It's all formality and conformity up front, but it's brutal in the back. We missed Notre Dame de Montreal last time, but ducked inside during one of the city's epic downpours. So you got your Death Jesus, your Mary Queen of Heaven, your banner-bearing lamb-Jesus, a lighting design meant to evoke both sunrise and sunset, your gold-plated rococo apostles, and on and on. But back behind the original alter, there's a 60s era chapel with blond wood paneling and dear lord who got the commission to create a giant, brutalist monolith replete with starving peasants, suffering children, and the queen of heaven having a really bad hair day?
Personally, I prefer the Latin American version of Catholic iconography as it favors demons and chupacabras and all three Jesuses (man-boy-lamb) in the same frieze, something that's not kosher in the European tradition.
When the aliens finally arrive they are going to be so confused...
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