A building can be a prayer. I live not far from one.
It’s a museum dedicated to art from the Middle Ages, its walls filled with reminders of prayer, its building situated on a hill with views of the Hudson River and the Palisades beyond, just like the monasteries it imitates, places that were meant to encourage a life of prayer. That this spot happens to be in a huge city, with subways and buses rumbling past, cars racing by on the highway, adds to its wonder.
I’m talking about the Cloisters, part of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, now celebrating its 75th year. Come to my neighborhood, Washington Heights, the highest natural point on the island of Manhattan, and see this amazing collection, with its sculpture, paintings, stained-glass windows in a Medieval setting, its arched cloisters rebuilt from ancient stones shipped from the Old World to the New. Each visit reminds me of how the Christian message was translated into visual images that could be communicated to a largely illiterate populace. People were constantly reminded, in vivid art, of God’s story.
Sometimes it’s the little things that catch my eye. Like the sculpture on top of a column in one of the cloisters showing the Nativity: Mary and Joseph, with two donkeys looking down at Jesus in the manger. It’s all familiar, except that in this 15th-century carving, Mary is depicted lying on her side, not sitting up. “What good sense,” I think. She must have been tired after the long trip and giving birth. She certainly deserves a rest.
I love looking at the different animals carved in stone and have learned over the years, thanks to different guides, what they mean in Medieval iconography, God’s story in symbols writ large. For instance the pelican piercing its breast to feed its young is a reminder of Christ’s sacrifice to give us life. The lion on top of a column erases his tracks with his giant tail, a symbol of the incarnation of Christ, God becoming man. The dog warming a knight’s feet in an effigy on a tomb is no doubt a sign of loyalty and faith.
Perhaps my favorite is the painting of the Annunciation, the angel appearing to Mary as she reads by the fire in a comfortable Flemish home. Flying in the window, as Gabriel tells Mary that she will bear a child, comes a small image of a child—the Holy Spirit? Jesus?—carrying a cross. In an adjoining panel, Joseph the carpenter works with his tools. In the window sits a mousetrap. A mousetrap? Yes, indeed, to catch the devil.
Sometimes viewers ask why medieval artists depicted the Biblical characters in contemporary dress and contemporary settings. Didn’t they know what Jesus, Mary and Joseph really looked like at the dawn of the millennium? Certainly not with the comforts of 15th-century clothes and furniture.
No, I think they’re making a bigger point. That these stories show God’s presence in the world now. That at any moment, an angel could fly into the window. Could still do that in our houses today.
Can’t come to my neighborhood any time soon? Here’s a video I made of a visit to the Cloisters. Come see this remarkable place.
Photo credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
