Impractical Walls

Murae (L.) are among the most ordinary, mundane (boring, if we thought about it) features of our daily lives. They provide privacy, a sanctuary for intimate moments, safety, maybe encircle a cozy place. Sometimes form an enclosure to put bad guys in. A place to hang paintings/photos, a surface to paint—or maybe if we're lucky and know an artistic kid, for a mural to be laboriously applied, using genuine, messy paint. But then there's late-Roman and early-medieval Ravenna...

...whose ancient walls so often put our Sherwin-Williams latex coatings to utter shame. There's nothing tedious about this descent from the cross scene, especially if you are a Christian for whom the orthodox, catholic perspective is paramount. Everywhere you turn in this sanctified building (fundamentally an assemblage of walls), there is intensely searching artwork looking back at you—seeking to connect with your thoughts, with your entire belief system, your pre-iPhone soul.

Moses and another prophet stare at you from their bas-relief poses between those dignified bas-relief pillars: "Pay attention, you grown-up child—time is fleeting!"

No, of course such extraordinary creations wouldn't have graced the walls of any peasant's hovel; but in truth the life-structure places, where institutions were established whose importance meant everything to each sentient being in the city—what these walls conveyed was worth the botheration.

And botheration it must have been. Thousands of tiny tiles are arranged in panel after panel, carefully color-graded and shaped, whose shadows seem to flow and move the eye, whose sandals appear properly tied. Reminders that these were humans such as yourself, whose words and deeds live on (on the wall in front of you) and challenge/encourage/render adamantine your faith that God is still at work.

It happens that these creations adorn walls and ceilings and pillars of the baptistry adjacent to Ravenna's duomo (cathedral where the regional bishop holds ecclesiastical sway). Messages to you, the confirmand being immersed in this most serious of rites—yes, they often lowered the entire person under the water, then: Christianity was very often embraced by grown-ups, whose forbears, likely pagans, would never have thought of bringing tiny baby Livia to be sprinkled by the priest.

Another panel here, please, carved into the side of this above-waist-deep enclosure for water. I love this uncomplicated explanation of what Christianity teaches still. It connects us today with this seventh century world. The lamb standing innocent, facing a Latin cross, beneath which the snake dawdles. Think about it.

I'd love to have had these teaching images in my life, as a believing kid.