Israel pilgrimage, sixth in series

Hello, everyone.

After Mass at the Church of the Transfiguration, we rode down the switchback road on the vans and re-boarded our bus. Then we rode to Capernaum.

Entering the Capernaum area. Note that there are a lot of people. This was true pretty much everywhere.

Capernaum was not an ancient Jewish city at the time, it was one of the ones that had been built up later. It's on the Sea of Galilee ("sea" in the talk of the time included any large lake, apparently) and it's really where Jesus spent a lot of His time teaching and observing.

The dark layer, of the local building stone (basalt) is from the time of Jesus. Later, the local Jewish community had funds and rebuilt their synagogue in marble or limestone which is white. (No information was provided on why they needed to rebuild their stone synagogue building.)

Close up next to the synagogue building were homes of the residents of the town. Here in front are what appear to be parts of a press (juice? olive oil? small size grape?) and possibly some stove parts, with a stone jar. Like the wall bases around them, they're carved from the dark basalt stone.

Looking across the ruins of houses toward St. Peter's house, which is sheltered by this modern church. It looks like the 60's.

It looks like the 60's inside, too. The backless benches let the light come in very well, but they're probably a bit difficult for the older worshipper. Perhaps the space is designed around sitting to view and praise-and-worship services. The carvings on the wall are of various Gospel incidents. Too late, when it was time to leave, I realized that there are also captions below the carvings.

I was disappointed that there was really no information about the ruins of the house, which are intended by the builders to be visible through the glass in the center. Sadly, present-day persons decided that the viewing glass should be obscured by a large pot of ivy. One can see around the edges of the ivy pot and it would have been informative, and possibly even edifying, if there had been information boards--possibly outside--helping the modern day visitor understand the layout of the house and if there was any specifically fishing oriented feature there.

There is so much that we take for granted these days about living that wasn't true back then, and the Gospels were written back then in that environment, assuming that everyone had the same context. We moderns need to recover the context information to understand what was happening sometimes.

This is a crop of the above photo. I didn't make a picture of the altar by itself at the time as I was disappointed in how hard it was to see. It is only today, making this crop that I realized that whoever made the mosaic was apparently a die-hard Pointillist. Images show from a distance that are impossible to make out close up. Images that, with difficulty, I made out in the green up close vanish--there are people and baskets throughout the green--but since there was almost no use of contrast to help the viewer any reference and teaching to be found there is lost. I wonder, are the people and baskets in the green the folks being fed at the miraculous feedings? Are they the people selling fish in the local market?

From a distance, I can make out Jesus in the medium-toned pink, with two-toned pink halo (next to the person's shoulder), and next to Jesus there is a chalice and some loaves. (In the pale-pink squiggle created by darker pink shapes, the chalice and loaves are dark.) These are Eucharistic symbols.

Artists need to remember a few things: (pardon the shouting here) YOU AREN'T GOING TO BE THERE TO EXPLAIN ALL THE COOL THINGS ABOUT YOUR WORK. The words on the page, the paint on the canvas, the tiles in the grout must stand on their own. Tour-de-force technical brilliance isn't the point of art. Communication is. And if you can't get your heart and mind around the purpose of the art--say, you're a passionate atheist considering a commission for church art--you should just do a different project. The artist's true attitude toward his viewer/reader and subject will surely come out and diminish the quality of the art if it (the attitude) is inconsistent with the purpose and placing of the piece.