Mount Elliott Cemetery in Detroit
Nov. 29th, 2015 08:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogA mention of graffiti made me think of some of my photographs of Detroit, which then led me to a set of photos from Mount Elliott Cemetery, Detroit's oldest remaining graveyard. Here are a few of them.
This strikes me as one of the most delicately worked faces I've seen in funerary sculpture. I feel like she might just wake up and open her eyes, despite the lichen and moss.
More photos behind
Here's a particularly unnerving recreation of Michelangelo's Pietà . (To be fair, this composition existed before Michelangelo. But I suspect that it's his version that most later artists were influenced by.)
I will give thee rest.
An angel with a writing quill. This is the sleeping, lichen-encrusted woman again.
A spritely little guy to be living in a cemetery.
The central gate to Mount Elliott Cemetery. There are more images at my Flickr page.
I really enjoy photographing statuary. I can take my time and think about what I want my images to express and how to achieve that. It's a satisfying process.
---
I just read the Wikipedia article about the Pietà and was jarred by reading about this incident. I'd never heard of it. I can't even imagine how horrified the statue's custodians must have been.
"The most substantial damage occurred on May 21, 1972 (Pentecost Sunday) when a mentally disturbed geologist, the Hungarian-born Australian Laszlo Toth walked into the chapel and attacked the sculpture with a geologist's hammer while shouting "I am Jesus Christ, I have risen from the dead!" With fifteen blows he removed Mary's arm at the elbow, knocked off a chunk of her nose, and chipped one of her eyelids. Onlookers took many of the pieces of marble that flew off. Later, some pieces were returned, but many were not, including Mary's nose, which had to be reconstructed from a block cut out of her back."
This strikes me as one of the most delicately worked faces I've seen in funerary sculpture. I feel like she might just wake up and open her eyes, despite the lichen and moss.
More photos behind
Here's a particularly unnerving recreation of Michelangelo's Pietà . (To be fair, this composition existed before Michelangelo. But I suspect that it's his version that most later artists were influenced by.)
I will give thee rest.
An angel with a writing quill. This is the sleeping, lichen-encrusted woman again.
A spritely little guy to be living in a cemetery.
The central gate to Mount Elliott Cemetery. There are more images at my Flickr page.
I really enjoy photographing statuary. I can take my time and think about what I want my images to express and how to achieve that. It's a satisfying process.
---
I just read the Wikipedia article about the Pietà and was jarred by reading about this incident. I'd never heard of it. I can't even imagine how horrified the statue's custodians must have been.
"The most substantial damage occurred on May 21, 1972 (Pentecost Sunday) when a mentally disturbed geologist, the Hungarian-born Australian Laszlo Toth walked into the chapel and attacked the sculpture with a geologist's hammer while shouting "I am Jesus Christ, I have risen from the dead!" With fifteen blows he removed Mary's arm at the elbow, knocked off a chunk of her nose, and chipped one of her eyelids. Onlookers took many of the pieces of marble that flew off. Later, some pieces were returned, but many were not, including Mary's nose, which had to be reconstructed from a block cut out of her back."
