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The Temple Mount In Jerusalem The Temple Mount is that walled in area in the Southeastern part of the Ancient City of Jerusalem. It is an area considered Holy by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. It was here that Solomon built the Temple of the Most High God. It was described as being on Mount Moriah. […]
Middle East Adventure Week Two Middle East Adventure continues as we now embark on week two. Our guide, Elinoar Nitzani, arrives and we are off to see the hot and amazing Judean Desert. We pass the Qumran Caves, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by a Bedouin Shepherd. Fragments from over 2oo books were […]
City of Tyre, on the Meidterranean coast of Lebanon is one of the earliest cities founded.
A striking contrast between the ancient brick formations against the concrete apartments surrounding it looked to me very interesting.(as you can see in the picture)
A closer view of the arch (from the rear) and its brick columns:
farm5.static.flickr.com/4 064/4710732629_c73061b01f_b.jpg
The above arch, at the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Tyre,Lebanon dates back to 2nd century AD.
Tyre was founded around 2750 BC according to Herodotus and it appears on monuments as early as 1300 BC.
The commerce of the ancient world was gathered into the warehouses of Tyre. "Tyrian merchants were the first who ventured to navigate the Mediterranean waters; and they founded their colonies on the coasts and neighbouring islands of the Aegean Sea, in Greece, on the northern coast of Africa, at Carthage and other places, in Sicily and Corsica, in Spain at Tartessus.
In the time of King David (c. 1000 BC), a friendly alliance was entered into between the Kingdoms of Israel and Tyre, which was ruled by Hiram I.
The city of Tyre was particularly known for the production of a rare and extraordinarily expensive sort of purple dye, produced from the murex shellfish, known as Tyrian purple. This color was, in many cultures of ancient times, reserved for the use of royalty, or at least nobility.
It was often attacked by Egypt, besieged by Shalmaneser V, who was assisted by the Phoenicians of the mainland, for five years, and by Nebuchadnezzar (586–573 BC) for thirteen years, without success, although a compromise peace was made in which Tyre paid tribute to the Babylonians. It later fell under the power of the Persians.
In 332 BC, the city was conquered by Alexander the Great, after a siege of seven months in which he built the causeway from the mainland to the island, but it continued to maintain much of its commercial importance until the Christian era.
In 126 BC, Tyre regained its independence (from the Seleucids) and was allowed to keep much of its independence when the area became a Roman province in 64
Later History
Jesus Christ visited the "coasts" of Tyre and Sidon (Matthew 15:21; Mark 7:24) and from this region many came forth to hear him preaching (Mark 3:8; Gospel of Luke 6:17, Matthew 11:21-23). A congregation was founded here soon after the death of Saint Stephen, and Paul of Tarsus, on his return from his third missionary journey, spent a week in conversation with the disciples there. According to Irenaeus of Lyons in Adversus Haereses, the female companion of Simon Magus came from here.
After a first failed siege in 1111, it was captured by the Crusaders in 1124, becoming one of the most important cities of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was part of the royal domain, although there were also autonomous trading colonies there for the Italian merchant cities. The city was the site of the archbishop of Tyre, a suffragan of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem; its archbishops often acceded to the Patriarchate. The most notable of the Latin archbishops was the historian William of Tyre.
After the reconquest of Acre by King Richard on July 12, 1191, the seat of the kingdom moved there, but coronations were held in Tyre. In the 13th century, Tyre was separated from the royal domain as a separate crusader lordship. In 1291, it was retaken by the Mameluks which then was followed by Ottoman rule before the modern state of Lebanon was declared in 1920.
Source: Wikipedia
Wavertree is an area of Liverpool, The name derives from the Old English words wæfre and treow, meaning "wavering tree", possibly in reference to aspen trees common locally.
This is a view of pollarded Poplar trees. (oh dear.........Aspen is a Poplar tree.......
Liverpool Wavertree 2012 11 007 KingDavid View HDR
Triumphal arches were constructed across the Roman Empire and remain one of the most iconic examples of Roman architecture.
The above arch, at the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Tyre,Lebanon dates back to 2nd century AD.
Tyre was founded around 2750 BC according to Herodotus and it appears on monuments as early as 1300 BC.
The commerce of the ancient world was gathered into the warehouses of Tyre. "Tyrian merchants were the first who ventured to navigate the Mediterranean waters; and they founded their colonies on the coasts and neighbouring islands of the Aegean Sea, in Greece, on the northern coast of Africa, at Carthage and other places, in Sicily and Corsica, in Spain at Tartessus.
In the time of King David (c. 1000 BC), a friendly alliance was entered into between the Kingdoms of Israel and Tyre, which was ruled by Hiram I.
The city of Tyre consisted of a mainland metropolis and a small Island that stood about half a mile offshore.
The city of Tyre was particularly known for the production of a rare and extraordinarily expensive sort of purple dye, produced from the murex shellfish, known as Tyrian purple. This color was, in many cultures of ancient times, reserved for the use of royalty, or at least nobility.
It was often attacked by Egypt, besieged by Shalmaneser V, who was assisted by the Phoenicians of the mainland, for five years, and by Nebuchadnezzar (586–573 BC) for thirteen years, without success, although a compromise peace was made in which Tyre paid tribute to the Babylonians.
The prophecy mentioned in the Prophecy of Ezekiel. 26:14 of the Holy Bible found its fulfilment regarding mainland Tyre under Nebuchadnezzar. Three years after Ezekiel's Prophecy Nebuchadnezzar moved in and besieged the ancient city of Tyre. He attacked the mainland city and held it besieged for about thirteen years. He then marched into the city to find it nearly deserted. The Tyrians had abandoned the mainland and fortified themselves on the Island of Tyre. The mainland was over-run and defeated, and it was thrown down and left in ruins. The Island continued to be a mighty power in the Mediterranean until many years later.It later fell under the power of the Persians.
In 332 BC, the city was conquered by Alexander the Great, after a siege of seven months in which he built the causeway from the mainland to the island, but it continued to maintain much of its commercial importance until the Christian era.
In 126 BC, Tyre regained its independence (from the Seleucids) and was allowed to keep much of its independence when the area became a Roman province in 64
Later History
Jesus Christ visited the "coasts" of Tyre and Sidon (Matthew 15:21; Mark 7:24) and from this region many came forth to hear him preaching (Mark 3:8; Gospel of Luke 6:17, Matthew 11:21-23). A congregation was founded here soon after the death of Saint Stephen, and Paul of Tarsus, on his return from his third missionary journey, spent a week in conversation with the disciples there. According to Irenaeus of Lyons in Adversus Haereses, the female companion of Simon Magus came from here.
After a first failed siege in 1111, it was captured by the Crusaders in 1124, becoming one of the most important cities of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was part of the royal domain, although there were also autonomous trading colonies there for the Italian merchant cities. The city was the site of the archbishop of Tyre, a suffragan of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem; its archbishops often acceded to the Patriarchate. The most notable of the Latin archbishops was the historian William of Tyre.
After the reconquest of Acre by King Richard on July 12, 1191, the seat of the kingdom moved there, but coronations were held in Tyre. In the 13th century, Tyre was separated from the royal domain as a separate crusader lordship. In 1291, it was retaken by the Mameluks which then was followed by Ottoman rule before the modern state of Lebanon was declared in 1920.
Source: Wikipedia
Merseburg was first mentioned in 850. King König Heinrich I. (Henry the Fowler) built a royal palace at Merseburg after having married the daughter of Count Erwin of Merseburg, so that the place came under the rule of the Saxon dynasty. In 955, after finally defeating the Hungarians at the Battle of Lechfeld, King Otto I vowed to found a diocese. Otto I founded the archbishopric of Magdeburg in 968 with the suffragan bishopric Merseburg, but the diocese was dissolved in 981 and only re-established in 1004 by King Heinrich II.
Until the Protestant Reformation, Merseburg was the seat of the Bishop of Merseburg, in addition to being for a time the residence of the margraves of Meissen. It was a favorite residence of the German kings during the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries. Fifteen diets were held here during the Middle Ages, during which time its fairs enjoyed the importance which was afterward transferred to those of Leipzig. In the years 1218/19, the area on the left bank of the Saale was protected by a city wall that adjoined the already fortified "Domfreiheit". Civil self-government of the city was first mentioned in 1289.
