The before photo isn’t bad. I’ve been in this chapel a few times and it is beautiful. The redecorated chapel designed and executed by Conrad Schmitt and Company is wonderful and not overdone as they sometimes have a tendency to do.
The new free standing altar is lovely, but what a shame that it is politically incorrect to have maintained the old high altar and use it ad orientem for the Modern Mass. A completely ridiculous happening in the post-Vatican II Church.
While the new look is more ornate, it looks less cluttered than the old look and replacing the marble walls in the nave with wood helps tremendously. Removing the hanging lights helps too. As a disclaimer, I used Conrad Schmitt in renovating and redecorating the Church of the Most Holy Trinity in Augusta around 1997.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
4 comments:
Oh, it is visually more cluttered in the recent renovation.
Leaving out the painted blue/gold areas under the arches would have been preferable. Restoring the wainscoting that, I suspect, hides the later addition of HVAC systems, is a great improvement.
I neither see, nor agree with the other comment.
If there's room for opposing points of view, the current presentation is harmonious and successful. I sometimes am overwhelmed by C.S's stencling, but this is beautiful.
Agree. Just use the high altar. As an Easterner, this constant need to look at each other is superfluous. Address God first, on the fewer occasions you need to address me, turn to do so.
Ah, ByzRus, that would prevent the priest making himself the center of attention. As my one-time pastor put it, "It's like a cooking show!" God help us.
Nick
And those who gravitate toward celebrating at strangely shaped altars that clash with its surroundings, like the new one in Notre Dame Paris, seem to have the oddest sense of taste, or lack thereof. I find it so strange, almost off-putting, their attraction to the abstract, that which is off balance, and that which is unattractive in its reduced state. It seems to clash with the word made flesh, the incarnate one, our Savior. An amoeba didn't heal the sick, a man did. An oozing stick figure wasn't crucified, died and rose on that first Pascha, a man did. Thomas didn't bow down and weep before an alien-looking life form, it was the Risen Christ. Style be damned, that's not what it looked like and 2 dimensional icons (Icons are written, not painted! They are visual scripture!) are an easy, unfair target, the basis for a weak argument as the theology is significantly deeper than representational art.
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