Mosaic restoration depicting Jesus at Calvary an interfaith effort

[rug]

Mosaics cover tens of thousands of feet of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Cleaning, analyzing and restoring them is a painstaking process. Photo courtesy of the Mosaic Center.

Michele Chabin | March 25, 2016

JERUSALEM (RNS) The tens of thousands of Christians who visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre this month got a special Easter treat: the chance to view the newly cleaned and restored mosaic that covers the ceiling and walls of a Franciscan chapel dedicated to Calvary, or Golgotha, the hill where Jesus was crucified.

They might also pause to marvel at this: the work of restoring those mosaics involves a joint effort of Palestinian Christians and Muslims.

The church, whose original structure was built in the fourth century, stands atop the sites where, according to Christian tradition, Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected.

Each year pilgrims retrace the 14 locations — known as the Stations of the Cross — in Jesus’ final journey through Jerusalem, from the moment he was condemned to death to the moment he was laid in his tomb.

http://www.religionnews.com/2016/03/25/mosaic-restoration-jesus-calvary-jerusalem/

[kentauros]

1. I remember when we got to the Byzantine period in art history

and it seemed for the mosaics, all we ever saw were portraits of Mary and Child. They all blended together (and we were supposed to tell the difference between them during tests.)

But this one is beautiful! And it looks like they used especially tiny tiles. The restoration process must be even more difficult. If only my art history professor has shown us this kind of mosaic work instead

[rug]

2. Maybe it's because these mosaics are much more recent.

[kentauros]

3. I had to look it up, but according to Wikipedia,

the church is in the Byzantine period. Of course, my classes in it were over thirty years ago, so we might have studied other mosaics. I do remember them from a different professor but of much earlier periods, such as in Greece and Rome. But those weren't nearly as intricate as these.

[okasha]

4. The mosaics themselves are 20th. century.

The first thing I noticed about them is that they don't have the soccer-ball heads of earlier Byzantine work, and Jesus doesn't scowl like the typical Pantokrator.

It's all absolutely gorgeous. I loved art history.

[kentauros]

5. Okay, I guess I didn't read deep enough.

With them being 20th-century, it makes me wonder how much of the cleanup involves removing cigarette-smoke deposits Or just standard city air-pollution for all those decades.

As for art history, I loved ancient art history, and late-19th to early 20th century. The Renaissance period didn't do much for me.