In 1428, Merseburg, together with other towns and against the resistance of the bishops, joined the Hanseatic League, to which it was to belong until at least 1604. The town suffered severely during the German Peasants' War and also during the Thirty Years' War.
Construction of the early Romanesque cathedral was begun by Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg in 1015. It was consecrated on 1 October 1021 in the presence of Emperor Heinrich II and his wife, Kunigunde.
However, the eastern part of the building collapsed twice within a few years and had to be rebuilt. It was only in 1042 that the cathedral was formally opened. The early Romanesque structure still influences the appearance of today's cathedral. The lower parts of the choir, transept and western towers remain Romanesque as do the eastern towers. Only the crypt still maintains the original spatial impression, however.
The shape of the windows was later changed to Gothic style, probably in the second quarter of the 13th century when a new narthex was added to the church.
In the first half of the 13th century the western façade, the western towers were mostly reconstructed. It is also likely that the nave was changed substantially and largely attained its final form. Finally, the eastern towers were raised around the middle of the 13th century. One of them retains a Gothic roof, the other is topped by a Baroque roof. Under Bishop Thilo von Trotha (1466-1514) the nave was rebuilt, due to the building of the adjacent Schloss/palace. The old nave was demolished in 1510 and the new nave built between 1510 and 1514 .
These panels, a kind of "biblia pauperum", were carved by the monk Caspar Schockholcz in 1446. They are part of the choir stalls.
God talking to Moses (often depicted with horns like here), Last Supper, Jonah and The Whale, Elijah on his way to Heaven, King David
Photo King David.
Segovia. On the left is the Roman aqueduct. To the right of the inn Don Candido, famous in the world, the art of preparing the pig, but next to the inn Don Candido, we have lots of restaurant that prepares the pig and that scrumptious. So Messrs. Macdonald less burgers and more pork. cholesterol alive.
Looking out over 'No-man's-Land' to this famous hill top; King David's Tomb is there and it was the location for 'The Last Supper'. The tower and dome belong to the Dormition Monastery.
At the time of my visit this was disputed territory - the tower in Israeli control, the dome in Jordanian control. Careful inspection will show the sand bags in the dome's windows, used as cover for the soldiers behind them. Later, I climbed the tower to get a closer view of the 'Dome of the Rock', it was then that the Israeli soldier, observing the scene from the tower, told me that the soldiers in the nearby dome were Jordanian. These guarded positions represented the 'cease-fire lines' still in place since the 1949 Armistice.
The road leading from the left up to the center of the Mount, was specially constructed for Pope Paul VI's visit in January 1964.
4/12/1965
Camera: Edixa-Mat Flex S
Film: Kodakchrome transparency
Scanner: Epson V800 / Epson Scan software
È proprio dell'anno 1600 questo particolare raffigurante "L'Arca dell'Alleanza", uno degli oggetti più misteriosi dell'ebraismo e dell'archeologia, che la vorrebbe addirittura ancora esistente in Etiopia.
Fa parte di un pannello in bronzo di una delle porte della chiesa della Santa Casa di Loreto (opera di Antonio Calcagni, Sebastiano Sebastiani e Tarquinio Iacometti) con il "Re Davide che precede il corteo che su un carro trasporta il sacro oggetto".
Detail of Last Judgment, King David sings, Voroneț Monastery, Bucovina, Romania.
Ultim giudizi, Mănăstirea Voroneț, Bucovina, România
Anomenat la “Capella Sixtina de l’Est”
Denominado a veces la “Capilla Sixtina del Este”
Also called "Sistine Chapel of the East"
After 61 days of postings, we have reached the final destination - Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is a holy city to the three major Abrahamic religions —Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
In Judaism, according to the Torah, King David of Israel first established Jerusalem as the capital of the united Kingdom of Israel in 1000 BC, and his son Solomon commissioned the building of the First Temple in the city.
In Christianity, according to the New Testament, Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem in 30 AD and 300 years later Saint Helena found the True Cross in the city.
In Islam, Jerusalem became the first Qibla, the focal point for Muslim prayer in 610 AD. Muhammad made his Night Journey there ten years later and ascended into heaven.
Jerusalem, Israel (Thursday 25 November 2010)
Prominent over this bed of bright yellow winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) is Huis Cardinaal in Groningen, The Netherlands. Better said: the facade of what was once called Huis Cardinaal. Until 1893 the house which sported this light gray face stood to my back across the busy Kwinkenplein, through the Rode Weeshuisstraat, and past the Academia of the University in what is today the Oude Kijk in 't Jatstraat. It is regarded as one of the best examples of Renaissance architecture in The Netherlands. The house was razed in 1893, but it was clear that its facade was something special indeed. So it was saved and rebuilt as part of the renewed and renovated Provinciehuis (1915) - seat of the provincial government - of the province of Groningen.
The 1024 resolution which flickr allows doesn't make things in the distance as clear as one might wish. But if you look carefully you might just see these golden letters: (bottom left:) ALLIXCANDER MAGNUS; (right:) CAROLUS MAGNUS; (above:) KOENINCK DAVIDS. ANNO DNI. 1559). The top inscription is: CAROLVS. QUINTUS. ROMANORUM. IMPERATOR. SEMPER AUGUSTUS. The first three names - those of Alexander the Great, King David of Israel, and Charlemagne - are a shorthand for the Nine Worthies (Neuf Preux) of the Middle Ages. In this kind of architecture they were used to symbolize good and just government. The topmost inscription describes the sandstone statue (now preserved in a museum elsewhere) which once crowned this facade: that of Habsburg Emperor Charles V, under whose jurisdiction Groningen fell (at least until his death in 1558; but then his reign was delegated to his son Philip II). The orignal house - that is: its facade - had been commissioned by one Pauwel Cornelis, a no doubt wealthy town official. He fell on bad times when he converted to Protestantism. Although he was banished from the city and his goods confiscated in 1570 by order of the so-called Blood Council (Conseil des troubles ) at Brussels, not long afterwards they were restored to his family.
The house is named for the family of Jacobus Cardinaal (1793-1884), who owned it in the nineteenth century until it was demolished. The family had nothing to do with cardinals of the Church; they were staunch Baptists/Mennonites ('Doopsgezind').
The mid-morning slanting sun rays through slighly misty air, cast everything in a golden hue...
En Gedi is where David, the future king of Israel, was in hiding from King Saul. Saul enters a cave to relieve himself and, though David could have killed him, he allowed him to live because he (Saul) was God's anointed one.
Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission.
© rogerperriss@aol.com All rights reserved.
This is the grand old elegant hotel of Jerusalem. Lots of history has gone through its front doors. It's just a couple of blocks west of the Jaffa Gate to the old city. We went inside on our way past for a rest and something cold to drink. It is a lovely hotel and definitely elegant.
King David's prayer, on the occasion of receiving offerings from the people, for the future construction of the temple. Solomon, David's son, oversaw that construction, but David made sure that things were ready. ". . . all things come from you, and of your own have we given you!"
Louis the Pious founded the bishopric of Hildesheim in 815. The settlement developed into a town and was granted market rights by King Otto III in 983. Craftsmen and merchants were attracted and the city developed into an important community. By 1167, Hildesheim was an almost completely walled market settlement.
At the beginning of the 13th century, Hildesheim had about 5,000 inhabitants, and when Hildesheim received its city charter in 1249, it was one of the largest cities in northern Germany. The clergy ruled Hildesheim for four centuries before a town hall was built and the citizens gained influence and independence. In 1367, Hildesheim became a member of the Hanseatic League. But what is now called Hildesheim was various small "suburbs". After centuries of (sometimes armed) disputes, it was not until the end of the 16th century that a union was created and subsequently at least the inner wall was taken down Old and New Town.
During the Thirty Years' War, Hildesheim was besieged and occupied several times. In 1813, after the Napoleonic Wars, the town became part of the Kingdom of Hanover, which was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia as a province after the Austro-Prussian War in 1866.
The air raids on Hildesheim in 1944/45 destroyed large parts of the city. Of the 1500 half-timbered houses, only 200 remained. 90 percent of the historic old town was destroyed in the firestorm.
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St. Michaeliskirche is an Ottonian, early Romanesque church. It was the abbey church of the Benedictine abbey until the Reformation. Today it is a shared church, the main church being Lutheran and the crypt being Roman Catholic.
Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim (996–1022) founded the monastery just a half kilometer north of the city walls. He set the first stone for the new church in 1010. Construction continued under Bishop Godehard, who completed the work in 1031 and reconsecrated the church. The church has double choirs east and west and six towers, two large ones over the crossings east and west, and four other tall and narrow ones attached to the small sides of the two transepts.
When the people of Hildesheim became Protestant in 1542, St. Michael's became Lutheran, but the Benedictine monastery operated here until it was secularized in 1803. Monks continued to use the church, especially its western choir and crypt, down to that moment.
St. Michael's Church was heavily damaged in an air raid during World War II on 22 March 1945, but reconstruction was begun in 1950 and completed in 1957. In 1985, the church became a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site, along with the Cathedral of Hildesheim.
The painted wooden ceiling measures 27.6 × 8.7 meters and consists of 1300 oak boards.
The theme of the painting is the root of Jesse. This genealogical tree of Jesus appears divided into eight main panels.
The ceiling was removed in 1943 and stored in different places. Thus, the original boards used survived the Second World War. Before it was reattached in 1960, all parts of the painting were cleaned and restored.
A dendrochronological examination in 1999 proved a felling date of the oaks used for the ceiling between 1190 and 1220. Thus, the painting was created only around 1230.
King David
Created by Melbourne stained glass manufacturer Ferguson and Urie in 1880 for the opening of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church, the King David stained glass window sits in the southern transept to the left of the altar and the left of the Thomas C. Lewis of London organ.
King David is depicted wearing a crown and resting his hand upon a harp. King David is described in the Hebrew Bible as the second king of the United Kingdom of Israel and Judea. He is initially referred to in the bible as a young shepherd who gains fame for his musical talents, and then later for his slaying of Goliath. David becomes King Saul's favourite and is eventually anointed as king after the death of King Saul and his son Jonathan in battle.
His window is paired with that of the Prophet Isaiah, who preached to the Israelites following King David's death. The Prophet Isaiah is usually depicted as an old man with a white beard. This window is unusual in the fact that his beard is brown. he does however hold a scroll featuring words from the Book of Isaiah, which is a common attribute of his depiction. Isaiah was married to a woman referred to as "the prophetess" and together they had three sons.
Both figures stand against the same background: a "diaper pattern" containing floral designs in yellow. They also feature a border of coloured squares dispersed with stylised flowers with an inner border of brightly coloured circles. Both the background and the border are common elements of Ferguson and Urie's stained glass window work, and match other, non-figurative windows in the nave and transepts of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church. A round vent window above them features a cross in red glass on a blue and yellow background.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church, which stands on busy Chapel Street in St Kilda East, is a well known and loved local landmark, not least of all because of its strikingly tall (33.5 metre or 110 foot) banded bell tower which can be spotted from far away. In the Nineteenth Century when it was built, it would have been even more striking for its great height and domineering presence. Designed by architect Albert Purchas, the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is often referred to as his ecclesiastical tour-de-force, and it is most certainly one of his most dramatic and memorable churches.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was constructed on a plot of land reserved in Chapel Street for the Presbyterian Church of Victoria in 1866. Initially services were held in a small hall whilst fundraising efforts advanced the erection of a church. The architect Albert Purchas was commissioned to design the church and the foundation stone for the western portion of the nave was finally laid in April 1877 by Sir James McCulloch. The first service was held in the church on the 1st of October 1877. The first clergyman of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was the Reverend John Laurence Rentoul (father to world renown and much loved Australian children's book illustrator Ida Rentoul Outhwaite). However, the swelling Presbyterian congregation of St Kilda and its surrounding districts quickly outgrew the initial Saint George's Presbyterian Church building, so Albert Purchas was obliged to re-design and enlarge the church to allow a doubling in capacity. Robert S. Ekins was the contractor and his tender was £3000.00. It is this imposing church building, reopened in 1880, that we see today. The "Australasian Sketcher with Pen and Pencil" noted that the total length of the building was 118 feet and 6 inches (36 metres), by 40 foot (12 metres) wide and that the striking octagonal tower to the north-west was 110ft 6 in high. It perhaps reflected better the wealth and aspirations of the congregation.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is constructed on bluestone foundations and is built in an ornate polychromatic Gothic Revival style in the tradition of English designers like William Butterfield and John L. Pearson. Built of red brick building, it is decorated in contrasting cream bricks and Waurn Ponds freestone dressings. It features a slate roof with prominent roof vents, iron ridge cresting and fleche at the intersection of the nave and transepts. The front facade of the church is dominated by the slender, banded octagonal tower topped by a narrow spire. The entrance features a double arched portal portico. The facade also features a dominant triangular epitrochoidal (curved triangular form) rose window. The church, like its bluestone neighbour All Saints Church of England, is built to a T-shaped plan, with an aisleless nave, broad transepts and internal walls of cream brick, relieved with coloured brickwork. The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was one of the first major church design in Melbourne in which polychrome brickwork was lavishly employed both externally and internally.
The inside of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is equally as grand as the exterior, with ornamental Gothic Revival polychromatic brickwork, a lofty vaulted ceiling, deal and kauri pine joinery and pulpit and reredos of Keene's cement. The building originally contained a complete set of Victorian stained glass windows by well known and successful Melbourne manufacturers Ferguson and Urie, all of which remain intact today except for one of the non-figurative windows which was replaced by a memorial window to Samuel Lyons McKenzie, the congregation’s beloved minister, who served from 1930 to 1948, in 1949. The earliest of the Ferguson and Urie windows are non-figurative windows which feature the distinctive diaper pattern and floral motifs of Fergus and Urie's work, and are often argued to be amongst the finest of their non-figurative designs. The large triple window in the chancel was presented by Lady McCulloch in memory of the ‘loved and dead’. Another, in memory of John Kane Smyth, the Vice-Consul for the United States of America in Melbourne, has the American Stars and Stripes on the top ventilator above it. An organ by Thomas C. Lewis of London, one of the leading 19th century English organ builders, was installed in the south transept in 1882. It was designed to blend with its architectural setting, with pipework styled to avoid the obstruction of windows. The action of this organ was altered in 1935, but the pipework, and the original sound, have been retained.
Over the years many spiritual and social activities were instituted at Saint George’s, Presbyterian Church some of short duration such as the Ladies’ Reading Club which operated between 1888 and 1893. There were segregated Bible classes for young men and women, the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union, formed in 1892, a cricket club and a floral guild. Guilds teaching physical culture for girls, boys and young men began in 1904. They were entirely financed by John Maclellan and the idea extended to other denominations throughout Victoria. John Maclellan died in 1936 and the guilds ceased at Saint George’s Presbyterian church through lack of funds although in 1977 the members of the girls’ guild were still holding bi-annual reunions and raising money for charity. Sadly, the Presbyterian congregations may have been large in the Nineteenth Century, but by St George's Presbyterian Church's 110th centenary, its doors had already closed during the week due to dwindling numbers and an ageing congregation as a result of the general decline in church attendances after the Second World War exacerbated by the changing nature of St Kilda and the decrease in numbers of residents living in the vicinity of the church. So it stood, forlorn and empty and seemingly nothing more than a relic of a glorious but bygone religious past. However in 1990, Saint Michael's Grammar School across the road leased the Victorian Heritage listed building during weekdays, and it was eventually sold to them in 2015. It now forms part of the school's performing-arts complex, and it has a wonderful new lease of life.
St George's Presbyterian Church is sometimes hired out for performances, and I had the pleasure of receiving an invitation to hear Handel's Messiah performed there in 2009. The ecclesiastical acoustics made the performance all the more magnificent. I remember as I sat on one of the original (hard) kauri pine pews, I looked around me and admired the stained glass and ornamental brickwork. I tried without success over several subsequent years to gain access to the church's interior, settling for photographs of the exterior instead, but it wasn't until 2018 that I was fortunate enough to gain entry to photograph the church's interior. The former St George's Presbyterian Church was opened up to the public for one Sunday morning only as part of Open House Melbourne in July 2018. It was a fantastic morning, and I am very grateful to the staff who manned the church for the day and watched bemused as I photographed the stained glass extensively and in such detail.
