Divine Stone

This is the first in a series of articles on the North Portal of St. John the Divine, also known as the Martyrs Portal. It discusses the historical background of the portal, the sculpture of the porch, and the figure of St. Peter on the trumeau. Subsequent articles will cover the eight major figures and their pedestals, the eight sibyls above the major figures, and the twenty-four angels in the archivolts.

Background of the Martyrs Portal

The tradition of cathedral portals flanked by free-standing sculptures of saints began in the twelth century at the Abbey Church of St. Denis, generally considered the cradle of Gothic architecture. Known as “jamb figures” (because they fill the space between each niche’s jambs, or sides), they became a standard feature of medieval cathedrals. Arriving pilgrims would gaze up at them and recognize each one by their attribute, i.e., an object associated with the life of the saint, such as the keys of St. Peter.

While images of martyrs abound in the portals of medieval cathedrals, I am not aware of a medieval precedent for a portal devoted exclusively to martyrs.

The idea of a Martyrs Portal at St. John the Divine appears in a proposed iconographic program for the nave and west front that architect Ralph Adams Cram submitted to the Iconography Committee on March 4, 1927. The committee consisted of Bishop William Thomas Manning, chairman, Cathedral Dean Milo Gates, three other Cathedral officials, Cram, and his intimate friend John Nicholas Brown. Cram drafted the plan in consultation with Brown, a wealthy patron of the arts. Two years earlier, Cram and Brown were among the founders of the Medieval Academy of America.

The portal we see today follows the 1927 proposal with respect to the major jamb figures and the images of the Passion on the tympanum. Cram proposed to fill the small niches above the major figures with “confessors” such as John Keble, a leader of the 19th-century Oxford Movement. Ultimately, the niches were filled with the sibyls that Cram originally proposed for the central portal. The proposal called for 30 angels in the archivolts rather than the 24 we see there today.

The principal donor for the north portal was George F. Baker, a Cathedral trustee and founder of the First National Bank of the City of New York, a predecessor to Citibank. The Laymen’s Club donated the steps leading up to the portal.

John Angel

An April 25, 1927, letter from Cram to Bishop Manning indicates that he was considering assigning the three portals of the west front to three different sculptors: the central portal to Lee Lawrie and the south to John Angel with no final decision as to the north. Cram writes that he reconsidered the three-way division of labor after viewing Angel’s superb work for another Cram project, the Princeton Chapel. He adds: “We believe that by having only two sculptors employed on the three great portals, the central door being by one man, the two flanking ones by another, we shall obtain a greater effect of unity and coherence.”

John Angel executed the north portal sculptures in the early 1930s, completing them by 1935. It is perhaps his most ambitious work. The portal’s major figures, pedestals, tympanum, and archivolts depict a total of 134 individuals.

Angel began each figure with a sketch which he then modeled in clay, first in miniature, later in full-size for casting in plaster. The plaster cast was then duplicated in stone by artisans using a pointing machine, a lengthy and painstaking process. The finished work was then transported to the Cathedral from Angel’s studio over a garage at Lexington Avenue and East 119th Street and installed in the portal. The Ardolino brothers and cousins crafted the finished sculptures, reproducing Angel’s models down to their smallest details.

This rather roundabout process was then customary for architectural sculpture. Contrast the north portal with the neighboring Portal of Paradise, which was carved entirely in situ and from the same stone as the building.

See an earlier Divine Stone post on the north portal for a link to a film of Angel modeling the figures in clay. https://divinestone.org/blog/john-angel-sculptor

As this series of articles continues, we shall have many opportunities to marvel at John Angel’s mastery. Growing up in the shadow of England’s Exeter Cathedral, he fell under the spell of its Gothic sculpture.

One critic wrote: “The aura of the Middle Ages surrounds John Angel. He almost seems to have stepped out of the medieval past, with the cloak of the later Michelangelo thrown over his shoulders.”

