Priez Pour Nous et Pour les Musulmans

Notre Dame d'Afrique

Notre Dame d'Afrique across the Mediterranean from
Notre Dame de la Garde

During their colonization period in Algeria, the French built the Basilica Notre Dame d'Afrique in Algiers. Miraculously, the place still stands, and is still used as a place of worship for Catholic Algerians. The Church lies at the northern coastline of Algiers, and is thought to be a complement to the Notre Dame de la Garde across the Mediterranean in Marseilles.

Religion is a combination of tradition, architecture, geography and symbolism. And the French Catholics were susceptible to all of them when transferring their Catholicism to Algeria.

The statue of Mary in Notre Dame d'Afrique has fine Caucasian features, but is ebony black. The reasoning has to be that this metaphorically black Madonna would be a gateway into the rest of Africa at this point of entry, and act as an incentive for and a familiar guard over her new converts. It is also a clear indication that Algerian and French Catholics are two different peoples.

The positioning of the Basilica is also very important. As a new church, facing the hill-top Notre Dame de la Garde across the Mediterranean would give Notre Dame d'Afrique the support and the protection (and the prayers) from her mature brethren in Christ from across the sea.

Finally, the French modeled the Basilica after the Byzantine Eastern churches, which influenced the great domed mosques of the Ottoman period, who took their example from Constantinople's Hagia Sophia. Mosaics, also a feature borrowed by mosques from the Byzantines, figures both inside and outside Notre Dame d'Afrique. Thus this north African church, in the land of the Muslims, who wished to draw them into her interior, wouldn't be so strange and alien in her Islamic surroundings.

And what an interior, with the prayer: "Notre Dame d'Afrique pray for us and the Muslims" written across nave facing the alter. And what a difference from Constantinople's Hagia Sophia, which after being converted into a Mosque by the Ottomans, now bears Islamic calligraphy plates which cover Christian images.

God helped the French to build the perfect church in Notre Dame d'Afrique. The proof is that it she still standing and performing her rites.

The Interior of Notre Dame d'Afrique with the mosaics,
the Black Madonna and the inscription "Prier pour nous
et pour les Musulmans"

[Click images to see a larger versions]

To get more information on the French presence in Algeria, Gallia Watch covers it along with several posts on Sarkozy's trip to Algeria, and also mentions Notre Dame d'Afrique at this post.

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A Sample of Connected Thoughts

Figuring out the cracks
Shibboleth, by Doris Salcedo. Currently at the Tate

Ugly Betty is a show about an ugly Hispanic woman who ends up working in the New York fashion industry. Yet, in real life, the Ugly Betty star (ironically named America) is cute and charming. Why couldn't she be cute (although she is somewhat charming) in the movie? I suspect it is an attempt to tell the average viewer that beauty is only skin deep, and that we have been judging ethnic women by unfair and wrong standards. Yes, she's ugly, but look at how good she is.

But why not have a show of a "Beautiful Maria", or some such title? Wasn't Maria good enough with beauty to top it off, to be a star in West Side Story? Maybe they're just worried that all beautiful Hispanic female leads might never get their hero.

Still, ugly Betty didn't stop Ugly Betty from becoming a hit.

Julie Taymor made the Lion King, a glorification of Africa with African songs, African American (and African) actors, and African animals.

She also recently directed Across the Universe, using Beatles songs to stage her own anti-establishment movie/musical berating American traditions and culture.

Why is Taymor able to make such a glorified and grand musical about Africans, but does such a terrible job at directing a movie full of the lovely Beatles melodies?

I suspect it is quite simple. Taymor finds more to admire in an alien, distant, culture than she does in her own. Although, for all purposes, she seems to know very little about this alien culture apart from a few clichéd, feel-good examples.

The Tate Gallery has sponsored and set up an installation which required a fissure in its floor. The Colombian artist who made the crack in the floor says "it represents borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, the experience of racial hatred...It is the experience of a Third World person coming into the heart of Europe."

