Poem: Ora Pro Nobis

This is my first published work - that is to say, my first written piece to appear in a publication (Word Fountain, The Literary Magazine of the Osterhout Free Library, Winter 2017 issue.) I have previously had the tremendous honor of having my work appear on the buses of the Luzerne County Transit Authority as part of the Wilkes University / LCTA Poetry in Transit series, and I have of course published numerous pieces online on my own blog, Another Monkey. But this is the first time my work was submitted, selected, and published in a physical magazine that people could hold in their hands! Copies are limited but will be available at the Osterhout Library in Wilkes-Barre, PA. The entire contents of the magazine will be made available online at some point.

Ora Pro Nobis
Harold Jenkins

Between the worn wooden pews
parishioners in a double row
approach the priest to take Communion
rocking with each step

Fewer every year
thinner, fatter, grayer, balder
fewer baptisms, more funerals

No more bazaars to mark the end of summer
with Polkas and bingo and beer
No more ancient pipe organ playing the hymns
sung in the tongue of the people who built this place

Storybook saints line the walls
silent in their stained-glass windows

A dragon hides behind the robes of a Pope
looks warily at the armored figure in the next window over
Does he wonder what fate awaits him
when the pews are empty and the organ falls silent?

He does not. He is colored glass and paint.
It does not matter to him
if in a few years he is a storybook window in a church far away
or shards of colored glass in the rubble
of a church that used to be.

Other churches, other windows: Holy Trinity from another angle

After my weekly meeting with my writing group, one of the other members stopped me and told me she had just been discussing my Stained Glass Project with someone else the previous night. I haven't really updated this project in several years. I did a presentation about it earlier this year, and I've done a few posts referencing the project, but I'm still three or four windows away from completing the project.

A few hours later I found myself in church with a camera in my pocket. It wasn't my "home" church, formerly St. Mary's, now the Alternate Worship Site for the Parish of St. Faustina. No, this was at the former Holy Trinity, now the Primary Worship Site for the Parish of St. Faustina. I've taken pictures there before, but from another angle, and since I had some time to kill, I decided to snap a few photos before mass began.

My first shot was just a standard image taken without a flash, balancing the camera on the back of the pew in front of me for stability.

Immediately I saw that any photos like this would be over-exposed. So I had to take another approach, and snap away in Sports mode. The faster shutter speed would reduce detail, but would reduce the amount of light pouring onto the CCD - and also make it possible to take the photos freehand.

Here's another view of the same window, which was determined by an anonymous commenter on a previous post to be a depiction of St. Vincent de Paul.

I continued to take pictures right up until things were ready to begin.

A window depicting St. Stanislaus Kostka. Compare to this wimdow from St. Mary's.

A window depicting...I have no idea. Whatever it is has dead, dead eyes.

OH NO DON'T BLINK WHATEVER YOU DO

Here's an image of St. Peter seen in context. I've previously displayed a close-up photo of this window. Holy Trinity was originally intended to become a cathedral, can you tell? It's always been an overwhelmingly ornate and magnificent place, a stark contrast to the relative simplicity of the now-closed St. Stanislaus, which was the first Catholic church in Nanticoke. Trinity was the second, formed by parish members who left St. Stanislaus in a dispute. The entire church seems to be a statement about grandeur and opulence. Recent renovations have toned down this effect somewhat, in part by adopting a dimmer paint scheme.

Two views of the window immediately to my right, looking up.

I don't really have an emotional connection with this church. It wasn't a major part of my childhood, not like St. Mary's and St. Stan's, and I don't have many special memories from it. But other people do. Almost everybody has a camera these days. There is nothing to prevent someone for whom these windows have some special meaning from taking a camera - possibly a better camera than my 4 megapixel Nikon Coolpix L4 - and snapping photos of their own. This goes for every church, everywhere, and every other public and private space worth preserving.

What has meaning to you? What has special memories? Do you own a camera? If so, why aren't you capturing it now, before it passes into history?

Against the Dying of the Light

Here are the images from my Pecha Kucha presentation, "Against the Dying of the Light: Stained Glass Windows and the Passing of an Old World."  The text is what I plotted out ahead of time, but is not exactly what I said, though I tried to touch on the major points in the twenty seconds allowed for each slide.

I live in Nanticoke, about 25 miles southwest of Scranton. It's a small city that was once a coal mining town settled by immigrants, many (but not all) of them Polish. It's a city full of churches, many (but not all) of them Roman Catholic. (The church in the foreground is – was – St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church, and had been closed for several years when I took this picture in 2008.)