Indeed, his work at St. John the Divine conveys the aura of the Gothic while animating the figures after the manner of the Renaissance masters. Working within the severe limitations of the columnar setting, Angel endows each jamb figure with its own personality through a gesture, a facial expression, a tilt of the head, or a movement suggested by the folds of the drapery.

The North Porch

The portal’s tympanum depicts the Passion of Christ – the exemplar for all who answer the call to bear witness to the Christian faith with their blood.

The Crucifixion in the center has Mary and John at the foot of the cross. The cross is surrounded by a five-lobed frame, five being the number wounds in his hands, feet, and sides. Five is thus the symbol of Christ’s humanity in Christian number symbolism.

Within the porch are two doors that lead into the Cathedral. Above the doors, an entablature with a grapevine theme runs the breadth of the portal. The grapevine is likely an allusion to the passage in the Gospel of John that begins “I am the true vine, and my father is the vinedresser” (John 15:1-11). The vine may also suggest the wine of the Eucharist – the blood of Christ.

Above the entablature, there is a pediment above each door. High-relief sculptures relating to the Passion fill the two pediments.

“The Carrying of the Cross,” the left relief, conflates several of the Stations of the Cross. The fourteen stations are a Lenten liturgy in which worshippers ritually accompany Jesus on the road to Calvary, pausing for prayer at each station. Here, Angel appears to have followed a traditional form of the Stations of the Cross that merges the Biblical account of the Passion with later narratives.

In the center, we see Jesus sinking to his knees beneath the weight of the cross as two Roman soldiers look on impassively (Stations 3, 7, and 9). A woman behind him reaches out to him. She is likely his mother Mary (Station 4). Another woman kneels before him to wipe the sweat and blood from his face (Staion 6). She would be later known as St. Veronica.

In the right relief, Angel employs a pyramidal placement of the figures to fill the arched pediment. “The Judgment of Jesus” has Pontius Pilate, rather than Jesus, at the peak of the pyramid. Beneath Pilate’s feet, SPQR – a Latin acronym for “The Roman Senate and People” – reminds us that he is the governor of the Roman province of Judea.

Pilate is depicted as a weak, unprincipled man – hairless and emaciated with a cynical smirk on his thin lips. Intimidated by the angry mob, he vacillates and equivocates until finally appeasing Jesus’s enemies by releasing the criminal Barabbas.

To the left we see Barabbas grinning gleefully as the crowd howls for Jesus’s crucifixion. To the right we see Jesus with his hands bound behind his back, alone and abandoned, surrounded by the jeering rabble.

Elsewhere on the portal:

The gable above the porch bears an inscription along its edge: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

An angel protrudes from the wall at each foot of the gable, where the slope meets the buttress. Jophiel, the archangel of Eden, is on the left, identifiable by the flaming sword that is his attribute. Raphael, the archangel of healing and pilgrimage, bears a chalice in one hand and a traveler’s staff in the other. Archangels emerge in the same locations in the other two portals.

Atop the gable, the archangel Michael stands with his sword and scales, casting a watchful eye on Amsterdam Avenue.

And since the Tower of St. Peter designed by Cram remains unbuilt, we must try to imagine it soaring above the portal to a height of 254 feet, more than twice the West Front’s current elevation.

St. Peter

John Angel’s jamb figure of St. Peter on the trumeau depicts the saint in the traditional manner – a mature but robust man with a beard, high forehead, and piercing gaze. Angel’s sculpture captures the qualities of the man we meet in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles: strongminded, outspoken, impulsive, and fiercely loyal to Jesus.

Simon Peter was a fisherman by trade along with his brother Andrew, also an apostle. He was married (Mark 1:29-31) and had a son named Mark, or so the First Epistle of Peter suggests (1 Peter 5:13). He was part of Jesus’s inner circle along with James and John. In the Acts of the Apostles, he emerges as a leader of the growing Christian community in Jerusalem, where we last see him before the narrative switches its focus to Paul. Peter’s journey to Rome and his martyrdom in that city are not in the Biblical account but are described in other credible sources and widely accepted as factual.

