The Highgate Vampire

La chapelle de Bethléem

A small 15th-century chapel in the south-west of France boasts, as gargoyles, Ridley Scott’s Alien, Gizmo and a Gremlins gremlin.

If Ridley Scott’s Xenomorph was going to be the consequence of not going to church, we’re pretty sure a few more people would be gracing the pews.

The Chapelle de Bathléem is a small 15th-century Gothic chapel in the south-west of France. Like most sacred architecture of that era, it’s decorated by stone grotesqueries, a physical representation of the evils that may be awaiting the sinful — or of what we have inside.

Between 1993 and 1995, the building was set to restoration, with stonemason Jean-Louis Boistel restoring the pinnacles and gargoyles. But he added a few cultural icons into the mix.

According to his website, Boistel believed that he needed to “re-create a medieval bestiary in this 20th century to the dawn of the 21st century… Chimeras are par excellence, our inner demons, the fruit of our fantasies, duality between good and evil. Angels or demons, animals allegorical or real, the chimera is not evil, it is an invitation to let our inner demons out to enter the chapel of purification”.

Gizmo and the Gremlin symbolise the unconscious; Gizmo is “The good monster that everyone has in him, not nasty, sweet but ugly, it calls for compassion and pity. But there are things that a man should not do with it, risks that generates a good monster evil demon control”. The gremlin is “The evil demon created by the good demon. The gremlin plagiarises all through man and exalt. He has no fear and limits, not really cruel, it is no less destructive, dangerous attitudes, reckless.”

And the Alien, Leviathan: “This is the dragon of the Apocalypse 21-3, which embodies the strength of God, the power of evil, is that some features of chaotic snake. Nothingness, absolute, where everything is possible in horror, he is the rival of God, having the power of life and death, capable of swallowing the sun, and also the symbol of the divine, that God can overcome by his word and his faith transmitted by men.”

http://www.cnet.com.au/15th-century-chapel-guarded-by-alien-and-gremlins-339343111.htm

robertogiannotti:

Jan Švankmajer - Ossuary

Archbishop of Cologne (1238 - 1261), von Hochstaden wielded great influence in imperial affairs but was a controversial and contentious figure. Ultimately, to generate funds for continuing work on the cathedral, he initiated a tax on hops (thus raising the price of beer), a move that may have influenced the grotesque ornamentation added by stone carvers at the base of his statue

(via it-am-i)

Trinity Church, NY

St. Dunstan-in-East. London

Somewhere in the north-eastern Spanish city of Borja, an elderly woman is probably praying that the road to hell is not really paved with good intentions.

There can be little doubt that the woman, identified only as an octogenarian local, was just trying to help when she noticed that the face of the scourged Christ on the wall of a small church in the city was looking a bit faded, and decided to freshen it up a bit.

Sadly for her – and Elías García Martínez, the 19th-century artist who painted the mural – her brush skills were not quite up to the job.

The unnamed amateur has transformed what was once a pleasant, if unremarkable, Ecce Homo into something that more closely resembles a bloated hedgehog than the image of Jesus before Pilate.

The press have dubbed her efforts “the worst restoration in history” and “a botched job”, and the Borja authorities fear they are right.

According to the local paper, El Heraldo de Aragón, the damage inflicted on the mural in the church of the Santuario de la Misericordia is being investigated by experts, but the artist’s descendants are said to be unhappy that an individual decided to take the restoration job into her own hands and fear her handiwork is irreversible.

Juan María de Ojeda, a city councillor, said the woman, acting “spontaneously and with good intentions”, had confessed what had happened as soon as she realised “that things had got out of hand”.

He added that while the mural was not a work of great importance, it retained a certain sentimental value as the artist’s family still have strong links to the area.

“The family used to come here on holiday,” Ojeda told El País. “He painted the picture one summer and left it to the town.”

Although no one seems sure when the woman embarked on the restoration project, news of the incident first surfaced on the blog of the Centre for Borja Studies a fortnight ago.

The centre posted some graphic before-and-after pictures, along with a plaintive message confirming that someone had recently been up to no good with a brush.

“As incredible as it may seem, this is all that remains of the work of an artist whose descendants still live in our city,” it said. “We do not know whether this unspeakable deed can de remedied, but there can be no doubt whatsoever that someone should take the necessary action to ensure that such behaviour is not repeated. Whatever the motives were, it must be roundly condemned.”

Paris

winter`09 

The Basilica church of St. Ursula, Cologne

Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.

 The cat & the rat

The one, presumably chasing the other, became trapped in an organ pipe in the 1850s and were mummified. They are referred to in James Joyce’s “Finnegan’s Wake” where someone is described as being “…As stuck as that cat to that mouse in that tube of that Christchurch organ…” 

San Salvador, Oviedo’s cathedral, Spain

Christ Church, Hampstead Square