St. Francis Church was one of the older parishes with one of the newer structures. Unfortunately, a leaking roof resulted in structural damage which, according to independent estimates, could have been repaired for a fraction of the amount quoted by the Diocese of Scranton. But at the time the damage was discovered, parish consolidation plans were already in the works. And so the order came down from the bishop's office: the parish was to consolidate with nearby St. Joseph's, and the church would be closed and demolished.

The heartbreaking thought of a place that had been a religious, cultural, and social landmark for so many people in Nanticoke being condemned to demolition threw the coming diocese-wide parish consolidation plans into a stark light. How many more beloved places would be closed, shuttered, and eventually reduced to rubble?

My home parish is St. Mary's, formally known as Our Lady of Czestachowa. It's a small and humble church, set atop the highest point in the city. The structure has stood since the first years of the twentieth century, and generations have been baptized, married, and mourned within its walls. I served as an altar boy there from first grade through high school. From my earliest days I was fascinated with the stained glass windows of the church. If this building were to close, the sight of those windows would be gone forever. Could anyone do anything to preserve them?

I had thought about this for a while when one Saturday I found myself sitting in a pew in the church, waiting for my cousin to arrive for her wedding. I thought, what heck, why not? Why wait for someone else to professionally photograph these windows, when I can get started on it right now? And so I snapped this first image of the portraits of St. Francis of Sales and St. James with the mid-day October sun shining through the window.

I soon found more opportunities to gather photos, before Mass, after Mass, and once when the church was left open for people to come and offer prayers regarding the coming consolidation. When I arrived that day, camera and tripod in hand, I discovered that I had the church to myself. After saying a few prayers, I decided to do my praying with a camera, and set about the task of photographing the windows in the empty church, lit by the early-afternoon sun.

White sunlight strikes the windows from the outside and is filtered by the colored and painted glass, painting the interior of the church in the colors of the windows. These windows are over a century old and have stood the test of time, though paint has flaked off in places, grime has built up in others, and in at least one case a well-placed shot from a BB gun has resulted in a hole in one of the uppermost reaches of the windows, a hole that has been patched for decades.

The windows are pieces of history, and testaments to the history of the parish. Each one was financed and donated by a specific individual or group. All of the Ladies of the Rosary who collected funds to pay for their window are long since deceased; and even the children of St. Mary's who collected pennies and nickels and dimes to finance their window have grown old, died, and been buried for decades.

Each window is unique. Each piece of glass is different, an inhomogeneous blend of colors and opacities. These striations exist in three dimensions, not just two, so what you see depends entirely on the path that light takes from its source to the observer. Each window will look different depending on the time of day, the day of the year, the weather outside, the lighting inside, and the angle at which the viewer is looking at the window. 

And so the windows have become part of the churchgoing experience. Seeing the windows at sunrise is completely different from seeing them at sunset, and both are completely different from seeing them at night, when no light is coming from the outside and they are lit entirely by reflected light. Yet all those experiences, all that beauty, all the uniqueness yet to be experiences could be snuffed out with a decision from the diocese.

This is the first pair of portrait windows as you enter the church. The figures are each about five feet tall. At the bottom of each window are the donor plaques. (This pair was presented by the architects who designed the church.) Above that is a uniquely-colored panel that opens for ventilation. Above that, more decorations, then identifiers for the subjects in the windows, then the portrait windows themselves, then more vents (accessed by chains), a pair of decorative arches, and finally a small round window.

Looking more closely at the figures, we see St. Leo, formerly known as Pope Leo I, a fifth-century pope who holds a three-barred crosier actually dates from the Middle Ages - as does the plate armor worn by his neighbor, St. George, who was a figure from the third century. Most of what is “known” about St. George is legendary and likely apocryphal, including the story of his battle with a dragon – which apparently has escaped into St. Leo's portrait and is literally hiding behind his skirts.

Each pair of windows is topped with a round window, about ten inches across and about twenty feet off the ground, featuring an image and in most cases some text. The size and placement of these windows makes them nearly impossible to see clearly without visual aid from anywhere but the choir loft. The images do not seem to have a consistent theme, nor, for the most part, do they appear to be related to the portraits below. Some of these images have fared badly over the years, with some of the lettering flaking off and becoming unreadable.

Windows as old as the church, windows that have cast their light down on generations of parishioners. Ancient names preserved for posterity. Unique and ever-changing plays of light. Works of art perhaps beyond the skills of modern craftsmen. All this could be lost with a single decree. There are many things in this world that we take for granted that are passing away forever. If we have the power to preserve these things for future generations, do we not also have an obligation? Anyone with a camera can do the same thing I did. Anyone with a blog can share their images with the world.