The keys Peter holds in his hands are a reference to a well-known passage in the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus bestows a new name on the apostle, originally named Simon Bar-Jona (son of Jonah). Jesus renames him Kepha, or Cephas, meaning “rock” in Aramaic and translated as “petra” in the Greek New Testament, hence the name “Petros.” This occurs when Jesus asks Peter: “Who do you say that I am?” and Peter responds: “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” Jesus then declares:

You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Ma . 16:18-19).

The keys are universally understood as the attribute of St. Peter. They are also the symbol of the papacy, for Roman Catholics regard Peter as the first Bishop of Rome and thus the progenitor of the papacy.

The cock at Peter’s feet is a reference to his three denials of Jesus on the night that Jesus is arrested.

The story of Peter’s three denials is told in all four gospels, albeit slightly differently in each. After the Last Supper, Jesus and his disciples all walk together to the Mount of Olives. Upon arriving, Jesus tells them: “You will all fall away, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’” Peter responds: “Even though they all fall away, I will not.” To which Jesus answers: “Truly, I say to you, this very night, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.” And Peter again: “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.” (Mark 14:26-31)

The pedestal demonstrates Angel’s genius for condensing a dramatic narrative into several key scenes.

On the left side of the pedestal, Jesus (not shown) has just been seized and bound. Peter, bravely but rashly, draws a sword and slices off the ear of a soldier as the apostle John attempts to restrain him. The incident is reported by all four gospels though only John’s account identifies Peter as the swordsman. In all accounts, Jesus rebukes Peter and, in Luke’s version, he miraculously reattaches the man’s ear.

As Jesus is taken away, Peter follows at a distance to the courtyard of the high priest’s palace, where he joins others warming themselves at a fire.

The center of the pedestal depicts Peter’s three denials, conflated into a single encounter. The young woman serving as the doorkeeper recognizes Peter’s face in the flickering fire and says, “This man was with him.” Peter denies it: “Woman, I do not know him.”

We see the woman point her finger accusingly at Peter. A curious detail: two eavesdroppers are listening in on the conversation, one behind the young woman, the other behind Peter. Their stealth suggests a sinister intent. Two more denials follow and the cock crows, as shown on the pedestal:

While he was still speaking, the cock crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the cock crows today, you will deny
me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly. (Luke 22:60-62)

The scene on the right side of the pedestal depicts an encounter between Jesus and Peter that takes place after the resurrection. Peter stands with downcast eyes and his hands folded over his heart-gestures of penitence. Jesus gently places his left hand on Peter’s shoulder. A lamb stands between them and, in a charming detail, nuzzles Jesus’s right hand. They are engaged in the following conversation (John 21:15-19):

Jesus asks Peter: “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter answers: “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus responds: “Feed my lambs.” The same exchange is repeated twice more, with minor changes of wording. Jesus’s three questions reflect Peter’s three denials, and Peter’s answers affirm his devotion to Jesus and erase the stain of his momentary weakness.

The imperative to feed Jesus’s flock recalls another passage in John’s Gospel where Jesus says: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). With the command to feed his sheep, Jesus, as he concludes his earthly ministry, is passing his shepherd’s staff to Peter. But he is also imposing the obligation for Peter to lay down his life for the sheep, as the next passage makes clear:

When you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go. (This he said to show by what death he was to glorify God.) And after this, he said to him, Follow me. (John 21:18-19)

“Follow me” can be understood two ways. Follow me as the shepherd of my flock, the nascent Christian community. And follow me even unto death by martyrdom.
 
The phrase “you will stretch out your hands” refers to crucifixion. A longstanding though non-Biblical tradition holds that Peter was crucified in the Circus of Nero during that emperor’s persecution of Christians in the year 64. The Roman historian Tacitus confirms that Nero did in fact persecute Christians in 64 and with extreme cruelty:

Covered with the skins of beasts, they [Christians] were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. (Tacitus, Annals 15.44).