After the installation is removed, there will be a "scar", which the Tate owners are quite happy about since it will be a "memorial to the issues [the artist] touches on." So much for artistic defacing of architecture. Impromptu free associations, this time not on paper but on real live concrete.

Why a scar?

To expiate their deadly sins, which includes not letting in illegal (i.e criminal) Third Worlders into their society. The irony is many British are so overwhelmed by these forsaken immigrants, that they in turn are leaving for Australia, New Zealand, and yes for Canada.

The Louvre will be loaning out some of its master paintings to Abu Dhabi. Critics are concerned they will be censoring religious paintings, and of course the famous nudes. I would think also that other more "benign" paintings will be censored. For example, Delacroix’s Marianne, a strong female figure leading her countrymen to freedom.

Is it all in the name of money?

I doubt it. The Louvre is also expanding its Islamic art section with millions of dollars funding from Saudi Arabia. The French are selling off one of their most famous national words, Liberté, and getting nothing back in return.


Liberty Leading the People, by Eugène Delacroix, 1830

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Toronto's Latest Casualty

To urban "development"

This lovely house



which became my inspiration for this rendition



and later on this repeat pattern design



became yet another casualty in the Toronto architectural landscape sometime last summer.



And just as I predicted, a condo-style building is rising up to accommodate all those mystery tenants, and progress is going fine, as of September 2007.



I've blogged about it, and those suspicious new tenants here.

Funny how intuition works sometimes. I wonder who will thank me for making a historical record

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The Holy as Transparent

Like a gemstone



The Holy is transparent, whereas the unholy is opaque.

And that which is in the middle, which can go either way, is neutral.

This is the discussion of a couple of Rabbis at this weekly show.

I think the idea of gemstones (or stones in general) wonderfully explains this concept.

A beautifully cut gem, like a diamond or an aquamarine, gives so much pleasure to our eyes because it is so transparent. The more transparent, the more expensive. What gives it this transparency is the work that went into making it so faceted. Holiness requires work to achieve its perfect transparency.

Those uncut gemstones, which have the potential to be worked on to be transparent (cabochons for the precious stones, and others like turquoise or lapis lazuli) are less attractive to us because of their middle-ground. But, we still desire them because we see the potential in them.

Yet, sometimes what looks like a potential turquoise can end up looking like an opaque pebble. We are least attracted to this pebble, and most likely to discard it at some point.

And that is exactly what the judicious Rabbis say. The opaque requires no judgment. They call it evil at one point, but prefer in the end to describe it as something which wouldn't bring us closer to God, and therefore something to be discarded.

On a more practical level, evil (the opaque) always leaves us questioning and probing (why, how what, etc...) whereas we marvel at the clarity of Holiness.

But, rather than judge it with our limited capacity, it is better to leave the opaque aside, and concentrate instead on the Holiness that is in front of us.

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Confident Christianity

The strength of a society

In a recent post on Nietzsche, Christianity and the West, Lawrence Auster of the View from the Right was asked by a reader:

What did Nietzsche miss in your estimation? What did he not see? What era of Christianity is the exemplar of a healthy (non-weak) Christianity that did not give rise to, or aid and abet, liberalism?

and replied thus:

Throughout the history of Christianity we find examples of this, but mainly in the Middle Ages. We can't experience this in America. If you visit Ireland, and see the remnants of the Christian buildings from the Dark Ages, or the stone crosses and Romanesque churches from the high middle ages, or look at the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells (illuminated manuscripts from the ninth century) you will experience through them a living Christian truth, a consummate state of being. If you visit medieval churches in England, you will experience the same. Or if you read The Stripping of the Altars, about the actual Christian practice (such as Corpus Christi processionals and Holy Week observances) that were followed by ordinary people in the communities and the guilds of 15th century England, you well get a glimpse of a complete order of life based around Christianity.