When I first began posting my stained glass images to my blog, Another Monkey, a tattoo artist friend suggested that I should consider commemorating these windows with a tattoo. If I were to get one, it might be this one, of a smug-looking St. Michael the Archangel with the Devil under his feet. But then I thought about it: this window has been around for over a century. Any tattoo I might get would last another forty or fifty years. How transient a tribute to something that has been around for so long!

St. Mary's was not the only church in Nanticoke facing consolidation and closure. St. Stanislaus was one of the oldest churches in Nanticoke, and the first of three Parishes that were ethnically Polish. In the 1990's it underwent major renovations and became a bright, airy place, with modern stained-glass windows that admitted copious amounts of light. This photograph was taken on June 6, 2010, after the final Mass held there.  St. Stanislaus is now closed.

Holy Family Church was once the chapel for the St. Stanislaus Orphanage. It was a small but remarkably comfortable and airy place, with this rose window featuring images of the four Evangelists casting its light from behind the altar. This image was taken after the final Mass there, on June 20, 2010. Holy Family is now closed.

Holy Trinity was formed in the late 19th century by parishioners who broke away from St. Stanislaus. It is an enormous, opulent, ornate church. This stunning window is set above the main entrance to the church and faces East, and glows so much thatthe glass might be heavily doped with uranium. Holy Trinity no longer exists as a parish, but the building lives on as the primary worship site for Nanticoke Catholics, rechristened St. Faustina Kowalska parish.

We may be helpless to stop the passing of the old world, but we can at least create a record of its existence to share with future generations – if only to say “This is what you missed. We had it and we let it go away. Sorry about that.” But the time to do that is now, before these places are closed, and demolished, and turned to piles of rubble. 

And what of St. Mary's? What of the church that I grew up in, where I served as an altar boy? What of the windows that have looked down on generations of parishioners like glowing illustrations from a book?

St. Mary's no longer exists as a parish, but the building lives on as the Alternate Worship Site for the Parish of St. Faustina Kowalska. Its continued existence is not assured; very soon the diocese will assess whether a secondary site is necessary at all, and depending on that assessment, the building itself may be closed for good, and the sight of these stained glass windows may be forever denied to future generations – as has happened at the parishes of St. Francis, St. Stanislaus, St. Joseph, and Holy Family. For now, if you wish, you could still see these windows with your own eyes. In the future, perhaps all that will be left will be photographs and memories.

The Stained Glass Project: The cowardly dragon

As a kid I always loved dinosaurs, monsters, dragons, all that stuff. That's something that didn't wear off as I got older.

Going to church at Our Lady of Czestochowa in Nanticoke was something like being inside of a storybook, with the figures on the stained-glass windows like huge, illuminated illustrations. One of my favorites has always been the rearmost pair of windows on the left side of the church, featuring St. Leo and St. George.

Now, everyone knows who St. George is: knight in shining armor, patron saint of England, fought a dragon. (In reality almost nothing is known about him for certain, but that's myth-making for you!) And it's obvious St. Leo is someone important, and from his pointy hat and walking stick he's probably a bishop. (Actually, the crozier he's holding is one that would be carried by the Pope at a specific time in history; he is in fact Pope Leo, as explained here.)

(...hmmm. Seems that what I'm saying right now isn't a sudden realization, but actually a thought I considered and discarded years ago. Anyhow...)

So, bottom line: there's no real reason for there to be a dragon in the window with St. Leo. He wasn't associated with one, or with anything resembling one, especially one that would be literally hiding behind his skirts. But St. George was. And he killed it, with the spear he's holding, which is noticeably free of dragon gore. So now I have decided, after all these years, that this pair of windows is truly a pair of windows, and the dragon hiding behind St. Leo is actually hiding from St. George!

This wouldn't be the only visual joke in these windows. I believe the rector of the church at the time of its construction, the man responsible for building the church and having the windows installed, is also depicted in another window purportedly of his namesake saint.

The Stained Glass Project: "When will you publish that book?"

I was walking out of church this past Saturday, helping my mom down the steps, when a woman I didn't recognize said hello to her and then said to me, "So, when will you be publishing that book?"

The book she was referring to would be the collection of photos of the stained glass windows of the church we were walking out of - formerly Our Lady of Czestochowa, or more simply "St. Mary's," but now officially the Secondary Site for St. Faustina Parish.

