Saint Paul the Apostle Church
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Saint Paul the Apostle Church
Saint Paul the Apostle church is a beautiful Roman Catholic church near Lincoln Center in Manhattan filled with great paintings, statues, and decorations from noted American artists.
According to the church website the church was the fulfillment of the ideals and hopes of Father Isaac Thomas Hecker, “…who dreamed of building a noble basilica that would combine the artistic ideals of the past, with the American genius of his day. After visiting and studying noted European churches, he communicated his ideas to the architect Jeremiah O'Rourke who drew up the plans for the present building. Father George Deshon, one of the original Paulists, and a West Point engineer, later took over as architect-in-charge and brought the church to completion in January 1885. Inspired by the 4th & 5th century early Christian basilicas in Ravenna, Italy, the church is 284 feet long, 121 feet wide, and 114 feet to the highest point of the towers, which are 38 feet square. The grand exterior of the church reflects 13th century Old Gothic. “
Father Hecker called the church “an experiment in democracy in American art.” He engaged eminent American artists such as John LaFarge, students of Augustus Saint-Gaudens such as Bela Pratt, Frederick MacMonnies, Philip Martiny and Charles Keck (contrary to several sources, there is no artwork from Saint-Gaudens in the church), Stanford White, and later, William Laurel Harris to decorate the church with many beautiful stained glass windows, murals, and sculptures.
White, LaFarge, and Harris were instrumental in designing and decorating the church.
Stanford White (1853-1906) designed interior elements of the church between 1887-1890. White was an American architect who designed many houses for the rich, public, institutional, and religious buildings. His design principles embodied the “American Renaissance” according to Wikipédia. His most prominent design is the Washington Square Arch at Washington Square in Manhattan; other Manhattan designs include Madison Square Presbyterian Church, the second Madison Square Garden (demolished in 1925), Judson Memorial Church, and the Century, Metropolitan, Players, Lambs, Colony, and Harmony clubs. He designed Fifth Avenue mansions for Astor, Vanderbilt and other high society families. Designs outside of Manhattan include the old Cabell Hall at the University of Virginia, First Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore, and the Cosmopolitan Building in Irvington New York. White was murdered in 1906 during a theatrical show at Madison Square Garden. He was killed by a millionaire with a history of severe mental instability. The murder trial was dubbed the “Trial of the Century” and was played up by the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst.
John LaFarge (1835-1910) was an American painter, muralist, and stained glass window maker. He was born in New York City. Initially intending to study law, he changed his mind after visiting Paris in 1856. He studied with Thomas Couture. Another of Couture’s students was Edouard Manet. See Couture’s frescoes of the Virgin Mary in my gallery on Saint-Eustache. According to to Wikipedia, LaFarge's earliest drawings and landscapes in Newport, Rhode Island (where he studied with painter William Morris Hunt) show originality, especially in the handling of color values.
His first work in mural painting was in the Trinity Church in Boston in 1873. Aside from Saint Paul the Apostle, his other church works include the large altarpiece at the Church of the Ascension and Saint Paul’s Chapel at Columbia University. He created four great lunettes (a half-moon shaped space) representing the history of law at the Minnesota State Capital and a similar series based on the theme of Justice for the State Supreme Court building in Baltimore, Maryland.
He was a pioneer in the study of Japanese art. “LaFarge made extensive travels in Asia and the South Pacific, which inspired his painting. He visited Japan in 1886, and the South Seas in 1890 and 1891, in particular spending time and absorbing the culture of Tahiti. Henry Adams accompanied him on these trips as a travel companion. He visited Hawaii in September of 1890, where he painted scenic spots on Oahu and traveled to the Island of Hawaii to paint an active volcano. He learned several languages (ancient and modern), and was erudite in literature and art; by his cultured personality and reflective conversation, he influenced many other people. Though naturally a questioner, he venerated the traditions of religious art, and preserved his Catholic faith,” according to Wikipedia. Also from Wikipedia, “LaFarge experimented with color problems, especially in the medium of stained glass. He rivaled the beauty of medieval windows and added new resources by inventing opalescent glass and by his original methods of superimposing and welding his materials.”
LaFarge received the Cross of the Legion of Honor from the French Government.
At Saint Paul, William Laurel Harris (1870-1924) painted murals and designed decorative elements, continuing the work of LaFarge. He was born in Brooklyn. As a boy, he was befriended by Thomas Wilmer Dewing and Augustus and Augusta Saint-Gaudens. He studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Academie Julian in Paris. He started working at Saint Paul in the 1880s taking over from LaFarge. He worked the project from 1898 until 1913 when he was fired by the Paulists, possibly resulting from a personal dispute.