Albert Purchas, born in 1825 in Chepstow, Monmouthshire, Wales, was a prominent Nineteenth Century architect who achieved great success for himself in Melbourne. Born to parents Robert Whittlesey Purchas and Marianne Guyon, he migrated to Australia in 1851 to establish himself in the then quickly expanding city of Melbourne, where he set up a small architect's firm in Little Collins Street. He also offered surveying services. His first major building was constructing the mansion "Berkeley Hall" in St Kilda on Princes Street in 1854. The house still exists today. Two years after migrating, Albert designed the layout of the Melbourne General Cemetery in Carlton. It was the first "garden cemetery" in Victoria, and his curvilinear design is still in existence, unaltered, today. In 1854, Albert married Eliza Anne Sawyer (1825 - 1869) in St Kilda. The couple had ten children over their marriage, including a son, Robert, who followed in his father's footsteps as an architect. Albert's brother-in-law, Charles Sawyer joined him in the partnership of Purchas and Sawyer, which existed from 1856 until 1862 in Queens Street. The firm produced more than 140 houses, churches, offices and cemetery buildings including: the nave and transepts of Christ Church St Kilda between 1854 and 1857, "Glenara Homestead"in Bulla in 1857, the Melbourne Savings Bank on the corner of Flinders Lane and Market Street (now demolished) between 1857 and 1858, the Geelong branch of the Bank of Australasia in Malop Street between 1859 and 1860, and Beck's Imperial Hotel in Castlemaine in 1861. When the firm broke up, Albert returned to Little Collins Street, and the best known building he designed during this period was Saint. George's Presbyterian Church in St Kilda East between 1877 and 1880. The church's tall polychomatic brick bell tower is still a local landmark, even in the times of high rise architecture and development, and Saint, George's itself is said to be one of his most striking church designs. Socially, Albert was vice president of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects for many years, before becoming president in 1887. He was also an inventor and philanthropist. Albert died in 1909 at his home in Kew, a wealthy widower and much loved father.
The stained glass firm of Ferguson and Urie was established by Scots James Ferguson (1818 – 1894), James Urie (1828 – 1890) and John Lamb Lyon (1836 – 1916). They were the first known makers of stained glass in Australia. Until the early 1860s, window glass in Melbourne had been clear or plain coloured, and nearly all was imported, but new churches and elaborate buildings created a demand for pictorial windows. The three Scotsmen set up Ferguson and Urie in 1862 and the business thrived until 1899, when it ceased operation, with only John Lamb Lyon left alive. Ferguson and Urie was the most successful Nineteenth Century Australian stained glass window making company. Among their earliest works were a Shakespeare window for the Haymarket Theatre in Bourke Street, a memorial window to Prince Albert in Holy Trinity, Kew, and a set of Apostles for the West Melbourne Presbyterian Church. Their palatial Gothic Revival office building stood at 283 Collins Street from 1875. Ironically, their last major commission, a window depicting “labour”, was installed in the old Melbourne Stock Exchange in Collins Street in 1893 on the eve of the bank crash. Their windows can be found throughout the older suburbs of Melbourne and across provincial Victoria.
Peter Paul Rubens & Jan Boeckhorst, 1616/1650, Städel Museum, Museumsufer, Sachsenhausen, Frankfurt Am Main, Hesse, DEU, gemälde. Translation: King David Playing The Harp, Peter Paul Rubens & Jan Boeckhorst, 1616/1650, Stadel Museum, Museum Embankment, Sachsenhausen, Frankfurt On The Main, Hesse, Germany, painting.
Sculptural portrait representing the Biblical King David, in a chapel in l'Abbaye de Cluny, in the town of Cluny (in the département of Saône-et-Loire, located in Bourgogne / Burgundy, in eastern France), on a mostly clear late afternoon in mid-October.
The Chapelle Saint-Jean-de-Bourbon was built towards the end of the 15th century, in "flamboyant Gothic" style. The biblical portraits around its walls have varying, individualised features and show surviving traces of polychromy -- multiple colours of paint.
The abbaye Saint-Pierre et Saint-Paul de Cluny was initially founded in 909 or 910 by Guillaume le Pieux / William the Pious, duc d'Aquitaine. The Benedictine establishment soon became noted as the key center of a monastic and intellectual revival -- sometimes referred to as the "10th-century Renaissance" -- retaining power, wealth, and political and cultural influence at least through the 12th century and, in some respects, into the late Middle Ages. Cluniac monasteries were founded throughout France and elsewhere in Europe; for example, there were numerous Cluniac priories in England and in German lands of the Holy Roman Empire.
In Cluny, the abbey church was constructed in three main phases, numbered Cluny I (consecrated in 926), Cluny II (consecrated in 981), and Cluny III (consecrated 1095), the last being the largest medieval church in Europe. Most of the relatively small part of the abbey complex that survives, from Cluny III, was built in the Romanesque style, ca. 1085 (1085 or 1088)-1130. Among the later surviving buildings are this chapelle Saint-Jean-de-Bourbon and the neoclassical 18th-century cloisters, built ca. 1750-1775, by which time the abbey had been in decline for centuries.
During the French Revolution, l'Abbaye de Cluny was suppressed, and its buildings were then sold off, many to be destroyed. Of the main church, only parts of the transepts can be seen. Helpfully, the museum on the site includes both three-dimensional physical models and virtual reconstructions of the successive phases, including a documentary film.
(Information partly from the Abbaye de Cluny website of the Centre des monuments nationaux, last consulted 29 October 2018, and the website Bourgogne romane, last consulted 26 October 2018.)
[Cluny abbey chapel portrait III King David 2016 oct 18 f; DSCF0767]
Title: Unknown...
Artist: Ben Shahn
This item was in a thrift shop. I liked it but wanted to determine the artist before purchasing it. Mystery solved by comparing signatures after I realized it could be by Ben Shahn...
IMG_0660 - Version 3
_____________________
From Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Shahn
Biography
Shahn was born in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania, then occupied by the Russian Empire, to Jewish parents Joshua Hessel and Gittel (Lieberman) Shahn. His father was exiled to Siberia for possible revolutionary activities in 1902, at which point Shahn, his mother, and two younger siblings moved to Vilkomir (Ukmergė). In 1906, the family immigrated to the United States where they rejoined Hessel, who had fled Siberia. They settled in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York, where two more siblings were born. His younger brother drowned at age 17.[1] Shahn began his path to becoming an artist in New York, where he was first trained as a lithographer. Shahn's early experiences with lithography and graphic design is apparent in his later prints and paintings which often include the combination of text and image. Shahn's primary medium was egg tempera, popular among social realists.
Although Shahn attended New York University as a biology student in 1919, he went on to pursue art at City College in 1921 and then at the National Academy of Design. After his marriage to Tillie Goldstein in 1924, the two traveled through North Africa and then to Europe, where he made "the traditional artist pilgrimage."[2] There he studied great European artists such as Henri Matisse, Raoul Dufy, Georges Rouault, Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee. Contemporaries who would make a profound impact on Shahn's work and career include artists Walker Evans, Diego Rivera and Jean Charlot.[2]
Shahn was dissatisfied with the work inspired by his travels, claiming that the pieces were unoriginal.[2] Shahn eventually outgrew his pursuit of European modern art; he, instead, redirected his efforts toward a realist style which he used to contribute to social dialogue.[3]
The twenty-three gouache paintings of the trials of Sacco and Vanzetti communicated the political concerns of his time, rejecting academic prescriptions for subject matter. The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti was exhibited in 1932 and received acclaim from both the public and critics. This series gave Shahn the confidence to cultivate his personal style, regardless of society’s art standards.[4]
Work during the Great Depression
Photograph of a sailor taken by Shahn in Jackson Square, New Orleans, 1935.