I would add that a non-Western country which lived in this total, life-giving Christianity is Ethiopia. After a long hiatus following the conversion of the Axumite Kings around 300AD, a confident and well-prepared population returned to a culture infused and fortified by Christianity around the 12th century. This is exemplified by their grand rock-hewn and underground churches, and the many biblical art pieces which they produced to permeate every level of society.

This confident Christianity continued its way into history, surviving isolation, pagan incursions and the great devastation of the Muslims during the 15th century, until the mid-20th century. At this moment, modernism in its various guises proved the temporary victor.

Still, although the people have lost their footing, all that they have received is nihilistic communism and atheistic capitalism. Despite this lack of confidence, a return to the ancient faith seems to be the only solution.

On a related note, I recently sent a letter to the art critic and professor at the University of the Art, Camille Paglia, regarding her on-line article at Arion "Religion and the Arts in America." I just wanted to clarify the different traditions and histories of Christianity in Africa.


St. George and the Virgin Mary, Ethiopian pendant icon,
ca. 17th century
[Click on picture to see bigger version]

Bete Giyorgis Church in Lalibela
[Click on picture to see bigger version]

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Paint to Reality

From Arles, to Vienna, to Auschwitz

The Neue Gallerie in New York has an exhibition entitled: Van Gogh and Expressionism. German expressionism has always struck me as a narcissistic resignation to the evils of the world. And for all of Van Gogh's earnestness, he certainly showed a more restrained resignation that surely influenced the expressionists, who let it escape uninhibitedly.

I couldn't help but make these juxtapositions. Or better yet, the logical conclusion.


Van Gogh's Bedroom at Arles (detail), Vincent Van Gogh, 1889


Schiele's Room in Neulengbach (detail), Egon Schiele, 1911


Auschwitz Barracks

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Optical Art

Viewer Participation

Bridget Riley, To a summer's day, 1980

Unlike Conceptual Art, Optical Art, or Op Art, is really concerned about engaging the viewer. Various straight, concentric and undulating lines are used to create various types of illusions, the most important of which is movement. Color is also often used to manipulate these illusions.

A. Kitaoka, Brownian Motion, 2004

I don't think Op Art creators are as pretentious as Conceptual Artists. Firstly, there is quite a high degree of skill and knowledge required to make Op Art. Secondly, the goal is really to amuse, or at least to engage, the viewer. Unlike Conceptual Artists, who really work in their own vacuum and dogged seriousness, an Op Art piece only works if the viewer responds accordingly, and usually with surprise and pleasure.

The charm of Op Art is that it also is used often in fabrics.


Success has a real concrete definition.

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Conceptual Art

An arrogant snub




Conceptual Art is art where the idea matters more than the actual piece of work. The artist doesn't require any skill in the traditions of drawing, painting or sculpting, and rearranges objects to fit a concept - or an idea.

My whole critique of conceptual art would be too long for a blog posting. Suffice to say that it irritates me endlessly. Although I "get" it each and every time, I can never make art (or design) with such criteria, because really, my mind doesn't work that way. I feel that I would be cheating myself, and whomever sees my humble efforts, by using mental jig-saw puzzles to put my artistic projects across.

I also find contemporary conceptual artists to be cold and indifferent to the public despite the inordinate amount of time they spend to come up with "public art". This is very clear to me with a contemporary "artist" Gwen MacGregor, who recently used giant jello cubes to fill up a "public space" - a fountain, in this case.

There is something creepy about wading through jello cubes, of the very type that you might eat as dessert one of these days. I'm quite sure that the young children walked through it with trepidation, and it is only the adults who were gleefully amused.




The shortcoming is of course that MacGregor can never design a real fountain, either as a two-dimensional painting or drawing, or as an architectural piece. So, her "concept" becomes the art of the gimmick. And an arrogant snub.

