a grey hope

The church: a place of worship, spirit filled a holy/sacred space, a place for hope.
well this is what most people would associate the church building to be.

this is also true of cathedrals to an extent, there is no doubt that some of the most famous cathedrals are breathtaking, the architecture is stunning and the decoration elaborate. the interiors are amazing and the stained glass windows are heavenly. but a lot of this stuff cant be seen from the outside. What always strikes me the most is the greyness of the cathedral, the lack of life that it portrays from the outside.

Notre Dame is a good an example as any, in paris, where all the buildings are grey there is not much that makes this cathedral stand out, the architecture of the surrounding buildings are just as elaborate if not more. i would decribe the appearance as being cold.
The interior has more warmth, but the vaults are so high, it is impossible to truly light the place, so while the invention of flying buttresses allowed for thinner walls and stained glass windows, and the cathedral became 'light filled' i still feel like it is such an oppressive and dark space to be in.

i propose to create a cathedral that is coloured and completely transparent to allow as much light in as possible. the church should be a place that is lively.

The warmth is a tendency to yellow, the coldness a tendency to blue. The yellow and the blue form the first big contrast, which is dynamic. The yellow possesses an eccentric movement and the blue a concentric movement, a yellow surface seems to get closer to us, while a blue surface seems to move away. The yellow is the typically terrestrial color whose violence can be painful and aggressive. The blue is the typically celestial color which evokes a deep calm. The mixing of blue with yellow gives the total immobility and the calm, the green.

Clarity is a tendency to the white and obscurity a tendency to the black. The white and the black form the second big contrast, which is static. The white acts like a deep and absolute silence full of possibilities. The black is a nothingness without possibility, it is an eternal silence without hope, it corresponds to death. That’s why any other color resonates so strongly on its neighbors. The mixing of white with black leads to gray, which possesses no active force and whose affective tonality is near that of green. The gray corresponds to immobility without hope; it tends to despair when it becomes dark and regains little hope when it lightens. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky was an advocate of the way colour could effect the spirit. From his book 'On The Spiritual in Art', ...but this effect can be much deeper and cause an emotion and a vibration of the soul, or an inner resonance which is a purely spiritual effect, by which the color touches the soul.

The red is a warmth color, very living, lively and agitated, it possesses an immense force, it is a movement in oneself. Mixed with black, it leads to brown which is a hard color. Mixed with yellow, it gains in warmth and gives the orange which possesses an irradiating movement on the surroundings. Mixed with blue, it moves away from man to give the purple, which is cooled red. The red and the green form the third big contrast, the orange and the purple the fourth one. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky

I want to create a 'holy space' where the presence of God can be felt even more because the spiritual resonance has more lively freedom and isnt oppressed by the greyness of surroundings.

Kandinsky also had his theories on how geometry affected the spiritual.

Kandinsky analyses in this writing the geometrical elements which compose every painting, namely the point and the line, as well as the physical support and the material surface on which the artist draws or paints and which he calls the basic plane or BP. He doesn’t analyze them on an objective and exterior point of view, but on the point of view of their inner effect on the living subjectivity of the observer who looks them and let them acting on his sensibility.

The point is in the practice a small stain of color put by the artist on the canvas. So the point used by the painter is not a geometric point, it is not a mathematical abstraction, it possesses a certain extension, a form and a color. This form can be a square, a triangle, a circle, like a star or even more complex. The point is the most concise form, but according to its placement on the basic plane it will take a different tonality. It can be alone and isolated or on the opposite put in resonance with other points or with lines.

The line is the product of a force, it is a point on which a living force has been applied in a given direction, the force applied on the pencil or on the paint brush by the hand of the artist. The produced linear forms can be of several types : a straight line which results from an unique force applied in a single direction, an angular line which results from the alternation of two forces with a different direction, or a curved or wave-like line produced by the effect of two forces acting simultaneously. A plane can be obtained by condensation, from a line rotated around one of its ends.

The subjective effect produced by a line depends on its orientation : the horizontal line corresponds to the ground on which man rests and moves, to flatness, it possesses a dark and cold affective tonality similar with black or blue, while the vertical line corresponds to height which offers no support, it possesses on the opposite a luminous and warm tonality close from white and yellow. A diagonal possesses by consequence a more or less warm or cold tonality according to its inclination according to the horizontal and to the vertical.

A force which deploys itself without obstacle as the one which produces a straight line corresponds to lyricism, while several forces which confront or annoy each other form a drama. The angle formed by the angular line possesses as well an inner sonority which is warm and close to yellow for an acute angle (triangle), cold and similar to blue for an obtuse angle (circle) and similar to red for a right angle (square).

The basic plane is in general rectangular or square, thus it is composed of horizontals and verticals lines which delimitate it and define it as an autonomous being which will serve as support to the painting communicating it its affective tonality. This tonality is determined by the relative importance of theses horizontals and verticals lines, the horizontals giving a calm and cold tonality to the basic plane, while the verticals give it a calm and warm tonality. The artist possesses the intuition of this inner effect of the canvas format and dimensions, which he chooses according to the tonality he wants to give to his work. Kandinsky even considers the basic plane as a living being that the artist "fertilizes" and of which he feels the "breathing".

Every part of the basic plane possesses an proper affective coloration which will influence on the tonality of the pictorial elements that will be drawn on it, which contributes to the richness of the composition which results from their juxtaposition on the canvas. The above of the basic plane corresponds to the looseness and to lightness, while the below evokes the condensation and heaviness. This is the work of the painter to listen to know these effects in order to produce paintings which are not just the effect of a random process, but the fruit of an authentic work and the result of an effort toward the inner beauty. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky

It would seem that Kandinsky was interested in a similar kind of abstraction that lead to baisc absolutes that related to the spiritual that Mondrian was interested in. But his thinking is more elaborate and complex. These basic geometrical elements that we associate as having a modern design bent were revolutionary for the time. But perhaps not so revolutionary on a historical scale.

Here is where we come to the issue of the graven image.
There was a division in the church between Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox.
As you will know the Roman Catholic church, what so many of the European cathedrals are, are filled with 'icons', saints have their owns statues and alters for prayer, there are countless cathedrals devoted to Mother Mary and the martyrs, people pray to these saints and light candles for them. This doesnt make any sense to me, why do they not feel the freedom to go straight to the Almighty, he has given us access through the Saviour, he said come to me, come as little children, a child knows nothing of politics and rules and restrictions, they'll run to the throne room with a naivety and the Father will welcome them with open arms.

You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; Exodus 20:4

Well to say they are bowing down and worshipping these statues is a bit extreme, thats not what im saying. But it all does seem a bit unnecessary.

The other extreme is the Eastern Orthodox churches, who dont tolerate any images of any kind, not even that of Christ. Instead their churches are decorate with design like mosaics.
I think there is value in the design like nature of some things, and what kandinsky was getting at. Like for example, the geometrical construction of the rose windows in cathedrals are totally amazing, and the colour, and transparent nature add to the heavenly nature of them. i find it is my inner being that is affected when i see something like this. you can call that inner being your spirit, or life force, or essence, or soul, or whatever you want.

but there is also value in the representational image, the image i think speaks more to the intellect. colour and form are perhaps more unconscience but image is conscience. images have the power to teach and edify. they engage both the mind and the spirit. just because we create an image of Christ doesnt mean we are worshipping the image itself.