Hildreth Meière Documentary Series - Watch Trailer
Commissioned by: Mayers, Murray & PhillipIconographer: Rev. Robert NorwoodMedium: Byzantine-style glass mosaicFabricated by: Pühl & WagnerInstalled by: Ravenna Mosaics
The Transfiguration in the half-dome of the apse, and stringcourse separating upper and lower apse with panels of birds and animals
As insets for the Sienese-marble stringcourse below the chancel windows separating the upper and lower parts of the apse, Meière designed a series of eight panels with a lion, pelican, unicorn, eagle, peacock, stag, phoenix, and bull. These various birds and animals represent Christian virtues, or characteristics of Christian behavior.1 Each primitive Byzantine figure stands upon an Art-Deco style flower at the base of the panel.
Lion
Pelican
Unicorn
Eagle
Peacock
Stag
Phoenix
Bull
Meière used the same medium, Byzantine-style glass mosaic, for the Transfiguration on the half-dome of the apse above the stringcourse, and also for the Six Days of Creation on the five domes of the narthex.
Narthex domes with the Six Days of Creation; clerestory windows with Magnificat, Gloria in Excelsis Deo, Nunc Dimittis, and Benedicite; half-dome of apse with the Transfiguration, and stringcourse separating upper and lower apse with panels of birds and animals
See Catherine Coleman Brawer, Walls Speak: The Narrative Art of Hildreth Meière (St. Bonaventure, New York: St. Bonaventure University, 2009): 49. and Brawer and Kathleen Murphy Skolnik, The Art Deco Murals of Hildreth Meière (New York: Andrea Monfried Editions, 2014): 98.