Peter was buried in a necropolis on the hill the Romans called Vaticanus Mons. In the second century, a shrine was built over the gravesite. In the fourth century, the Emperor Constantine erected a large basilica on the site, placing the altar directly over the shrine. In the 16th century, Constantine’s basilica was demolished to make way for the current St. Peter’s Basilica, whose high altar stands in the same place as its predecessor.

In the mid-20th century, excavations of the ancient necropolis were conducted deep beneath the basilica’s foundations. They uncovered a grave near a wall with graffiti reading petros eni (“Peter is here”). This and other evidence persuaded the 262nd pope, Paul VI, to authenticate it as the grave of the first. It can be visited by those intrepid enough to take the Basilica’s Scavi tour of the excavations.

St. Peter appears in stone or glass in at least a dozen other locations at the Cathedral. Particularly noteworthy are:

The clerestory window of the Missionary Bay on the south side of the nave. Wilbur Burnham’s magnificent window depicts Peter with an inverted cross, recalling the legend that Peter asked to be
crucified upside-down because he considered himself unworthy to die in the same manner as his Lord. The story first appeared in the apocryphal Acts of Peter (c. 200), whose account adds that he preached a lengthy sermon while in this inconvenient position.

Two sculptures by Gutzon Borglum: one in St. Saviour’s Chapel in a niche on the upper north wall, the other at the extreme east end of the exterior of the apse below the roofline, where red-tailed hawks have built a nest on the canopy just above Peter.

The next installment in this series will cover the four jamb figures on the portal’s north side.

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Sources:

• Cathedral Archives, Minutes of the Iconography Committee, 1925-27
• Farmer, David Hugh. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982)
• Morciano, Maria Silvia, “A Striking Discovery,” L’Osservatore Romano, June28, 2024
• Walsh, Michael, ed. Butler’s Lives of the Saints (New York: HarperCollins, 1991)
• Watson Ernest W. “John Angel: America’s Cathedral Sculptor,” American Artist, September, 1953.

“That’s my stone, I’ll be able to say to my grandchildren”

Carol Hazel was never meant for “women’s work.”

As a stonecutter at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Carol said, “This is a good job for a woman. It’s not like being a secretary, scratching eyes out to get to the ‘Suite.’ I don’t have to sit behind a desk and worry about my bosses’ coffee or wife or getting hemorrhoids. I’m a stonecutter. I put on my jeans, boots and hard hat if I have to go up top. When I got this job, my mother and my grandmother said this was a man’s job. I said, ‘Pickin’ cotton was man’s work, too, only you have nothing to show for it.’ I made my mother see the light. And I do fine with the men. They respect me, I respect them. Come over at lunch and you’ll find us playing dominoes together.” Carol’s comments came from a 1987 issue of the Cathedral newsletter entitled “Me and Stone.”

The Bronx native came to the Cathedral through the Non-Traditional Employment for Women program, which continues to train women for jobs in the construction fields. “I wanted to paint the Brooklyn Bridge,” Carol thinks back, but in 1984 Frank Walcott, the Stoneyard manger, offered her a job as an apprentice stonecutter.

“The stone got me. It fascinated me the first time I saw it,” Carol continued in the newsletter article, “I saw the guys working there and thought, ‘I can do that.’ Frank Walcott and Alan Bird had confidence in me. And before I knew it, I’m sitting in front of this stone.

“It (the stone) comes from the sea, from layers and layers of sedimentary rock. It smells when you cut it from all the dead fish and everything that’s settled inside. It has the odor of ages coming to you from way back in time. And now I’m married to my stone. I talk to it. I pray over it. I say, it’s just you and me, stone.” 

Carol lives in the same apartment in the University Heights section of the Bronx where I photographed her and her children, Pearl, John, “Peaches” and Kevin, almost 40 years ago for that article, and where we recently reconnected. Both times I had to lug my heavy camera gear up several flights of stairs of the five-floor walkup building. Carol spends some time in the Bronx but also shuttles between her apartment and family in North Carolina.