Shahn's subsequent series of California labor leader Tom Mooney won him the recognition of Diego Rivera.[2] In May and June 1933, he served as an assistant to Diego Rivera while Rivera executed the Rockefeller Center mural. Shahn had a role in fanning the controversy, by circulating a petition among the workers. Also during this period, Shahn met photojournalist Bernarda Bryson, who would later become his second wife. Although this marriage was successful, the mural, his 1934 project for the Public Works of Art Projects and proposal for the Municipal Art Commission were all failures.[2] Fortunately, in 1935, Shahn was recommended by Walker Evans, a friend and former roommate, to Roy Stryker to join the photographic group at the Farm Security Administration (FSA). As a member of the FSA group, Shahn roamed and documented the American south together with his colleagues Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange. Like his earlier photography of New York City, Shahn’s FSA work can be viewed as social-documentary.[3] Similarly, Shahn’s New Deal art for the FSA and Resettlement Agency exposed American living and working conditions. He also worked for these agencies as a graphic artist and painter. Shahn’s fresco mural for the community center of Jersey Homesteads is among his most famous works, but the government also hired Shahn to execute the Bronx Central Annex Post Office and Social Security murals.[2] In 1939, Shahn and his wife produced a set of 13 murals inspired by Walt Whitman's poem I See America Working and installed at the United States Post Office-Bronx Central Annex.[5] Curator Susan Edwards recognizes the influence of this art on the public consciousness, writing, "The Roosevelt administration believed [such] images were useful for persuading not only voters but members of Congress to support federal relief and recovery programs… The art he made for the federal government affirms both his own legacy and that of the New Deal."[6]
World War II and beyond
Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) poster (1946)
During the war years of 1942-43, Shahn worked for the Office of War Information (OWI), but his pieces lacked the preferred patriotism of the day and only two of his posters were published.[2] His art's anti-war sentiment found other forms of expression in a series of paintings from 1944–45, such as Death on the Beach, which depicts the desolation and loneliness of war.[7] In 1945 he painted Liberation about the Liberation of Paris which depicts children playing in the rubble[8] He also did a series, called Lucky Dragon, about the Daigo Fukuryū Maru (literally, Lucky Dragon No. 5), the Japanese fishing boat caught in the Bikini Atoll hydrogen bomb blast. As of 2012, an important part of this series is in the collections of Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art.[8]
From 1961 to 1967, Shahn worked on the stained glass at Temple Beth Zion, a Buffalo, NY synagogue designed by Harrison and Abramovitz.
Shahn also began to act as a commercial artist for CBS, Time, Fortune and Harper's. His well-known 1965 portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr. appeared on the cover of Time.[7]
Despite Shahn's growing popularity, he only accepted commissions which he felt were of personal or social value.[4] By the mid-1950s, Shahn's accomplishments had reached such a height that he was sent, along with Willem de Kooning, to represent the United States at the 1954 Venice Biennale.[2] He was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the Academia dell' Arte e del Disegno in Florence. The Art Directors Club Hall of Fame recognizes him as "one of the greatest masters of the twentieth century. Honors, books, and gallery retrospectives continue to rekindle interest in his work...years after his death."[9]
The artist was especially active as an academic in the last two decades of his life. He received honorary doctorates from Princeton University and Harvard University, and joined Harvard as a Charles Eliot Norton professor in 1956. His published writings, including The Biography of Painting (1956) and The Shape of Content (1960), became influential works in the art world.[2]
After his death, William Schuman composed "In Praise of Shahn", a modern canticle for orchestra, first performed January 29, 1970, by the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein conducting.[10]
Themes
Ben Shahn’s social-realist vision informed his approach to art. Shahn’s examination of the status quo inspired his creative process.[2] Although he often explored polemic themes of modern urban life, organized labor, immigration and injustice, he did so while maintaining a compassionate tone. Shahn identified himself as a communicative artist. He challenged the esoteric pretensions of art, which he believed disconnect artists and their work from the public.[11] As an alternative, he proposed an intimate and mutually beneficial relationship between artist and audience.
Shahn defended his choice to employ pictorial realities, rather than abstract forms. According to Shahn, known forms allow the artist "to discover new truths about man and to reaffirm that his life is significant."[11] References to allegory, the Jewish bible, humanistic content, childhood, science, music and the commonplace are other motifs Shahn draws upon to make the universal personal for his viewers.[12] Wit, candor and sentimentality give his images poignancy. By evoking dynamism, Shahn intended to inspire social change. Shahn stressed that in art, as in life, the combination of opposing orders is vital for progress.[2] His hope for a unity among the diverse peoples of the United States relates to his interest in fusing different visual vocabularies.
Style
Shahn mixed different genres of art. His body of art is distinctive for its lack of traditional landscapes, still lifes, and portraits.[4] Shahn used both expressive and precise visual languages, which he coalesced through the consistency of his authoritative line. His background in lithography contributed to his detail-oriented look [11] Shahn is also noted for his use of unique symbolism, which is often compared to the imagery in Paul Klee's drawings.[11] While Shahn's "love for exactitude"[13] is apparent in his graphics, so too is his creativity. In fact, many of his paintings are inventive adaptations of his photography.[13]
Evocative juxtapositions characterize his aesthetic. He intentionally paired contrasting scales, colors, and images together to create tension.[13] One signature example is seen in his play between industrial coolness and sympathetic portrayals.[11] Handball demonstrates his "use of architectural settings as both psychological foil to human figures and as expressive abstract pattern."[11]
His art is striking but also introspective. He often captured figures engrossed in their own worlds.[3] Many of his photographs were taken spontaneously, without the subject's notice. Although he used many mediums, his pieces are consistently thoughtful and playful.[4]
Jersey Homesteads Mural[edit]
Detail from "The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti" (1967, mosaic), Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
The Farm Security Administration commissioned Ben Shahn to paint a mural for the community center of Jersey Homesteads (later renamed Roosevelt), a New Jersey town initially planned to be a community for Jewish garment workers. Shahn's move to the settlement demonstrates his dedication to the project as does his mural's compelling depiction of the town's founding.
Three panels compose the mural. According to art historian Diana L. Linden, the panels' sequence relates to that of the Haggadah, the Jewish Passover Seder text which follows a narrative of slavery, deliverance and redemption.[7] More specifically, Shahn’s mural depicts immigrants' struggle and advancement in the United States.
The first panel shows the antisemitic and xenophobic obstacles American immigrants faced. During the global Depression, citizens of the United States struggled for their livelihoods. Because foreigners represented competition for employment, they were especially unwelcome. National immigration quotas also reflected the strained foreign relations of the United States at a time when fascism, Nazism, and communism were on the rise. To illustrate the political and social adversary, Shahn incorporated loaded iconography: Nazi soldiers, anti-Jewish signs and the executed Italian anarchists, Sacco and Vanzetti. Below, Shahn's mother and Albert Einstein lead immigrants on a gangplank situated by the Ellis Island registry center and the Statue of Liberty. This section demonstrates the immigrants' heroic emergence in the United States.
The middle panel describes the poor living conditions awaiting immigrants after their arrival. On the right, Shahn depicts the inhuman labor situation in the form of "lightless sweatshops...tedious and backbreaking work with outmoded tools."[13] The crowd in the center of the composition represents labor unions and workers' reform efforts. Here, a figure resembling labor leader John L. Lewis protests in front of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, where a devastating fire occurred and the movement for the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) began. The lower right passageway marked ILGWU symbolizes a new and hopeful path, in the United States, paved by unionized labor.[13]
In the last panel, the unions and the New Deal unite to create the blueprint for the town of the Jersey Homesteads. Various figures of social progress such as Sidney Hillman and Heywood Broun gather around the drafting table. Above them are images of the purposed cooperative farm and factory along with a campaign poster of Roosevelt, after whom the town was eventually named.
The arriccio, sinopia drawings of the fresco for Ben Shahn's Jersey Homesteads Mural, was removed from its original community center location in Roosevelt, NJ and is now permanently installed in a custom-designed gallery on the second floor of the US Post Office building at 401 Market St, Camden, NJ. This gallery adjoins the neighboring Mitchell H. Cohen Building and U.S. Courthouse (4th and Cooper Streets).
Shahn’s biographer Soby notes "the composition of the mural at Roosevelt follows the undulant principle Shahn had learned from Diego Rivera: deep recession of space alternating with human and architectural details projected forward."[13] Moreover, the montage effectively intimates the amalgamation of peoples and cultures populating the urban landscape in the early 20th century. Multiple layers and perspectives fuse together to portray a complex industrialized system. Still, the mural maintains a sense of humanity; Shahn gives his figures a monumental quality through volume and scale. The urban architecture does not dwarf the people; instead, they work with the surroundings to build their own structure. Shahn captured the urgency for activism and reform, by showing gestures and mid-steps and freezing all the subjects in motion. This pictorial incorporation of "athletic pose and evocative asymmetry of architectural detail" is a Shahn trademark.[13] While exemplifying his visual and social concerns, the mural characterizes the general issues of Shahn's milieu.
