Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Out with noble simplicity

Out I say! And in with baroque splendour.

Earthly splendour and beauty lifts man's gaze and thoughts upward, so he can ponder the mysteries of the Divine, the God who is the Author of Beauty. A blank, whitewashed wall makes man contemplate only himself and emptiness.

Check these altars.

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Easter decorations. Somewhere in the Philippines.

Isaias 53:9
Ecce Homo. From Spain.

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The Altar of Repose Located at Bacolor, Pampanga.

All the pictures are from the excellent blog, Ecce Ego, Quia Vocasti Me, from the neighbouring Philippines. The blog title means 'Here I am, for you have called me.' and comes from the book of Samuel. It is Samuel's response to Eli whom he thought had called him. A friend once joked that the reason he wanted to learn Latin was so he could read his sidebar. LOL!

6 comments:

The Hymn Selector said...

Wow... I'm awestruck. This rivals even those Holy Week setups in Spain.

Andrew said...

Hymn Selector, I was also stunned. Did you see the mother of all Altars of Repose? Wow! And the Christ figure. A beauty, marred by suffering, but undimmed. Wonderful.

I really must go to the Philippines someday. I've been hearing so much about it.

Andrew said...

It makes me wonder why we were not colonized by the Spanish but got the Protestant Dutch and English instead. Otherwise, we could have been a Catholic country and the altars that you saw could have been from the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Pulau Tikus. Who knows?

A man can dream, right? =)

Anonymous said...

Amazing. You consistently pick out some of the most beautiful pictures I have ever seen, Andrew, thank you.

On a side-note, I was posting a link to a repulsive Guardian article on a friend's blog a while back (Righteous Indignation) and got to thinking about a comment I found in the responses to the article:

"Ms Bunting is right, but is a bit tepid in her words.

Failing to deal with the challenge of modernity? My God, he runs around in clothes from centuries ago. He lives like a feudal lord in a great palace with priceless treasures. All this supported by the donations of some of the world's poorest."

Which got me thinking about beauty and faith. With your permission, I'd like to link to and maybe use some of the photos from your blogs for an article I'm planning on faith and beauty.

Archistrategos said...

Hi Andrew,

Just to clarify, the picture of the Ecce Homo is actually from Spain, and not the Philippines. The rest however are from here, and I am so glad that you liked them. Thanks for the comments on my blog as well.

Andrew said...

Mr. Smith, thank you for your comments. You may use any photos you like.

Archistrategos, thanks for the clarification. You write a great blog!