by Hanns Rheindorf (1902 – 1982)
High altar of the Vatican church, Expo Brussels 1958
The interior of the vaulted canopy – the sky
Photo: Max Schulz 2019
An approximately 8-meter-high canopy rises above the altar table. Its slender bronze pillars support a vaulted roof, a dome that reminds observers of a Roman Pantheon or Renaissance architecture. Today, the design is only visible in very good light: the dome/bulge is presumably lined with thin fine silver, which has since tarnished to black. At the center is the figure of a seated Christ, his priestly vestment rendered in colored enamel, and his hands, feet, and head made of gilt (or: gilded) silver.
Christ before the sun disk
Photo: Art d’Église, No. 103, 1958, p. 47
A circle surrounding him represents the sun, before which Christ is enthroned. The sky is indicated by a regular network of lines divided into twelve segments. In each segment, from the inside out, one finds: a lamp, a planet, and two angels, then a sign of the zodiac made of gilded copper wire, and finally one of the twelve apostles, in the same execution as Christ.
Originally, the entire altar was the center of the church named Christi gloriosi – the Triumphant Christ – in the Vatican Pavilion at the 1958 World's Fair. It was called Civitas dei – City of God, Heavenly Jerusalem. It was the first official state participation of the Holy See in a World's Fair. It fits the spirit of the time that, in the canopy, one encounters Jesus as the glorified Christ and the center of the universe.
No matter how the image in the canopy vault is interpreted: in the altarpiece of the Church of Our Lady as a whole, the triumphant Christ is not to be found without the suffering Jesus on the crucifix beneath the canopy – which remains the most brightly shining element.
The 2019 installation 'Fall of the Angels' by Werner Koch deeply impressed so many visitors through its correspondence with the 1958 depiction of the heavens that the artist left it to the Church of Our Lady (Liebfrauenkirche) (please, see Juwel 24).
References:
Eimert, Dorothea: Virtuose Meisterschaft. Hanns Rheindorf zum 75. Geburtstag, in: Das Münster 3,1977, p. 173-183.
Eimert, Dorothea: Der Kölner Bildhauer und Goldschmied Hanns Rheindorf, in: Almanach für das Erzbistum Köln, 2, 1982, p. 210-215.
Reichling, Philipp Edgar OPraem: Tierkreiszeichen christlich, Typoskript, o.O.,o.J.