Seated in her living room, Carol talks about the “music” in the stone, “We (all) have our own style. I used to watch Eddie (Pizarro) and José (Tapia). I always loved the way José did his boasting pattern; if you listen to it, it’s like a beat; almost like a song. Each one had its own song, had its own rhythm. I always ‘heard’ boasting patterns — I didn’t just see them.” Carol remembers, “I could hear someone boasting and know who was doing it just by the rhythm of the beat. It would make beautiful music and you dance to the beat of the pattern.” 

Although it’s been many years since she picked up a mallet and chisel, “If I attempted to do it now (boasting), my sound would change based off things that I’ve gone through.” There would be new and different sounds “based on our ages — but it would still play music.” She still has her mallet and a set of chisels in her living room should she want to test her theory.

In her years at the Stoneyard, Carol was a young working mother of four children. In the same Cathedral newsletter Carol wrote, “Born in New York, thirteen when I got pregnant with my first, sixteen with my second, nineteen with my third, twenty-one when I had the fourth—a baby raising babies, all by different fathers… And I’m raising my children well, lifting myself up, doing it without public assistance, all because I’m here in this church cutting stone.”

Carol managed her work and family responsibilities with a strict routine and help from her mother who lived nearby on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. Carol would pick up the children after work from her mother’s apartment and sometimes, Carol says, they were latch-key kids. Her daughter Peaches “was the boss of the house” and made sure all her siblings stayed in line, Carol recalls. “You do what you do as a parent.”

Her oldest son, John Jones, sometimes gave her problems and “the remedy was to take him with me (to the Stoneyard),” Carol remembers.

John recently said, “I was explosive, very emotional when I was young. Going anywhere with just my mother calmed me down.” He was the only one of Carol’s children to regularly visit the Stoneyard. “I knew I was walking into something important. I was on my best behavior. I didn’t give her no problems,” he added.  “She had a mission and I wasn’t going to act up. Mom figured out the ‘formula’ (with John).”

He recalls, Frank Walcott (the Stoneyard manager) “gave me a job on the first day.” Walcott would give John a few dollars for any odd jobs to keep him busy. 

“If there was nothing to do, I would go through the Cathedral – every crevice.” John adds that the church was “so majestic.” 

John became good friends with some of the Stoneyard crew. “Eddie Pizarro and José Tapia were all receptive to him being there,” according to Carol, adding that Frank Walcott was like a “father to us,” and Dean (James Parks) Morton “was very good to me” and took a special liking to John. 
 
To Carol, the “Cathedral had a family feel – we were family, too. I loved the job, I loved the work, the people. She calls apprentice stonecutter Dwayne Crawford a “little brother.” 

Because of her hard work and diligence, Carol was selected for a training program at City and Guilds of London Art School along with fellow apprentice Joseph Chifriller. The art school has a long and deep history of teaching architectural stone carving dating back over 130 years. According to Joe, he and Carol studied there from September 1987 to May 1988.

The Cathedral newsletter profile also made Carol a minor celebrity. The article was reprinted in an Aug. 1988 issue of Reader’s Digest magazine and also in the Non-Traditional Employment for Women newsletter. And the local news media frequently interviewed the family, according to John.

In 1988 Carol felt it was time to move on. She wanted a few more construction-related jobs under her belt, and she had a desire to start a women’s painting company. She worked as a laborer for Tishman Local 59 and still considers herself a role model for women in construction. 

She became part of Harlem Fight Back, a local community-based organization aimed at getting construction jobs for Blacks, Spanish-surnamed, and other minorities in New York City. Carol also took on the role of arranging “shaping” at construction sites. 

As Carol explains, “shaping” is an organized group of workers visiting construction sites in search of work. Years prior, Carol and a group from the Non-Traditional Employment for Women program “shaped” the Cathedral Stoneyard which led to Carol eventually landing a job there. 

After a few years Carol changed direction and decided to go back to school. “One door closes, another door opens,” she relates about attending Mercy College in Westchester for an associate’s degree with an emphasis on alcohol and substance abuse, and a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Behavioral Science. Carol says that certain aspects of her degrees were “practical — just like stone.”

