Cemetery Art

[Herr_Mannelig]

I want my crypt to be in the middle of a perpetually spooky swamp with gargoyles and skeletons around.

If people want to visit my remains, they should feel death as much as the living can.

The only think to be written on whatever is handy where I am buried will be: IN OMNIBUS OPERIBUS TUIS MEMORARE NOVISSIMA TUA ET

It would be a journey worth it

[INPEFESS]

yep...

but I can't tell who's trying to convince who -

 

[INPEFESS]

I want my crypt to be in the middle of a perpetually spooky swamp with gargoyles and skeletons around.

If people want to visit my remains, they should feel death as much as the living can.

The only think to be written on whatever is handy where I am buried will be: IN OMNIBUS OPERIBUS TUIS MEMORARE NOVISSIMA TUA ET

It would be a journey worth it

Duly noted.

Sounds like a good horror movie filming site.

[libby]

yep...

but I can't tell who's trying to convince who -

 

Is she trying to seduce Death into not taking her, or is he dragging off?


I should find out where this is -

[Herr_Mannelig]

I want my crypt to be in the middle of a perpetually spooky swamp with gargoyles and skeletons around.

If people want to visit my remains, they should feel death as much as the living can.

The only think to be written on whatever is handy where I am buried will be: IN OMNIBUS OPERIBUS TUIS MEMORARE NOVISSIMA TUA ET

It would be a journey worth it

Duly noted.

Sounds like a good horror movie filming site.

I think the best horror settings are in perfectly "safe" settings where one doesn't expect things to happen. I mean, a slobbering monster leaping out of the swamp's fog is hardly a surprise. It is rather expected (hence, for a good horror movie in such a setting, absolutely nothing must happen; let the mind tear itself apart). Now, a nice idyllic town with perfectly ordinary people and people start showing up dismembered on random door steps, and it turns out to be the nice friendly grocer everyone likes? That is horror.

[StrictCatholicGirl]

The thread wouldn’t be complete without the Tomb of St. Cecilia in Rome. Here are two different shots of the sculpture of her incorrupt body.

[libby]

oh, I just saw a reproduction of this when I was in DC...

boy, it's something.

[Walty]

Don't forget my elephants, please.

[INPEFESS]

yep...

but I can't tell who's trying to convince who -

 

Is she trying to seduce Death into not taking her, or is he dragging off?


I should find out where this is -

I think he's got her and she's in despair. At least, that's the way it appears to me. If she was trying to seduce "death", I don't think she'd be struggling to get away.

[StrictCatholicGirl]

"Day of the Dead" in Argentina. Grave sites brightened with flowers real and fake.




Locals add colorful wreathes to a large cross at La Quiaca cemetery in Bolivia.



All Souls Night in Slovakia. Look at this cemetery all lit up in the dark! The photo is from F. William Lucak.

[Walty]

I think the Day of the Dead is really cool visually, but isn't the actual practice of it kind of suspect?  Like a syncretism between Catholicism and pagan ancestor worship?

[INPEFESS]

All Souls Night in Slovakia. Look at this cemetery all lit up in the dark! The photo is from F. William Lucak.

Beautiful picture!

[StrictCatholicGirl]

I think the Day of the Dead is really cool visually, but isn't the actual practice of it kind of suspect?  Like a syncretism between Catholicism and pagan ancestor worship?

Could be.. In more dense and rural regions, the pagan aspect seems more prominent and the lines between authentic veneration and idolatry seem more blurred. But even in the cities the Latin Americans retain some of the pagan trappings of their indigenous ancestors. But so do Europeans. Every human culture has a holiday which honors their dead. St. Augustine in his "City of God" defends the practice of early Christians bringing food and toys to put on the graves of their loved ones, which was apparently a custom carried over from their pagan days.

One of the greatest challenges of the Church has always been to allow people to celebrate their cultural identities while discouraging the superstition that was often a part of their pre-Christian past.

At any rate, here's more cemetery art of another flavor...


In Latin culture, skeletons are big.

[StrictCatholicGirl]

The work by Kwiatkowska reminds me of nothing so much as Henri Rousseau--Sleeping Gypsy, and so on. "Naive style" has become a derisive usage in art history, I think, but if we can exclude the negative connotation, I would say that's the genre Kwiatkowska is participating in.

I had not heard the term before so I looked it up and I think you're right. There also seems to be a good number of Slavic artists in this field. I rather like it.. but of course I like impressionist, abstract, and realist etc. I just appreciate all (well, most) forms of art.

- Lisa

[StrictCatholicGirl]

cool. all i want on my headstone is a statue of Our Lady holding a rosary and brown scapular, and an inscription reading Requiescant In Pace. oh, but i want it to be one of those headstones that have a little photo in them too, but the photo won't be me it'll be St Francis of Assisi.

That's nice. I just want an engraving of the Sacred Heart over the birth and death dates. The inscription will read "Till We Meet Again" because that's what my whole family puts on their stones.

We're hoping for a big family reunion in heaven where everyone shows up.