The Crucifixion

Posted on April 22, 2011 by gravelyspeaking

All Souls Cemetery, Holy Innocents Catholic Church, Pleasantville, New York

The crucifixion is the most important symbol in Christianity, ususally found in Catholic cemeteries.

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Symbols of the Passion of Christ

Posted on April 21, 2011 by gravelyspeaking

Calvary Cemetery, Nashville, Tennessee

Many, perhaps, most of the symbols found in our cemeteries are religious.  The motif above displays three nails encircled by a Crown of Thorns.  The Crown of Thorns depict the crown that Jesus Christ wore as He was mocked as a king which is described in Chapter 19, King James Version.
 
Verse 1, “Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him.”
Verse 2, “And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe.” 
Verse 3, “And said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote him with their hands.”
 
The nails in the middle of the crown are associated with the Crucifixion of Christ.  The scriptures are not explicit about the details of the crucifixion. 
 
Chapter 19, King James Version
Verse 15, “But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him.  Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King?  The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.”
Verse 16, “Then delivered him therefore unto them to be crucified.  And they took Jesus, and led him away.”
Verse 17, “And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgo-tha.”
Verse 18, “Where they crucified him, and two others with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.”
Verse 19, “And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross.  And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS.”
 
While some believe that Christ was crucified with four nails, one in each hand and one in each foot.  Other Christians believe that He was nailed to the cross with three nails, one through each palm and one through both of His feet.  This is called triclavianism which translates to “Three Keys”.  Most likely the significance of three nails is also associated with the Trinity–the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.  These two symbols together represent the Passion of Christ and His willingness to suffer and die.  However, some Christians view the nail, the instrument of Christ’s death, as a symbol of the Devil.
 
The three nails as a symbol existed before Christ and is also associated with a solar god. 
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Fast Mail

Posted on April 18, 2011 by gravelyspeaking

Rose Hill Cemetery, Chicago

GEORGE S. BANGS

Died November 17, 1877

Aged 51 Years  8 months 27 days

His crowning effort The Fast  Mail

Some people want to be remembered for who they are, some for what they did.  This “treestump gravestone”, so called because it looks like a treestump is the monument of George S. Bangs.  If you look closely you can see a rail car entering into a tunnel at the base of the treestump.  On the side of the rail car were the words, “UNITED STATES RAILWAY POST OFFICE.”

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Lamb

Posted on April 17, 2011 by gravelyspeaking

 

Greenwood Cemetery, Phoenix, Arizona

Greenwood Cemetery, Phoenix, Arizona

The lamb is the symbol of the Lord, the Good Shepherd.  It also represents innocence, likely the reason why this motif usually adorns the tombstones of infants and young children.  Most often the lamb is lying down, often asleep and sometimes with a cross behind the lamb.

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Eternal Silence

Posted on April 17, 2011 by gravelyspeaking

Eternal Silence, The Dexter Graves Monument, Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

Lorado Taft was one of the premier sculptors of his day.  He was a widely published scholar on the topic and his work was highly sought after.  He was commissioned to produce many public works including the The Soldier’s Monument in Oregon, Illinois, The Solitude of the Soul Scupture at the Art Institute of Chicago, and The Fountain of Time in Chicago.

Taft was commissioned in 1909 by Henry Graves, of Chicago, to create a monument for his father, Dexter Graves.  The Graves family had long been in America, their first ancestor, Thomas Graves, crossed the Atlantic and settled in Connecticut in 1645.  Dexter Graves [1789-1844] himself was a pioneer and was one of the earliest settlers in Chicago who, according to the inscription on the back of the monument, “brought the first colony to Chicago, consisting of 13 families, arriving here July 15, 1831 from Ashtabula, Ohio, on the schooner Telegraph.”

The bronze figure that Taft created is named Eternal Silence, an obvious metaphor for death.  The forboding cloaked figure stands against solid black granite–black being the traditonal color representing mourning and death.  The figure has his eyes closed and gathers the shroud to his lips preventing him from speaking. 

The bronze has an eerie feel to it, in part, because of the way the patina has formed on the statue.  The shroud has a greenish blue unnatural color.  Except for a highlight on the nose, most of the face has remained dark and recedes from the hood, making it appear more menacing and mysterious. 