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Tiffany Out the Window

The slow erosion of art in America


L.C. Tiffany: View of Oyster Bay

One of the astonishing things I learned about Tiffany's stained glass art works is that his masterpieces were destroyed ("massacred" to use the words of historian Paul Johnson) after his death during the Great Depression of the mid-1930s.

Although this may be attributed to the rejection of luxe and affluence that Tiffany's works induced, I think it was more of a rejection of beauty and aesthetics in art in general.

In fact, his popularity was waning even before the 1930s mainly due to newer developments in art.

His art nouveau style, which emphasizes nature, was being taken over by the more mechanical and industrial art deco, and Tiffany never took to the modern movements - fauvists and cubists to name the two that he disliked most.

He reacted to the introduction of modern art at the New York Armory in 1913 by making even more elaborate objects to decorate his homes.

Finally, though, his pieces, collected from various locations and by astute admirers, now fetch huge (and deserving) prices.

But, not until the damage was done.

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Foundations

I Corinthians 3:11-17


A message for all walks of life.

11For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 13each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. 14If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. 15If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. 16Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? 17If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.

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The Errant Architect

In search of the concrete


The National Assembly Building in Dacca Bangladesh, by Louis Kahn

Is architecture the last frontier?

Any self-serving, "artistic" architect can have his day in the field. Once his buildings have been commissioned by the "in crowd", and built, they are there to last. And hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people will get to visit these "emperor has no clothes" structures.

Paintings, on the other hand, go to the single individuals, albeit at exorbitant prices, and no-one else need see them ever again.

So, this is the ultimate conceit of these modern architects. It is a means of forcefully interjecting into society their inner drives and inconclusive ideas.

I think that is why they are such globe-trotters. They cannot commit to a local style, where eventually the inhabitants will demand a building they can relate to.

By shifting geography constantly, they can dot the world's landscape with their inner musings, until they either get rejected, or find another location and move on.

This was how Louis Kahn lived.

His last piece that was built, having taken close to 20 years from design to finished structure, was unsurprisingly in South Asia.

The formidable fort-like National Assembly Building in Bangladesh is another one of those buildings which bear absolutely no relation to the geography, culture and I would venture to say, even the aesthetics of that country.

I would have thought the Bangladeshi would have had more insight than bringing in another foreigner (haven't they been through that already?) to dictate one of the most important buildings of their country.

The National Assembly is where democratic decisions are made, at least in theory. Yet, looking at this building, what comes to mind is a prison.

But then, what we choose is a symptom of who we are. Perhaps it is in the psyche of the Bangladeshi, and let's be fair, of all us modern people, to accept submissively these buildings that get tossed out at us.

Kahn collapsed in a bathroom in New York's Penn Station, and his body was not identified for three days. He had just returned from a trip to India.


The Interior of the National Assembly in Dacca Bangladesh

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Self-expressing Architects

The Turning Torso

Architecture these days seems to be a balancing act, literally.


Toronto's new Royal Ontario Museum

The new Royal Ontario Museum, to be completed in June 2007 (I had last posted that it would have been in January 2007) is one of the latest examples.

Architects these days juggle between engineering, artistic and functional roles. But, they hold on to the artistic the most. And true to modern traditions, that means primarily self-expression.


The Turning Torso

The Turning Torso, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, is supposed to represent the twisting human body from a drawing that he made. It took four years to complete and was millions (of Swedish currency, I presume) over budget.

In the end, the building looks as incongruous as the new ROM, and just as unstable.

So, what is behind this rush of strange and daunting buildings? I believe it is a disconnection between the architect and his environment, as both the ROM and the Torso testify, and as I wrote in these earlier posts on a number of other buildings.

Geography is of paramount importance in all the arts. Once we start ignoring the reality of our surroundings, what else do we have left but our imaginations? Then any twisted shape and form can take over our buildings.

In a later blog, I will write about one of the most important and spectacular examples of how geography influenced architecture, down to the perfect last stone.

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