ASCENSION ART PROJECT
Articles, essays, and archival materials on the architecture, stained glass, sculpture and paintings at New York City's Church of the Ascension.
This is an ongoing project, to which materials will be added from time to time.
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"Blashfield's Forbidden garden"
This is an article by Raverty published in Living Church, about Edwin Blashfield's Angel with Flaming Sword, an oil painting on the east wall of the nave. The article postulates that similarities in both style and subject matter in this early work of Blashfield link it to late 19th century avant-garde symbolist tendencies in France, where the painting was first exhibited (Blashfield is usually associated with much more conservative styles).
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"The slumbering shepherd: A Case of Mistaken Identity"
It is argued in this article published in Living Church that the main figure in the Good Shepherd stained glass window by John LaFarge at Ascension has been misidentified for decades by the parish as Jesus, but is actually Saint Joseph, revealed by his iconographic attributes of the flowering staff and the pomegranate he hands to the sleeping infant Jesus. La Farge scholar, art historian James Yarnall concurs with Raverty's new interpretation.