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Lightning Strike

Posted on April 16, 2011 by gravelyspeaking

Green Hill Cemetery, Bedford, Indiana

Louis J. Baker, August 3, 1894, August 29, 1917
 
Indiana has a large number of quarries throughout the state because some of the richest limestone deposits in the country are found in this region.  Indiana limestone has been used in many significant buildings in the United States, including Empire State Building and the Pentagon.  Thousands of craftsmen were needed to cut, quarry, and carve the limestone.  One such apprentice carver was well-liked Louis J. Baker, a young 23-year old who lived in Bedford, Indiana.  On the fateful night of his death, he was walking home during a thunder and lightning storm when he was struck by a fiery lightning bolt and killed.
 
The men with whom he worked busied themselves to pay tribute to their young and popular colleague by replicating his workbench exactly as it had been the day he left it when the quitting whistle blew.  As described in Wobblies, Pile Butts, and Other Heroes: Laborlore Explorations by Archie Green, page 357, “His fellow carvers made an exact replica of his workbench, or “banker” as stone carvers call it.  On the banker is the piece of architectural stone, unfinished, exactly as he left it….Atop this stone appear his tools; a mallet, a hammer, a pitching tool, chisels, a square, a head of a broom, and his apron.  The fidelity of this work is amazing; the wood grain of the bench is clearly shown as are the bent-over nails holding the bench together and the straw in the broom.”
 
Here was a sincere outpouring of love for one of their fellow stone carvers.  They carved a fitting and poignant monument to one of their own, far more moving than most.
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Door Number One

Posted on April 6, 2011 by gravelyspeaking

James Irving Holcomb Mausoleum, Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis

When I was a kid there was a game show on telelvision called Let’s Make a Deal hosted by Monte Hall.  The game revolved around the contestants wagering that the prize they had in their hand was not as good as one of the prizes behind door number one, two, or three.  The great mystery was what was behind the door. 

In the same way, the door as a motif in funerary art symbolizes mystery.  The door is the pathway from the earthly realm to the next.  In Christianity, however, this is almost always viewed with hope, charity, and faith.  The next life will be better.

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G.A.R.

Posted on April 5, 2011 by gravelyspeaking

Civil War Monument, Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Hanover, Pennsylvania

No other event in the 19th Century had a larger affect on America than the Civil War.  It tore the country apart and involved people from every corner before it was over.  Over a million people were wounded and killed–625,000 from the North and over 400,000 from the South. 

After the war, The Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R), a veteran’s organization, was founded April 6, 1866, in Decatur, Illinois.  The organization admitted veteran’s who served honorably in the Union Army, Navy, or Marines between April 12, 1861, and April 9, 1865.

Various metal grave markers can be found throughout American cemeteries marking the graves of the men and women who served during the war.  These take many forms.

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Egyptian Revival, Part 3

Posted on April 3, 2011 by gravelyspeaking

During the rural cemetery movement designers created park-like cemeteries.  The first such cemetery was Mt. Auburn, which opened in 1831, at Cambridge, Massachussetts.  The ideal was to fuse the utility of having a place to bury the dead but design the cemeteries so they were pleasing to the eye with an open park design.  Funerary art and architecture was designed to illicit emotions, such as the finality of death and the Christian ideal of eternity.

The Tate Mausoleum in the Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri, is an example of the Egyptian Revival architecture found in many large urban cemeteries.  The mausoleum has many features of Egyptian temples–the cavetto cornice that curves into a half circle at the top of the tomb and above the doorway, the torus molding at the bottom of the cornice, around the door, and the corners of the mausoleum that are designed to emulate long bundled plants, and the heavy columns with the palm leaves at the top. 

The Tate Tomb also features two winged globes with uroei.  In this example, there are three sets of falcon wings that are a symbol of the king, the sun, and the sky.  The globe represents the Egyptian god, Horus.  The uroei, snakes, are waiting to strike.  They symbolize the king’s ability to ward off evil spirits. 

Three steps lead up to a pair of bronze doors that feature lotus flowers and buds, the entryway guarded by two large sphinxes.  The massive tomb gives one the sense of solominity and a sense of eternity, just as the temples of the pharaohs.

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Egyptian Revival, Part 2

Posted on April 2, 2011 by gravelyspeaking

The Schoenhofen Mausoleum in the Graceland Cemetery at Chicago, Illinois, is another grand example of Egyptian Revival Funeary Architecture.  The Egyptian and Christian symbolism share an uncomfortable coexistence.  The mausoleum displays images of the ancient pharaonic religion including the sphinx, the scarab, and the uroei.  Many Christians objected to Egyptian motifs and their non-Christian origins.  To soften the impact, designers often included Christian symbolism.  In this case an angel looks up toward Heaven opposite the spinx standing guard by the doorway.

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