Europe Euphoria

In the past, various religious places like churches, chapels and cathedrals were beautified with stained glass windows, new altars and various decorations. Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel or Piero della Francesca’s frescoes in Arezzo are the finest examples. But slowly the decorations of these religious places stopped as, with time, they seize to be the most appropriate settings for the modern art. With a wave of contemporary art installations that unveiled in these religious places all across Europe, it seems that European artists are returning to these religious places. A Spanish artist Miguel Barcelo and the eclectic German painter Gerhard Richter are among the famous artists of the present era. Last year, Barcelo completed a ceramic panorama for the St. Pere Chapel in the Gothic cathedral in Palma, Majorca. Gerhard Richter has created a dazzling stained-glass window for the Cologne Cathedral in Germany, which is scheduled to open on August 25. The Portuguese painter Pedro Calapez is working for the interior of the new church of the Most Holy Trinity in Fatima, Portugal. The Church was designed by the Greek architect Alexandros N. Tombazis and is scheduled to open on Oct. 13. Reina Sophia Museum in Madrid, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and other major art institutions show the great work of Miguel Barcelo. Mr. Richter undertook the task of designing the replacement of the stained glass windows that were lost during the bombings at World War II. He made the window for the Cologne Cathedral. The window is made up of 11,500 small hand-blown squares tinted in 72 different colors. There are many other churches in Britain where there is an abundant amount of art – recently or soon to be installed. Whether these new installations herald a renaissance in religious art or not, these religious places are attracting a new group of people who are now considering these places as a wellspring of innovative contemporary art.