a tradition of the Persian hunting-park, seen by Xenophon at Celaenae), which by 1911 was connected with İzmir by railway; there are considerable remains, including a theater and a great number of important Graeco-Roman inscriptions. Strabo (p. 577) says, that the town lies at the source (ekbolais) of the Marsyas, and the river flows through the middle of the city, having its origin in the city, and being carried down to the suburbs with a violent and precipitous current it joins the Maeander after the latter is joined by the Orgas (called the Catarrhactes by Herodotus, vii. 26).

 

The original inhabitants were residents of Celaenae who were compelled by Antiochus I Soter to move farther down the river, where they founded the city of Apamea (Strabo, xii. 577). Antiochus the Great transplanted many Jews there. (Josephus, Ant. xii. 3, § 4). It became a seat of Seleucid power, and a center of Graeco-Roman and Graeco-Hebrew civilization and commerce. There Antiochus the Great collected the army with which he met the Romans at Magnesia, and two years later the Treaty of Apamea between Rome and the Seleucid realm was signed there. After Antiochus' departure for the East, Apamea lapsed to the Pergamene kingdom and thence to Rome in 133 BCE, but it was resold to Mithridates V of Pontus, who held it till 120 BCE. After the Mithridatic Wars it became and remained a great center for trade, largely carried on by resident Italians and by Jews. By order of Flaccus, a large amount of Jewish money – nearly 45 kilograms of gold – intended for the Temple in Jerusalem was confiscated in Apamea in the year 62 BCE. In 84 BCE Sulla made it the seat of a conventus, and it long claimed primacy among Phrygian cities. When Strabo wrote, Apamea was a place of great trade in the Roman province of Asia, next in importance to Ephesus. Its commerce was owing to its position on the great road to Cappadocia, and it was also the center of other roads. When Cicero was proconsul of Cilicia, 51 BCE, Apamea was within his jurisdiction (ad Fam. xiii. 67), but the dioecesis, or conventus, of Apamea was afterwards attached to Asia. Pliny the Elder enumerates six towns which belonged to the conventus of Apamea, and he observes that there were nine others of little note.

coin of Kibotos

 

The city minted its own coins in antiquity. The name Cibotus appears on some coins of Apamea, and it has been conjectured that it was so called from the wealth that was collected in this great emporium; for kibôtos in Greek is a chest or coffer. Pliny (v. 29) says that it was first Celaenae, then Cibotus, and then Apamea; which cannot be quite correct, because Celaenae was a different place from Apamea, though near it. But there may have been a place on the site of Apamea, which was called Cibotus.

 

The country about Apamea has been shaken by earthquakes, one of which is recorded as having happened in the time of Claudius (Tacit. Ann. xii. 58); and on this occasion the payment of taxes to the Romans was remitted for five years. Nicolaus of Damascus (Athen. p. 332) records a violent earthquake at Apamea at a previous date, during the Mithridatic Wars: lakes appeared where none were before, and rivers and springs; and many which existed before disappeared. Strabo (p. 579) speaks of this great catastrophe, and of other convulsions at an earlier period.

 

Apamea continued to be a prosperous town under the Roman Empire. Its decline dates from the local disorganization of the empire in the 3rd century; and though a bishopric, it was not an important military or commercial center in Byzantine times. The Turks took it first in 1080, and from the late 13th century onwards it was always in Muslim hands. For a long period it was one of the greatest cities of Asia Minor, commanding the Maeander road; but when the trade routes were diverted to Constantinople it rapidly declined, and its ruin was completed by an earthquake.

 

Apamea in Jewish tradition

 

Apamea is mentioned in the Talmud. The passages relating to witchcraft in Apamea (Ber. 62a) and to a dream in Apamea (Niddah, 30b) probably refer to the Apamea in Phrygia which was looked upon as a fabulously distant habitation. Similarly the much-discussed passage, Yeb. 115b, which treats of the journey of the exilarch Isaac, should also be interpreted to mean a journey from Corduene to Apamea in Phrygia; for if Apamea in Mesene were meant (Brüll's Jahrb. x. 145) it is quite impossible that the Babylonians should have had any difficulty in identifying the body of such a distinguished personage.

 

Christian Apamea

 

Apamea Cibotus is enumerated by Hierocles among the episcopal cities of the Roman province of Pisidia. Lequien gives the names of nine of its bishops. The first is a Julianus of Apamea at the Maeander who, Eusebius records, was in about 253 reported by Alexander of Hierapolis (Phrygia) to have joined others in examining the claims of the Montanist Maximilla. The list of bishops from Pisidia who participated in the First Council of Nicaea (325) includes Tharsitius of Apamea. It also gives a Paulus of Apamea, but Lequien considers that in the latter case "Apamea" is a mistake for "Acmonia". A Bishop Theodulus of Apamea (who may, however, have been of Apamea in Bithynia) witnessed a will of Gregory of Nazianzus. Paulinus took part in the Council of Chalcedon (451) and was a signatory of the letter from the bishops of Pisidia to Emperor Leo I the Thracian concerning the killing in 457 of Proterius of Alexandria. In the early 6th century, Conon abandoned his bishopric of Apamea in Phrygia and became a military leader in a rebellion against Emperor Anastasius. The acts of the Second Council of Constantinople (553) were signed by "John by the mercy of God bishop of the city of Apamea in the province of Pisidia". Sisinnius of Apamea was one of the Pisidian bishops at the Second Council of Nicaea (787). The Council held at Constantinople in 879–880 was attended by two bishops of Apamea in Pisidia, one appointed by Patriarch Ignatius of Constantinople the other by Photios I of Constantinople (Wikipedia).

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By N.S. Gill

 

Updated December 09, 2019

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Apollo and Marsyas

 

Time and again in Greek mythology, we see mere mortals foolishly daring to compete with the gods. We call this human trait hubris. No matter how good a pride-filled mortal may be at his art, he can't win against a god and shouldn't even try. Should the mortal manage to earn the prize for the contest itself, there will be little time to glory in victory before the angered deity exacts revenge. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that in the story of Apollo and Marsyas, the god makes Marsyas pay.

It's Not Just Apollo

 

This hubris/revenge dynamic plays out again and again in Greek mythology. The origin of the spider in Greek myth comes from the contest between Athena and Arachne, a mortal woman who boasted that her weaving skill was better than that of the goddess Athena. To take her down a peg, Athena agreed to a contest, but then Arachne performed as well as her divine opponent. In response, Athena turned her into a spider (Arachnid).

 

A little later, a friend of Arachne and a daughter of Tantalus, named Niobe, boasted about her brood of 14 children. She claimed she was more fortunate than Artemis and Apollo's mother Leto, who only had two. Angered, Artemis and/or Apollo destroyed Niobe's children.

www.thoughtco.com/apollo-and-marsyas-119918