Artworks[edit]
Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco Their Guards,1932, Collection of Miss Patricia Healey Yale University
The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti, 1931–3, Whitney Museum
Untitled (Houston Street Playground, New York City), 1932, Fogg Art Museum
W.C.T.U Parade, 1933-4, Museum of the City of New York
Jersey Homesteads Mural, 1937-38, Community Center of the Federal Housing Development, Roosevelt, New Jersey
Still Music, 1938, Philips Collection, Washington DC
Handball, 1939, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Fund) [1]
The Meaning of Social Mural, 1940-2, Federal Security Building, Washington, DC
For Full Employment after the War, Register-Vote, 1944, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Allegory, 1948, Bill Bomar Collection at The Modern
Age of Anxiety, 1953, The Joseph H. Hirschhorn Foundation, Inc.
Exhibitions[edit]
"Ben Shahn: Paintings and Drawings," 1930, Edith Halpert's Downtown Gallery in New York, New York
"57th Annual American Exhibition: Water Colors and Drawings," 1946, Tate Gallery in London, England
"Ben Shahn: A Retrospective," 1947, Museum of Modern Art in New York, New York
"Esposizione Biennale internationale D’Arte XXVII," 1954 in Venice, Italy
"Ben Shahn," 1962, Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Belgium; Galleria Nazionale D'arte Moderna in Rome, Italy; and Albertina in Vienna, Austria.
"The Collected Prints of Ben Shahn," 1969, Philadelphia Museum of Art in Pennsylvania.
"Ben Shahn: A Retrospective Exhibition," 1969, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, New Jersey.
"Ben Shahn's New York: The Photography of Modern Times," 2000-2001, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Created by Melbourne stained glass manufacturer Ferguson and Urie in 1880 for the opening of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church, the Kind David stained glass window sits in the southern transept to the left of the altar and the left of the Thomas C. Lewis of London organ. King David is depicted wearing a crown and resting his hand upon a harp. King David is described in the Hebrew Bible as the second king of the United Kingdom of Israel and Judea. He is initially referred to in the bible as a young shepherd who gains fame for his musical talents, and then later for his slaying of Goliath. David becomes King Saul's favourite and is eventually anointed as king after the death of King Saul and his son Jonathan in battle. His window is paired with that of the Prophet Isaiah, who preached to the Israelites following King David's death. The Prophet Isaiah is usually depicted as an old man with a white beard. This window is unusual in the fact that his beard is brown. he does however hold a scroll featuring words from the Book of Isaiah, which is a common attribute of his depiction. Isaiah was married to a woman referred to as "the prophetess" and together they had three sons. Both figures stand against the same background: a "diaper pattern" containing floral designs in yellow. They also feature a border of coloured squares dispersed with stylised flowers with an inner border of brightly coloured circles. Both the background and the border are common elements of Ferguson and Urie's stained glass window work, and match other, non-figurative windows in the nave and transepts of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church. A round vent window above them features a cross in red glass on a blue and yellow background.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church, which stands on busy Chapel Street in St Kilda East, is a well known and loved local landmark, not least of all because of its strikingly tall (33.5 metre or 110 foot) banded bell tower which can be spotted from far away. In the Nineteenth Century when it was built, it would have been even more striking for its great height and domineering presence. Designed by architect Albert Purchas, the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is often referred to as his ecclesiastical tour-de-force, and it is most certainly one of his most dramatic and memorable churches.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was constructed on a plot of land reserved in Chapel Street for the Presbyterian Church of Victoria in 1866. Initially services were held in a small hall whilst fundraising efforts advanced the erection of a church. The architect Albert Purchas was commissioned to design the church and the foundation stone for the western portion of the nave was finally laid in April 1877 by Sir James McCulloch. The first service was held in the church on the 1st of October 1877. The first clergyman of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was the Reverend John Laurence Rentoul (father to world renown and much loved Australian children's book illustrator Ida Rentoul Outhwaite). However, the swelling Presbyterian congregation of St Kilda and its surrounding districts quickly outgrew the initial Saint George's Presbyterian Church building, so Albert Purchas was obliged to re-design and enlarge the church to allow a doubling in capacity. Robert S. Ekins was the contractor and his tender was £3000.00. It is this imposing church building, reopened in 1880, that we see today. The "Australasian Sketcher with Pen and Pencil" noted that the total length of the building was 118 feet and 6 inches (36 metres), by 40 foot (12 metres) wide and that the striking octagonal tower to the north-west was 110ft 6 in high. It perhaps reflected better the wealth and aspirations of the congregation.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is constructed on bluestone foundations and is built in an ornate polychromatic Gothic Revival style in the tradition of English designers like William Butterfield and John L. Pearson. Built of red brick building, it is decorated in contrasting cream bricks and Waurn Ponds freestone dressings. It features a slate roof with prominent roof vents, iron ridge cresting and fleche at the intersection of the nave and transepts. The front facade of the church is dominated by the slender, banded octagonal tower topped by a narrow spire. The entrance features a double arched portal portico. The facade also features a dominant triangular epitrochoidal (curved triangular form) rose window. The church, like its bluestone neighbour All Saints Church of England, is built to a T-shaped plan, with an aisleless nave, broad transepts and internal walls of cream brick, relieved with coloured brickwork. The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was one of the first major church design in Melbourne in which polychrome brickwork was lavishly employed both externally and internally.
The inside of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is equally as grand as the exterior, with ornamental Gothic Revival polychromatic brickwork, a lofty vaulted ceiling, deal and kauri pine joinery and pulpit and reredos of Keene's cement. The building originally contained a complete set of Victorian stained glass windows by well known and successful Melbourne manufacturers Ferguson and Urie, all of which remain intact today except for one of the non-figurative windows which was replaced by a memorial window to Samuel Lyons McKenzie, the congregation’s beloved minister, who served from 1930 to 1948, in 1949. The earliest of the Ferguson and Urie windows are non-figurative windows which feature the distinctive diaper pattern and floral motifs of Fergus and Urie's work, and are often argued to be amongst the finest of their non-figurative designs. The large triple window in the chancel was presented by Lady McCulloch in memory of the ‘loved and dead’. Another, in memory of John Kane Smyth, the Vice-Consul for the United States of America in Melbourne, has the American Stars and Stripes on the top ventilator above it. An organ by Thomas C. Lewis of London, one of the leading 19th century English organ builders, was installed in the south transept in 1882. It was designed to blend with its architectural setting, with pipework styled to avoid the obstruction of windows. The action of this organ was altered in 1935, but the pipework, and the original sound, have been retained.
Over the years many spiritual and social activities were instituted at Saint George’s, Presbyterian Church some of short duration such as the Ladies’ Reading Club which operated between 1888 and 1893. There were segregated Bible classes for young men and women, the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union, formed in 1892, a cricket club and a floral guild. Guilds teaching physical culture for girls, boys and young men began in 1904. They were entirely financed by John Maclellan and the idea extended to other denominations throughout Victoria. John Maclellan died in 1936 and the guilds ceased at Saint George’s Presbyterian church through lack of funds although in 1977 the members of the girls’ guild were still holding bi-annual reunions and raising money for charity. Sadly, the Presbyterian congregations may have been large in the Nineteenth Century, but by St George's Presbyterian Church's 110th centenary, its doors had already closed during the week due to dwindling numbers and an ageing congregation as a result of the general decline in church attendances after the Second World War exacerbated by the changing nature of St Kilda and the decrease in numbers of residents living in the vicinity of the church. So it stood, forlorn and empty and seemingly nothing more than a relic of a glorious but bygone religious past. However in 1990, Saint Michael's Grammar School across the road leased the Victorian Heritage listed building during weekdays, and it was eventually sold to them in 2015. It now forms part of the school's performing-arts complex, and it has a wonderful new lease of life.
St George's Presbyterian Church is sometimes hired out for performances, and I had the pleasure of receiving an invitation to hear Handel's Messiah performed there in 2009. The ecclesiastical acoustics made the performance all the more magnificent. I remember as I sat on one of the original (hard) kauri pine pews, I looked around me and admired the stained glass and ornamental brickwork. I tried without success over several subsequent years to gain access to the church's interior, settling for photographs of the exterior instead, but it wasn't until 2018 that I was fortunate enough to gain entry to photograph the church's interior. The former St George's Presbyterian Church was opened up to the public for one Sunday morning only as part of Open House Melbourne in July 2018. It was a fantastic morning, and I am very grateful to the staff who manned the church for the day and watched bemused as I photographed the stained glass extensively and in such detail.
