“Beauty is a weapon of mass destruction,” said Joseph Connors.
Beauty: the word has different meanings for everyone, and even for the same person, its meaning shifts with new perspectives and experiences. For me, beauty is found in simplicity, efficiency, and strength—properties that speak to my values and connect to my experiences. Beauty is an unexpected sight that causes me to reconsider my assumed paradigms, something that makes me think about the world from a different vantage point.
By this standard, something beautiful does not need to induce awe or be aesthetically pleasing, and in fact, according to Harriet Rubin, author of Dante in Love, Connors “meant that encounters with beauty unsettle a person.” By this standard, Chiesa di Santa Maria della Concezione is one of the most beautiful sights of Rome.
Before the class enters, the anticipation is built. It is not a joke, warns Shawn, act as you would in any other church. Lisa and Shawn go so far as to make entrance optional, but that, of course makes me more curious to see what’s inside. I scowl a bit at their warning--I prefer to judge for myself first, without moral context, without the expectation of another’s social paradigm. But in this case, all words would be overwritten by the power of the experience to come.
I walk under the doorway of the Coemeterium, and even the long warning we just got could not prepare me for the sight. The bones are not in the room, they are the room; not just a few reconstructed skeletons, but bits and pieces from hundreds of Capuchin monks arranged decoratively, artistically even. The bones do not form a passive display; instead, I am thrust into their midst, with no escape except to close my eyes. When I open them, I take a few shallow breaths and settle for writing a description in my journal, averting my eyes for another moment. Finally, I look again, at the pelvises and vertebrae used to decorate the ceiling in flower motifs, complete with elaborate borders. Stacks of skulls line the archway around a painting that is the focal point of the room. On the left and right walls, are bundles of femurs which form arches, under which lie clothed skeletons of two Capuchin monks.
The sickly scent of death intermingled with syrupy incense irritate my trachea, but the discomfort is easily ignored by the signals racing through my mind. I forcefully turn down the volume of the thoughts flooding my synapses, as I continue to the next rooms, past the lamps hanging overhead, comprised entirely of more bones. I squeeze through four more rooms, arms tucked, walking carefully, not to avoid touching the sides physically, but withdrawing myself from the reality of death. At the end of the slow walk, a plaque reads:
“Quello che voi siete noi eravamo; quello che noi siamo voi sarete.”
(What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be)
There is no way out except back the way I have come, so I turn, forced to take second look. Somehow, the initial shock has dissipated and perhaps by design, my suppressed thoughts about life, death, and religion continue unabated. When I exit the church, I stand, numbed by the assault of thoughts that the display has induced, scribbling madly into my journal, allowing it to relieve my mind of its burden. Why am I appalled? Whose moral system have I accepted without knowing? What happens to the body after death? The soul? Is there a soul and can it be proven? Was that an acceptable use of human remains? Acceptable by whose standard? Where do these moral structures come from? And so on… Moments later, my classmates join me, and they too are unnaturally subdued, all forced to consider ideas usually left untouched. We each throw a bit of ourselves, and of our reactions into the conversation, as if testing the waters. Soon, it becomes a heated discussion: we exchange, ponder, and argue all the way to the Borghese Gallery--the meaning of life, the existence of soul, and implications and purpose of religion, our voices echo in the small bus #116, and mingle playfully with the trees along our path. I smile.
Beauty: the ability to force a reconsideration of everything we believe.
cw #5
Beauty: the word has different meanings for everyone, and even for the same person, its meaning shifts with new perspectives and experiences. For me, beauty is found in simplicity, efficiency, and strength—properties that speak to my values and connect to my experiences. Beauty is an unexpected sight that causes me to reconsider my assumed paradigms, something that makes me think about the world from a different vantage point.
By this standard, something beautiful does not need to induce awe or be aesthetically pleasing, and in fact, according to Harriet Rubin, author of Dante in Love, Connors “meant that encounters with beauty unsettle a person.” By this standard, Chiesa di Santa Maria della Concezione is one of the most beautiful sights of Rome.
Before the class enters, the anticipation is built. It is not a joke, warns Shawn, act as you would in any other church. Lisa and Shawn go so far as to make entrance optional, but that, of course makes me more curious to see what’s inside. I scowl a bit at their warning--I prefer to judge for myself first, without moral context, without the expectation of another’s social paradigm. But in this case, all words would be overwritten by the power of the experience to come.
I walk under the doorway of the Coemeterium, and even the long warning we just got could not prepare me for the sight. The bones are not in the room, they are the room; not just a few reconstructed skeletons, but bits and pieces from hundreds of Capuchin monks arranged decoratively, artistically even. The bones do not form a passive display; instead, I am thrust into their midst, with no escape except to close my eyes. When I open them, I take a few shallow breaths and settle for writing a description in my journal, averting my eyes for another moment. Finally, I look again, at the pelvises and vertebrae used to decorate the ceiling in flower motifs, complete with elaborate borders. Stacks of skulls line the archway around a painting that is the focal point of the room. On the left and right walls, are bundles of femurs which form arches, under which lie clothed skeletons of two Capuchin monks.
The sickly scent of death intermingled with syrupy incense irritate my trachea, but the discomfort is easily ignored by the signals racing through my mind. I forcefully turn down the volume of the thoughts flooding my synapses, as I continue to the next rooms, past the lamps hanging overhead, comprised entirely of more bones. I squeeze through four more rooms, arms tucked, walking carefully, not to avoid touching the sides physically, but withdrawing myself from the reality of death. At the end of the slow walk, a plaque reads:
“Quello che voi siete noi eravamo; quello che noi siamo voi sarete.”
(What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be)
There is no way out except back the way I have come, so I turn, forced to take second look. Somehow, the initial shock has dissipated and perhaps by design, my suppressed thoughts about life, death, and religion continue unabated. When I exit the church, I stand, numbed by the assault of thoughts that the display has induced, scribbling madly into my journal, allowing it to relieve my mind of its burden. Why am I appalled? Whose moral system have I accepted without knowing? What happens to the body after death? The soul? Is there a soul and can it be proven? Was that an acceptable use of human remains? Acceptable by whose standard? Where do these moral structures come from? And so on… Moments later, my classmates join me, and they too are unnaturally subdued, all forced to consider ideas usually left untouched. We each throw a bit of ourselves, and of our reactions into the conversation, as if testing the waters. Soon, it becomes a heated discussion: we exchange, ponder, and argue all the way to the Borghese Gallery--the meaning of life, the existence of soul, and implications and purpose of religion, our voices echo in the small bus #116, and mingle playfully with the trees along our path. I smile.
Beauty: the ability to force a reconsideration of everything we believe.
cw #5
No comments:
Post a Comment