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| "Mary" by Luca Luchetti |
The other night we went inside Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago after Mass was over. There were a few faithful praying but most people had gone home.
It was the first time I had been inside Holy Name when it had been virtually empty. And I saw things I had never before seen.
Let's not mince words. It's not that some of the the art inside is ugly. It's that it's grotesque. Horrific. Twisted. It's like an illustration from an H.P. Lovecraft story.
The picture above is the Shrine of the Blessed Mother, or rather the bronze sculpture of her at the back of the shrine. It is by an Italian sculptor named Luca Luchetti. To me, Mary looks like she is at the center of some sort of web. Is she sending out pseudopods? Or are they entwining her, perhaps to create an exact duplicate that will manifest in the morning?
My wife said it looked like Mary in Hell.
The supporting figure at the top left has a sloped and pointy head like some sort of alien. Is he an angel? A demon with bat wings? Or is it just our eyes inferring a figure out of what is really just part of the web?
Even Mary's expression does not look particularly benign.
Some of you may know I have a side gig as a fantasy and science fiction game designer. So I know a bit about the illustrations contained in some of the classic games. I was trying to place who "Mary" reminded me of. Then it hit me. It's Lolth, the "Queen of the Demonweb Pits," a spider goddess worshipped by the Dark Elves in Dungeons & Dragons.
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| "Lolth" by Sam Wood |
As I understand it, Holy Name was closed for a year-and-a-half in the late 1960's so they could remodel it in true Dario Argento style.
One approving recent commenter writes:
Like most of Holy Name’s art, the modern enables relatability.No. It enables angst, confusion, doubt and even fear.
Not "relatability" but repulsion.
Holy Name is hellish.