It's been a long time since I started this project back in October of 2008 - and almost as long since I did the last real entry in the project in March 2009. In reality, this is the first photo of the project, taken October 4, 2008 as I waited for my cousin's wedding to begin:

Since then I think I've covered eight of the twelve pairs of windows, so the project is two-thirds done. I've also done posts on the stained glass windows in other churches in Nanticoke, some of which are now closed. The project was covered in an excellent newspaper article (in the Wilkes-Barre Citizens' Voice, written by Erin Moody) almost as soon as it was started, a full-page article that included several of my photos on half of the page.

If I had the resources I would do this properly, using a rig mounted in front of each window that could be used to photograph a small section of each window at a time - perhaps a square region as wide as each individual window, using a field flattener to avoid the unfortunate distortions that came from using a cheap little snapshot camera at ground level. I would want to take multiple images under different light conditions, too. A stained glass window is really a three-dimensional object, with striations of color and gradations of opacity inside the window itself that cause the image to change depending on the light intensity and the angle of incidence on the glass, presenting a different aspect of the window from minute to minute and day to day.

For now I will continue to work with the images I already have, most of which were taken in October of 2008. As for the book - well, I really have no plans for a paper book. (Though, believe me, I have thought of it: a book, a calendar, a coloring book for kids...)  Such a thing might be very beautiful, if done properly, but might also be prohibitively expensive. When I have completed all the entries on these twelve windows, I will create a single post indexing them all and let people know about that. But a book? Maybe someday. Just not right now.

Coming soon: The return of The Stained Glass Project!

It's been over a year since my first preview post in what would become The Stained Glass Project. And it's been over six months since my most recent post in this series. I only have a few windows to go. I think it's about time I wrap this up!

In my defense, I've been busy for the last few months, very busy. But things may be slowing down to a more normal pace, and I am going to try to catch up with many of the things I've had to postpone.

But that's not the only reason I've been delaying the completion of this project.

See, I had a weird sense of foreboding that when I finally had this project completely in the can, something more than the project would be ending. Things in this Diocese were heading in a very bad, very wrong direction, and once I had put the finishing touches on the final post, I was thinking that maybe it would be time to bring my relationship with the Diocese to - well, if not an end, at least an indefinite hiatus. Until and unless things changed.

Things changed.

So now that burden is lifted. I no longer foresee any major changes coming with the completion of this project. I am once again looking forward to finally bringing it to an end.

Unfortunately, the beginning of the end will have to wait a bit. I have one last day of regularly scheduled work tonight, and then I'm near the top of the overtime list for Thursday and Friday nights. After that I may be back to a string of four days on / four days off for a while. Here's hoping some of those days off will provide good photography opportunities!

Other Churches, Other Windows: St. Stanislaus

For the past two Sundays I have attended Mass at St. Stanislaus Church in Nanticoke instead of my home parish of St. Mary's. This has been partly for the sake of expediency: St. Stan's offered the earliest Masses each Sunday at 8:00 in the morning, meaning a down-time of only an hour or so between my arrival in Nanticoke after work and the start of Mass. As I would be sore and tired from having just put in a twelve-hour shift of running around trying to convince multiple DVD manufacturing systems to continue working through the night, I would be looking for a parking place near the front entrance of the church. My early arrival would help ensure that that happened.


I have some history with this church. As a child, my grade school education was split between St. Mary's and St. Stan's, with kindergarten and the odd-numbered grades in St. Mary's and the even-numbered grades in St. Stan's. This arrangement was terminated sometime before my sixth grade as all classes were consolidated into St. Mary's. But during second and fourth grade St. Stan's was the church I attended for school-day Masses.

I remember it as a dark and imposing church, sulfurous-smelling and not very pleasant. About fifteen years ago there was a major renovation done to the church which included the replacement of all of the stained-glass windows with ones of a more modern design from local stained-glass window maker Baut Studios. (A friend who was working at the church at the time of the renovation does not know what became of the old windows.)

Unfortunately, St. Stan's is one of the Roman Catholic Churches in Nanticoke scheduled for closure after consolidation, and all this work will have been for nothing.

It was not the windows that caught my attention as I sat in the pew last week, exhausted and sore, waiting for Palm Sunday services to begin. Frankly, I don't like the modern windows very much, though I will allow you to judge for yourself. The thing that caught my eye was much more mundane, but had tied up with it a cultural and historical element of Nanticoke.