Today, the church is active in working with artists, sponsoring art exhibits at the church, providing networking opportunities, and fostering dialog in the artistic community. Openings NY, a project of the Paulist Fathers for artists, has regular exhibits (generally at the church) exploring broad spiritual themes. A recent exhibit explored the elusive mystery of spirit, body, and soul through a variety of visual media, including photography, painting, drawing, mixed media, and sculpture while another featured the work of Iraqi refugees. Frank Sabatté is the director of Openings NY. Frank is an artist and Paulist father and his work is presented on his website. Frank kindly provided me with detailed information on the church that I have used in this gallery.
![Madonna of Bruges Replica with Saint Patrick Alter in the Background
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See the previous photo for a discussion of the Saint Patrick Altar.
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This is a bronze replica of the Madonna of Bruges sculpture by Michelangelo (1504). The original marble stature is in the Church of Our Lady in Bruges, Belgium. From <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_of_Bruges">Wikipedia:</a>
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"The Madonna of Bruges is a marble sculpture by Michelangelo of Mary with the infant Jesus.
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Michelangelo's depiction of the Madonna and Child differs significantly from earlier representations of the same subject, which tended to feature a pious Virgin smiling down on an infant held in her arms. Instead, Jesus stands upright, almost unsupported, only loosely restrained by Mary's left hand, and appears to be about to step away from his mother and into the world. Meanwhile, Mary does not cling to her son or even look at him, but gazes down and away, as if she knows already what is to be her son's fate. It is believed the work was originally intended for an altar piece. If this is so, then it would have been displayed facing slightly to the right and looking down.
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Madonna and Child shares certain similarities with Michelangelo's Pietà, which was completed shortly before, mainly, the chiaroscuro pattern and the movement of the drapery. The long, oval face of Mary is also reminiscent of the Pietà.
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The work is also notable in that it was the only sculpture by Michelangelo to leave Italy during his lifetime. It was bought by Giovanni and Alessandro Moscheroni (Mouscron), from a family of wealthy cloth merchants in Bruges, then one of the leading commercial cities in Europe. The sculpture was sold for 4,000 florin.
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The sculpture was removed twice from Belgium after its initial arrival. The first was in 1794, after French Revolutionaries had conquered the Austrian Netherlands; the citizens of Bruges were ordered to ship it and several other valuable works of art to Paris. It was returned after Napoleon's defeat. The second removal was in 1944 with the retreat of German soldiers, who smuggled the sculpture to Germany enveloped in mattresses in a Red Cross lorry. It was found two years later and again returned. It now sits in the Church of Our Lady in Bruges, Belgium. After the attack on Michelangelo's Pietà in 1972 the sculpture was placed behind bulletproof glass, and the public can only view it from 15 feet away."
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A pdf file from <a href="http://www.michelangelosmadonna.com/bruges/history_provenance.pdf">Peter Hastings Falk</a> tells the story of how Saint Paul the Apostle Church acquired a replica of the statue:
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“The replica in the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York was likely cast in 1889, eighteen years before that in Edinburgh. This replica was the gift of Cecilia E. Smith Wentworth [1853-1933], an artist who was born in New York City to a Catholic family, attended the Sacred Heart Convent, but spent the rest of her life as an expatriate portrait painter living in Paris. She was so moved by the original masterpiece that she took up the single-minded cause of having a replica cast and brought to America. In 1889, she recruited James G. Blaine (Secretary of State from 1889 to 1892 under Benjamin Harrison) to champion her plea to the Belgian government to pressure the church to allow a mold to be taken so that she may donate a bronze replica to the newly-erected Church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York. Blaine succeeded in fulfilling Wentworth’s wishes, and she contracted the Parisian foundry, Gruet, to produce a cast. She presented her gift to the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York in 1890. Father Joseph McSorley, the Paulist Superior General [1924-1929], wrote that “the only other replica is in France” but did not cite its location. It is likely that the second replica was cast by Gruet as part of the commission agreement and retained in Paris, but its whereabouts remains unknown. Ultimately, owing to two world wars, this second Gruet cast may well have been a victim of the common practice of melting down sculptures for military purposes.
Initially, St. Paul’s parishioners expressed their discomfort with the depiction of a naked Christ Child and suggested placing a diaper about His waist. However, by the turn of the century the sculpture was universally admired. In the 1920s, Father McSorley wrote of the sculpture: “In its suggestion of divine untroubled strength, it is a fit embellishment for the fortress-like Church in which it stands” — a sentiment passed on years later in the writing of Superior General Father Henry Ignatius Stark [1940- 1946]. Today, the hands, feet, and knees of both Christ and Mary in this replica are heavily worn and shiny owing to 120 years of devotional kissing and rubbing.”](https://photos.smugmug.com/HousesofWorship/United-States/Saint-Paul/i-pm4RTnP/0/1fe3959f/Ti/Saint-Paul-Apsotle-statue-Ti.jpg)
