St. Catherine’s Church in Lübeck is no longer a church, which has provided a different dynamic in terms of the visitors, they are there now to see a museum. These wall paintings were made in the fifteenth century for a very specific kind of looking, the distracted, devotional gaze of people kneeling in prayer, or walking through during services, or simply existing in a space that was meant to remind them of their faith. St. Jacob the Elder was painted at monumental scale, surrounded by scenes from his life, the Virgin Mary and Child positioned where they would draw the eye during worship. The paintings were functional and told a religious message.
Now they hang, mostly fragmentary, revealed during restoration but still incomplete. Instead of being part of the furniture of devotion, they’ve become art objects and things that I can take photos of without worrying about interrupting anyone’s private prayer. Maybe there’s something a little sub-optimal about the arrangement now as the paintings were made to be part of a living, functioning space. They were meant to compete for attention with real people and with a real purpose.
In my attempt to find meaning in everything, including things where there likely isn’t much meaning to be had, this evolution of important messaging to a rather pretty piece of history is rather appealing to me even if I can’t really work out much of the faded image.