It was, as faithful readers ...tom... and Hedera noted in the comments for an earlier post, a hat hook - a spring-loaded clip mounted to the back of the pew in front of you that allowed gentlemen to hang their hats by their brims back in the days before John F. Kennedy's example set made going hatless stylish and standard. These hooks are ornate and appear to be lacquered brass; the ones at St. Mary's resemble eyeless, earless, tuskless elephant heads and are made of metal with a dark, glossy finish. In the decades since hats went out of fashion, these hooks have been used to hold missalettes (back when these books were issued monthly and were relatively thin), bulletins, announcements, or special collection envelopes.

The interesting thing about these hooks was the sponsor tag, a little plaque about one inch across affixed to each hook with what appear to be grommets.


These were most likely mass-produced items, relatively inexpensive to manufacture. The creation and addition of the sponsor plaque probably doubled (at least) the cost of each hook.

These hooks have outlived their sponsors. Gem Furniture, the sponsor of the first hook shown, was one of at least three furniture stores in Nanticoke, the others being Bartuska's and Noble Furniture. Gem Furniture closed about fifteen years ago. The Adam Olszewski Bakery was located across the street from what is now Nanticoke's Municipal Building, which would place it less than half a block from Sanitary Bakery. The Gem Furniture building now houses a Credit Union, a WIC office, and the offices of Representative John Yudichak. The Olszewski Bakery now houses a beauty salon.

Upon inspecting the second photo I could almost make out a line of text directly below the top mounting screw. But what did it say?


Some manipulation and enhancement later, and I was able to tease out two of the words - and surmise the rest:


The first word appears to be "OTHER", and the last, "PENDING." Now, what sort of things usually come in a group, and are often pending? I could only think of one obvious candidate: patents. So the middle word, I believe, it the abbreviation for "patents": "PAT'S" - with an exaggerated space between the "T" and the "S" to make room for the mounting screw.

Other items of historical interest populate this church. This rostrum, or lectern, or whatever it is, features ornately carved wooden images on all sides.


It was once nearly twice as tall and featured a set of steps the lector would ascend, where they would tower over the congregation while reading the Word of God. The recent renovation cut the lectern down to ground level, eliminating the possibility of seeing someone solemnly tumble down the steps - as I am sure has happened more than once in the church's history. As with the old windows, I have no idea what became of the base of the rostrum.


One other item of note is this image of the Last Supper, which I believe is a bas-relief - it certainly appears to be three-dimensional. It is located under the back altar and would be obscured from view by the front altar from all but the front few pews. (It is visible in the second photo in this post as a white rectangular patch in the lower center portion of the image, below the painting of St. Stanislaus and the small, flag-bearing statue of Jesus.)



As I have noted above, the new windows are of a modern style, featuring a much clearer glass where each pane is a single, uniform color. The windows also have an abundance of clear panes, providing plenty of light into the church.


The windows face East and West, meaning that except for the hours after sunrise and before sunset the sun is generally not going to be shining directly through them. The alignment of the windows is such that at 8:00 in the morning this past Easter Sunday, a sunbeam was aimed directly at the main altar - specifically, directly at the head and face and eyes of Father Nash, who was conducting the service. Above we see sunlight falling on the statue of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who stands between statues of Jesus and St. Anthony of Padua.


In this photo, exposure time has been adjusted to capture the sharp and distinct colors being transmitted by the windows. Modern stained-glass windows have some virtues, I suppose.


A view of the Eastern windows as Easter services let out. Despite its relatively small size, St. Stanislaus looks quite imposingly large in this view. Note the ornate hanging light at the top right center.


A close-up view of the center window in the previous image. The window contains the opening lines of the Apostles' Creed: "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth".


This image dominates the central portion of the church ceiling. It is fairly enormous - how large, I cannot say, but I will guess at least twenty feet from the top of the image to the bottom. To get this photo, I stood directly under the center of the painting and opened my lens up as wide as possible. I suppose I might have been able to get the whole image if I had, say, laid down on the floor.

That's not the whole story of St. Stan's, to be sure. But I am not as familiar with the history and traditions of this church as I am with St. Mary's. There are doubtless parishioners at St. Stan's who could do a much better job of documenting this church before its doors are closed for good in a year or two. I can only hope that some of them choose to take on this task.

The Stained Glass Project: St. Victoria and St. John the Baptist

This is part of an ongoing series called The Stained Glass Project, in which I am attempting to photographically preserve the stained glass windows of my parish church, Our Lady of Czestochowa (St. Mary's) in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania.


