Description
Love and Prayer …… Found a cloud in the sky that said it all… or at least some of it…
The art piece is a collection of different modes of prayer with the same goal in mind ie to connect with a higher power. An idea of a central God may not necessarily fit with all religions,. The central “God” therefore in this piece relates to a central focus of core beliefs.
St-Thomas-Aquinas (1225 – 1274) is shown in the top left corner. he was a Dominican friar Roman Catholic priest, who put forth the five arguments of proof of God. Carlo Crivelli (circa 1435–circa 1495) is the artist of this art-piece which was modified for the purpose of the collage
The next piece (going anticlockwise) is Brünnhilde who is a mythological figure in Scandinavian folklore. She is a shield woman chosen to fight as a warrior . In this image she wakes and greets the day
In the bottom left corner an Imam is kneeling in prayer. An Imam is the religious leader in the Sunni Muslim community.
Next on the bottom row is a skull in prayer . Through this image the artist expresses the need to pray from one’s deepest essence – going beyond skin and flesh via the bones and down to the soul – an experience open to all made of flesh and bones. The artist appends the hands held in prayer painted by Albrecht Durer on to the skull
Next in line is an image of a mother putting her child to bed. This image was extracted from a World War I poster of the United States. The child’s hands are clasped as she kneels for her night prayers.
“When I lay me down to Sleep,
I recommend myself to His care;
when I awake, I give myself up to His Direction,
Amen.”
by Joseph Addison in an essay appearing in The Spectatoron March 8, 1711
The image in the bottom right hand corner is a black and white photograph of Rabbi Yisrael Meir HaCohen Kagan (1839 –1933) at morning prayer towards the end of his life. Orthodox Jews pray three times a day.
The next image (middle right)is a 12 year old girl who was a Polish inmate in Auschwitz in 1942 or 1943. Her eyes are turned up to the heavens in hope and prayer. She was murdered in 1943.
The 14th and current Dalai Lama is Tenzin Gyatso he is the head of the Tibetan Buddhists, and spiritual leader in Tibet and and other Himalayan and Central Asian kingdoms bordering Tibet. He directs the spiritual lives of more than fifty million people. The epicenter of his belief is that compassion is the source of a happy life.
Finally the central figure above the heart in the sky is called “God the Father” and was extracted from a painting by Cima da Conegliano (1459 – 1517). He was an Italian Renaissance painter. The extracted shape has been formed into an abstract form of the heart and his outstretched arm encompasses the heart and extends to all the other works in the collage. Love and prayer from the vantage point of God extends to all those below via the heart in the sky!
What do you see when you look up?