Albert Purchas, born in 1825 in Chepstow, Monmouthshire, Wales, was a prominent Nineteenth Century architect who achieved great success for himself in Melbourne. Born to parents Robert Whittlesey Purchas and Marianne Guyon, he migrated to Australia in 1851 to establish himself in the then quickly expanding city of Melbourne, where he set up a small architect's firm in Little Collins Street. He also offered surveying services. His first major building was constructing the mansion "Berkeley Hall" in St Kilda on Princes Street in 1854. The house still exists today. Two years after migrating, Albert designed the layout of the Melbourne General Cemetery in Carlton. It was the first "garden cemetery" in Victoria, and his curvilinear design is still in existence, unaltered, today. In 1854, Albert married Eliza Anne Sawyer (1825 - 1869) in St Kilda. The couple had ten children over their marriage, including a son, Robert, who followed in his father's footsteps as an architect. Albert's brother-in-law, Charles Sawyer joined him in the partnership of Purchas and Sawyer, which existed from 1856 until 1862 in Queens Street. The firm produced more than 140 houses, churches, offices and cemetery buildings including: the nave and transepts of Christ Church St Kilda between 1854 and 1857, "Glenara Homestead"in Bulla in 1857, the Melbourne Savings Bank on the corner of Flinders Lane and Market Street (now demolished) between 1857 and 1858, the Geelong branch of the Bank of Australasia in Malop Street between 1859 and 1860, and Beck's Imperial Hotel in Castlemaine in 1861. When the firm broke up, Albert returned to Little Collins Street, and the best known building he designed during this period was Saint. George's Presbyterian Church in St Kilda East between 1877 and 1880. The church's tall polychomatic brick bell tower is still a local landmark, even in the times of high rise architecture and development, and Saint, George's itself is said to be one of his most striking church designs. Socially, Albert was vice president of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects for many years, before becoming president in 1887. He was also an inventor and philanthropist. Albert died in 1909 at his home in Kew, a wealthy widower and much loved father.
The stained glass firm of Ferguson and Urie was established by Scots James Ferguson (1818 – 1894), James Urie (1828 – 1890) and John Lamb Lyon (1836 – 1916). They were the first known makers of stained glass in Australia. Until the early 1860s, window glass in Melbourne had been clear or plain coloured, and nearly all was imported, but new churches and elaborate buildings created a demand for pictorial windows. The three Scotsmen set up Ferguson and Urie in 1862 and the business thrived until 1899, when it ceased operation, with only John Lamb Lyon left alive. Ferguson and Urie was the most successful Nineteenth Century Australian stained glass window making company. Among their earliest works were a Shakespeare window for the Haymarket Theatre in Bourke Street, a memorial window to Prince Albert in Holy Trinity, Kew, and a set of Apostles for the West Melbourne Presbyterian Church. Their palatial Gothic Revival office building stood at 283 Collins Street from 1875. Ironically, their last major commission, a window depicting “labour”, was installed in the old Melbourne Stock Exchange in Collins Street in 1893 on the eve of the bank crash. Their windows can be found throughout the older suburbs of Melbourne and across provincial Victoria.
"O Root of Jesse, that stands for an ensign of the people, before whom the kings keep silence and unto whom the Gentiles shall make supplication: come, to deliver us, and tarry not" – the Magnificat antiphon for 19 December.
My sermon for today can be read here.
This mosaic by Thomas LaFarge is in St Matthew's Cathedral, Washington DC. The prophets Micah and Isaiah reveal the Tree of Jesse, from which springs King David, and Christ, who is being held by Our Lady (cf Isa 11:1).
329: The lobby of the grand old King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Lots of history behind this hotel with presidents, diplomats and heads of state from all over the world staying here.
A preview image from the new batch of six new illustrated Bible stories from the King David section of The Brick Testament website.
Leyland Leopard LIB 1182 GBO245W seen here at St George Fields Coach park in York This vehicle is currently on a SORN. The MOT expired in 2015.
Worshiping scene at Dukkan-e Davood
The Rock-cut Relief of Dukkan-e Davood (the shop of David) at sarpol-e Zohab, is one of the few late achemenian era rock-cut relief in Iran.
The relief shows probably a magian or a nobleman holding a barsom (set of tied sticks symbolyzing the power). The character wears a tpicaly median hat, and a dress corresponding to the achaemenian fashion. It is unclear wether it was carved during the achaemenian era, or further during the Seleucid era or even the parthian. Opposed to the royal achaementian art of rock relief (see Naqs-e Rostam) the execution is clearly one of a provincial artist: the relief is not carved deep in volume, and the style is not mature. The relief lay under a quadrangular window opening a rock-cut tomb, probably for a local noble. It stands above the ground by 12 meters high.
The place is still worshipped as locals believe it is a representation of king David. Many people are constantly praying there, explaining the good state of conservation (no vandalism) and the green flags one can see there. The women were worshipping, and the old khanum dressed in blue tried to cut a piece of green flag in order to keep a holy reliecs for herself. As she was not strong enough, I did it myself and gave it to her: she was very surprised but was finaly very happy by learning that even being a farengi, I was married with an iranian woman. She told she would also pray for me and my familly.
Other late achaemenian reliefs are: Ravansar & Sakavand (province of Kermanshah), Qizkapan (Iraki Kurdestan) Gardanah Gavlimash (Fars), and Kapan (Fars)
Taken in Sarpol-e Zohab, province of Kermanshah, Iran, May 2009.
The Basilica of St. Sernin in Toulouse, built from red bricks about 1080 - 1120, is the largest still existing Romanesque church in France. It once belonged to the abbey of St. Sernin, that had existed here already within the 5th century near the grave of St. Sernin (aka "Saint Saturnin").
The church, replaced a smaller, carolingian structure, and was erected to accommodate the many pilgrims, as Toulouse has always been a very important stop on the way to Santiago de Compostella. The "Via Tolosana", one of the many ancient pilgrim routes, was named after Toulouse. It is said, that pilgrims, who, for what reasons ever, could not make it to Santiago, tried at least to reach St. Sernin in Toulouse.
The "Porte Miegeville" is the southern entrance to the basilica. This entrance once faced the town´s center = "mieja vila". Some art historians consider the carvings at the "Porte Miegeville" as finest Romanesque examples anywhere. All works here are very dynamic and have a great expression. Here a detail from the portal, depicting King David, holding his string instrument. He is flanked by pretty wild lions.
Wavertree also boasts a village lock-up, commonly known as The Roundhouse, despite being octagonal in shape. Built in 1796, and later modified by prominent local resident and architect Sir James Picton, it was once used to detain local drunks. The lock-up was made a listed building in 1952
Liverpool Wavertree 2012 11 004 KingDavid View HDR
Created by Melbourne stained glass manufacturer Ferguson and Urie in 1880 for the opening of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church, the Kind David stained glass window sits in the southern transept to the left of the altar and the left of the Thomas C. Lewis of London organ. King David is depicted wearing a crown and resting his hand upon a harp. King David is described in the Hebrew Bible as the second king of the United Kingdom of Israel and Judea. He is initially referred to in the bible as a young shepherd who gains fame for his musical talents, and then later for his slaying of Goliath. David becomes King Saul's favourite and is eventually anointed as king after the death of King Saul and his son Jonathan in battle. His window is paired with that of the Prophet Isaiah, who preached to the Israelites following King David's death. The Prophet Isaiah is usually depicted as an old man with a white beard. This window is unusual in the fact that his beard is brown. he does however hold a scroll featuring words from the Book of Isaiah, which is a common attribute of his depiction. Isaiah was married to a woman referred to as "the prophetess" and together they had three sons. Both figures stand against the same background: a "diaper pattern" containing floral designs in yellow. They also feature a border of coloured squares dispersed with stylised flowers with an inner border of brightly coloured circles. Both the background and the border are common elements of Ferguson and Urie's stained glass window work, and match other, non-figurative windows in the nave and transepts of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church. A round vent window above them features a cross in red glass on a blue and yellow background.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church, which stands on busy Chapel Street in St Kilda East, is a well known and loved local landmark, not least of all because of its strikingly tall (33.5 metre or 110 foot) banded bell tower which can be spotted from far away. In the Nineteenth Century when it was built, it would have been even more striking for its great height and domineering presence. Designed by architect Albert Purchas, the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is often referred to as his ecclesiastical tour-de-force, and it is most certainly one of his most dramatic and memorable churches.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was constructed on a plot of land reserved in Chapel Street for the Presbyterian Church of Victoria in 1866. Initially services were held in a small hall whilst fundraising efforts advanced the erection of a church. The architect Albert Purchas was commissioned to design the church and the foundation stone for the western portion of the nave was finally laid in April 1877 by Sir James McCulloch. The first service was held in the church on the 1st of October 1877. The first clergyman of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was the Reverend John Laurence Rentoul (father to world renown and much loved Australian children's book illustrator Ida Rentoul Outhwaite). However, the swelling Presbyterian congregation of St Kilda and its surrounding districts quickly outgrew the initial Saint George's Presbyterian Church building, so Albert Purchas was obliged to re-design and enlarge the church to allow a doubling in capacity. Robert S. Ekins was the contractor and his tender was £3000.00. It is this imposing church building, reopened in 1880, that we see today. The "Australasian Sketcher with Pen and Pencil" noted that the total length of the building was 118 feet and 6 inches (36 metres), by 40 foot (12 metres) wide and that the striking octagonal tower to the north-west was 110ft 6 in high. It perhaps reflected better the wealth and aspirations of the congregation.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is constructed on bluestone foundations and is built in an ornate polychromatic Gothic Revival style in the tradition of English designers like William Butterfield and John L. Pearson. Built of red brick building, it is decorated in contrasting cream bricks and Waurn Ponds freestone dressings. It features a slate roof with prominent roof vents, iron ridge cresting and fleche at the intersection of the nave and transepts. The front facade of the church is dominated by the slender, banded octagonal tower topped by a narrow spire. The entrance features a double arched portal portico. The facade also features a dominant triangular epitrochoidal (curved triangular form) rose window. The church, like its bluestone neighbour All Saints Church of England, is built to a T-shaped plan, with an aisleless nave, broad transepts and internal walls of cream brick, relieved with coloured brickwork. The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was one of the first major church design in Melbourne in which polychrome brickwork was lavishly employed both externally and internally.
The inside of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is equally as grand as the exterior, with ornamental Gothic Revival polychromatic brickwork, a lofty vaulted ceiling, deal and kauri pine joinery and pulpit and reredos of Keene's cement. The building originally contained a complete set of Victorian stained glass windows by well known and successful Melbourne manufacturers Ferguson and Urie, all of which remain intact today except for one of the non-figurative windows which was replaced by a memorial window to Samuel Lyons McKenzie, the congregation’s beloved minister, who served from 1930 to 1948, in 1949. The earliest of the Ferguson and Urie windows are non-figurative windows which feature the distinctive diaper pattern and floral motifs of Fergus and Urie's work, and are often argued to be amongst the finest of their non-figurative designs. The large triple window in the chancel was presented by Lady McCulloch in memory of the ‘loved and dead’. Another, in memory of John Kane Smyth, the Vice-Consul for the United States of America in Melbourne, has the American Stars and Stripes on the top ventilator above it. An organ by Thomas C. Lewis of London, one of the leading 19th century English organ builders, was installed in the south transept in 1882. It was designed to blend with its architectural setting, with pipework styled to avoid the obstruction of windows. The action of this organ was altered in 1935, but the pipework, and the original sound, have been retained.
Over the years many spiritual and social activities were instituted at Saint George’s, Presbyterian Church some of short duration such as the Ladies’ Reading Club which operated between 1888 and 1893. There were segregated Bible classes for young men and women, the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union, formed in 1892, a cricket club and a floral guild. Guilds teaching physical culture for girls, boys and young men began in 1904. They were entirely financed by John Maclellan and the idea extended to other denominations throughout Victoria. John Maclellan died in 1936 and the guilds ceased at Saint George’s Presbyterian church through lack of funds although in 1977 the members of the girls’ guild were still holding bi-annual reunions and raising money for charity. Sadly, the Presbyterian congregations may have been large in the Nineteenth Century, but by St George's Presbyterian Church's 110th centenary, its doors had already closed during the week due to dwindling numbers and an ageing congregation as a result of the general decline in church attendances after the Second World War exacerbated by the changing nature of St Kilda and the decrease in numbers of residents living in the vicinity of the church. So it stood, forlorn and empty and seemingly nothing more than a relic of a glorious but bygone religious past. However in 1990, Saint Michael's Grammar School across the road leased the Victorian Heritage listed building during weekdays, and it was eventually sold to them in 2015. It now forms part of the school's performing-arts complex, and it has a wonderful new lease of life.
St George's Presbyterian Church is sometimes hired out for performances, and I had the pleasure of receiving an invitation to hear Handel's Messiah performed there in 2009. The ecclesiastical acoustics made the performance all the more magnificent. I remember as I sat on one of the original (hard) kauri pine pews, I looked around me and admired the stained glass and ornamental brickwork. I tried without success over several subsequent years to gain access to the church's interior, settling for photographs of the exterior instead, but it wasn't until 2018 that I was fortunate enough to gain entry to photograph the church's interior. The former St George's Presbyterian Church was opened up to the public for one Sunday morning only as part of Open House Melbourne in July 2018. It was a fantastic morning, and I am very grateful to the staff who manned the church for the day and watched bemused as I photographed the stained glass extensively and in such detail.
Albert Purchas, born in 1825 in Chepstow, Monmouthshire, Wales, was a prominent Nineteenth Century architect who achieved great success for himself in Melbourne. Born to parents Robert Whittlesey Purchas and Marianne Guyon, he migrated to Australia in 1851 to establish himself in the then quickly expanding city of Melbourne, where he set up a small architect's firm in Little Collins Street. He also offered surveying services. His first major building was constructing the mansion "Berkeley Hall" in St Kilda on Princes Street in 1854. The house still exists today. Two years after migrating, Albert designed the layout of the Melbourne General Cemetery in Carlton. It was the first "garden cemetery" in Victoria, and his curvilinear design is still in existence, unaltered, today. In 1854, Albert married Eliza Anne Sawyer (1825 - 1869) in St Kilda. The couple had ten children over their marriage, including a son, Robert, who followed in his father's footsteps as an architect. Albert's brother-in-law, Charles Sawyer joined him in the partnership of Purchas and Sawyer, which existed from 1856 until 1862 in Queens Street. The firm produced more than 140 houses, churches, offices and cemetery buildings including: the nave and transepts of Christ Church St Kilda between 1854 and 1857, "Glenara Homestead"in Bulla in 1857, the Melbourne Savings Bank on the corner of Flinders Lane and Market Street (now demolished) between 1857 and 1858, the Geelong branch of the Bank of Australasia in Malop Street between 1859 and 1860, and Beck's Imperial Hotel in Castlemaine in 1861. When the firm broke up, Albert returned to Little Collins Street, and the best known building he designed during this period was Saint. George's Presbyterian Church in St Kilda East between 1877 and 1880. The church's tall polychomatic brick bell tower is still a local landmark, even in the times of high rise architecture and development, and Saint, George's itself is said to be one of his most striking church designs. Socially, Albert was vice president of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects for many years, before becoming president in 1887. He was also an inventor and philanthropist. Albert died in 1909 at his home in Kew, a wealthy widower and much loved father.
The stained glass firm of Ferguson and Urie was established by Scots James Ferguson (1818 – 1894), James Urie (1828 – 1890) and John Lamb Lyon (1836 – 1916). They were the first known makers of stained glass in Australia. Until the early 1860s, window glass in Melbourne had been clear or plain coloured, and nearly all was imported, but new churches and elaborate buildings created a demand for pictorial windows. The three Scotsmen set up Ferguson and Urie in 1862 and the business thrived until 1899, when it ceased operation, with only John Lamb Lyon left alive. Ferguson and Urie was the most successful Nineteenth Century Australian stained glass window making company. Among their earliest works were a Shakespeare window for the Haymarket Theatre in Bourke Street, a memorial window to Prince Albert in Holy Trinity, Kew, and a set of Apostles for the West Melbourne Presbyterian Church. Their palatial Gothic Revival office building stood at 283 Collins Street from 1875. Ironically, their last major commission, a window depicting “labour”, was installed in the old Melbourne Stock Exchange in Collins Street in 1893 on the eve of the bank crash. Their windows can be found throughout the older suburbs of Melbourne and across provincial Victoria.