Continuing to move from the front of the North side of St. Mary's Church in Nanticoke, PA to the rear, the second window we come to is another truncated one. Like the window featuring Saint Anne and Saint Peter directly opposite it on the South wall, this one seems to have been modified from an original, full-sized window, since the donor tags at the bottom are missing.


This pair of windows depicts Saint Victoria and Saint John the Baptist.* As noted above, the windows appear to have been modified after installation, with the lower openable pane and the donor tags removed. Previously I have suggested that the upper openable pane has also been removed, but this appears not to be the case since the upright piece of the red cross at the center point of the semicircular fan window at the top is continuous with the top border of the portrait itself.

These windows are positioned directly above the alcove that until recently housed the church's baptismal font, which is now located on the South side of the main altar. This would seem to be an intentional coincidence, although the alcove itself appears to be, like the side entrance opposite it, a relatively recent addition to the structure - perhaps in the last fifty years or so.


The baptistery contains another stained glass window, but this window is clearly not contemporaneous with the twelve pairs of portrait windows that line the walls and will not be included in this study.


The left-hand portrait is of Saint Victoria. Victoria is a problematic figure: the name can apply to any of several poorly-documented and possibly apocryphal figures. The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia does not even have an entry on anyone named Victoria, except in an entry for Diocese of Perpignan which states

In memory of former ties with the metropolis of Tarragona, the Church of Perpignan honours several Spanish saints: St. Fructuosus, Bishop of Tarragona, and his deacons Augurius and Eulogius, martyred at Tarragona in 259; some martyrs of the Diocletian persecution (end of third century); Justa and Rufina of Seville; Felix and Narcissus of Gerona; Aciselus and Victoria of Cordova; Leocadia, of Toledo; St. Ildefonsus (607-67), Archbishop of Toledo.

"Victoria of Cordova" is apparently the sister of Acisclus, who was martyred along with her. But other saints bearing the name of Victoria include Victoria of Albitina, Victoria the sister of Anatolia (also martyrs), Victoria the servant of Edistus (with whom she was, unsurprisingly, martyred - or at least martyred soon after), and, not to be outdone, a Victoria who was martyred along with Denise, Dativa, Leontia, Tertius, Emilianus, Boniface, Majoricus, and Servus. It is unclear which Victoria this portrait represents, but it is a pretty safe bet that she was a martyr.

Catholic Online lists three of these Victorias: Victoria the sister of Anatolia, Victoria of Tivoli (twice), and Victoria the sister of Acisclus. There is also a Blessed Victoria Strata, who has not been canonized as a saint; perhaps this is related to the fact that unlike the many Saints Victoria, she was not martyred.

No description of any of the various Victorias lists either a crucifix (which may symbolize martyrdom) or a lily (which may symbolize purity) among her attributes. However, the Wikipedia entry on Saint Acisclus (the brother of Victoria of Cordova, or Córdoba) notes as his attribute "with Saint Victoria, his sister, crowned with roses" - much like the Saint Victoria portrayed here. So perhaps this figure is Victoria of Cordova.


As obscure as Saint Victoria is, she is paired with one of the best-known saints: Saint John the Baptist.


John the Baptist is sufficiently well known that I will omit any details on him as an individual. Here is his entry in the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, and here is his Wikipedia entry.

Saint John the Baptist stands before a unique backdrop. Like most of the other saints portrayed in these windows, he appears to be in the "cathedral" setting, judging from the stone pavers on which he stands. But his background is not columns and arches, nor is it a window on the sky or the sea; instead he stands in front of a wall made of stone blocks. Like many of the other figures, this background is partially obscured by a curtain, though this curtain appears to be of a simpler design than the curtains in the other portraits, which feature details like this stitchwork seen over the shoulder of Victoria, and virtually invisible to the observer's unaided eye:




These two portraits have aged worse than many others in the church. This is especially noticeable in Victoria's hair and the loss of detail from John the Baptist's face and beard.

In contrast to this apparent weathering, the upper round window is sharp and clear, with some of the most legible script: "Civitas Dei", City of God, which I have conjectured is the setting for the "cathedral" images of the saints.

*Note: This image has undergone more correction than most of the others in this series. Apparently I succumbed to the temptation of getting as close to the window to photograph it as I could, which resulted in a perspective distortion - the bottom is much wider than the top. I have attempted to correct this by "stretching" the image at the top corners. This may have resulted in some distortion in the vertical dimension - when I was able to make the top as wide as the bottom, I realized the figures were too short, and I adjusted them by eye. Here is the image I started off with: