Argentina, Buenos Aires, Cemeteries, Recoleta Cemetery
In reverse
It is the first year I have seen and felt Recoleta Cemetery in the heart of winter, as I often escape to England around this time. I still can’t quite grasp the fact that July is winter, when for most of my life it has been a summer month. Last Friday was piercingly cold. The glass doors to many of the tombs were huffed up with condensation, like the windows of school classrooms and buses on a rainy day, thwarting my mission to photograph through them.
I was trying to retrace my footsteps to find a particular window. Sometimes I get the impression that the cemetery has rearranged itself and what I am looking for is no longer there. As I was searching, I unearthed this: an image of Perfect surrender. In a door that wasn’t obscured, this bronze statue materialised from across the street, glistening and reassuring. By her side, carved in stone, are the words, “FIAT VOLUNTAS TUA” (“Thy will be done”) from The Lord’s Prayer. In reverse, the Latin message is veiled. It is as if she is in a dream and she is talking to you, but you don’t know what she is saying.
Everything is turned around here. The reality before me is reduced to a faint outline of an arched window, which frames the cross, and some lightly sketched shapes. The reflection has taken over, with the sculpture confident, showing the way up to the cross. “On earth as it is in heaven”, the next line of the prayer, jolts to mind.
The statue is signed by Lucio Correa Morales (1852-1923), who is considered the founder of sculpture in Argentina.
Beautiful Julie-Anne. You are so talented. I wish I could stand in your shoes and see what you are seeing when you take the picture. thanks for sharing and bringing a little bit of magic to our days.
fiona, i couldn’t agree more. i feel totally transported when i look at and read Julie-Anne’s blog. in the same kind of way that i did when i was told fairy tales as a child. i really enjoy it and i love the way she describes and reveals them. i get lost in them.
“The reflection has taken over, with the sculpture confident, showing the way up to the cross.”
Beautiful. SC
Me encntò esta ùltima foto, gracias por compartirla.
Fiona, thank you so much. Hopefully one day I can take you on a tour of the cemetery, then you can see what I’m seeing first hand! Am delighted to hear that my blog conveys the magic I always find there.
Another beauty! Really like how the light centres out the cross. I don’t remember seeing this statue – but it looks like an amazing piece of art in its own right. The pose (kind of Hollywood) looks atypical of all the angel/cherub statues that you usually see.
Thanks for the Latin lesson – I could have used that with my boss when i was working
Aja, wow – what a compliment. I’ve had an idea for a children’s story for quite a few years now, but it’s funny how the blog has given me a vehicle for writing stories instead. I bet we read the same kind of stuff when we were little!
I almost reworked that bit, Sal! Just goes to show that sometimes things are best left as they are. Thanks so much.
Me alegro mucho. Gracias, Matías.
Bob, I hadn’t seen her before either (and we know how much time I spend in the cemetery!). She’s near the perimeter, not far from the boxer Firpo (statue of a man in a dressing gown ring any bells?). I see what you mean about the Hollywood-style pose, although she’s a bit earlier than that if the sculptor died in 1923. More Isadora Duncan perhaps? Thanks for your comment, as always.