Carol later worked with special education children at the Young Adult Institute, now YAI, an organization serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Her last job before retirement in 2011 was at the Nelson Avenue Shelter, where Carol was a Youth Enrichment Coordinator. 

Over 20 years after she put down her tools and left the Cathedral, Carol was an inspiration for a children’s book, Me and Momma and Big John, by Mara Rockliff and published in 2012 by Candlewick Press with illustrations by William Low.

Author Mara Rockliff explains, “I first got in touch with Carol 20 years ago, after I read about her in a book about New York. I’d been interested in the Cathedral and the stonecutters ever since I went there on a sixth-grade field trip, and I thought it would be fun to write a story from the point of view of a child whose mother was helping to finish building the Cathedral. Carol and I talked on the phone once or twice, and she shared some wonderful details (the sounds of the tools, the smell of the stone) that ended up in the book.” 

Carol and her sometimes “problem” son, John, are the main characters. The book relates John’s visit to the Stoneyard to see a stone his mother has been working on and wants to show him. The rich illustrations show the young boy stepping into the busy Stoneyard and initially being confused and disappointed that his mother’s painstaking work on a single stone isn’t visibly marked. 

According to John, the book did convey his feelings as a boy watching his mother’s work. “With my young eyes, I didn’t understand the process,” he says. His mother’s stone “looks like the others – how will people know it’s her art?” he thought. “I remember the piece my mother made, the work she put into it to get those dimensions.”

While John feels the book embellished and perhaps idealized his mother’s work, he says, “I love the way they broke it down.” In John’s view, the book caught the essence of Carol and her family.

In the book, and now to the adult John, the young son eventually understands the pride in contributing to something larger than himself and his mother’s single stone. John realized that the Cathedral’s magnificence lay in all the pieces coming together as one great whole. 

The book won a Golden Kite Award from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. 

For her recent birthday Carol had a multi-generational Zoom with her four children, 12 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. They played an online version of Deal or No Deal and Carol, no surprise, was a big jackpot winner.

“I feel proud of where I am and where my children are and my grandchildren,” said Carol. “The Cathedral is part of my legacy. As long as there’s a stone up there with my number, my boasting pattern and my name on it, then that is part of my legacy.”

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• Cathedral Newsletter Vol 2 Number 3 June 1987
• Me and Momma and Big John – Divine Stone

 

Reredos – The superstructure at the back of an altar containing images. Reredoses – plural in case you were wondering. A reredos is a decorative screen above and behind the high altar. The reredos was structurally separate from the altar ( as compared to retables, a similar paneled, decorative screen attached to the altar back). Highly carved stone or wood panels provide niches for statues and the religious iconography.

Listening to a Cathedral presentation recently, an audience member asked what happened to the reredos. The answer given was that the statues were retained and kept (they are now in the crypt), but the reredos was plaster and was removed.

It was indeed not plaster but of a very fine stone called Pierre de Lens, a French limestone from the quarry in Mouleon, France. This creamy white Oolitic limestone has a compact grain structure very suitable for carving and sculpture. We even have the names of the architectural stone cutters that did the work. The firm of Barr, Thaw & Fraser employed Charles Jensen, J.G. H. Hamilton, C. Price, W. T. Scott, L.Lentelli and O. Burdett on the Cathedral’s ornamental stonework during this period. The reredos was underway in 1909.

After the entire length of the Cathedral was opened in 1941, the scale of the reredos was considered inappropriate. If Heins and Lafarge’s plan for the Cathedral would have been realized it may not have been considered so. Cram’s nave was extended 100 feet longer than Heins and LaFarge’s design. Around 1945, Canon Edward West led a movement to remove the reredos and Bishop Manning agreed.

The statues were moved to the crypt and the stone screen was demolished.

Now an interesting story emerges. During the early 1980s, when the Stoneyard Institute was at work on the southwest tower, St. Paul’s tower, a young apprentice stonecarver was taken with a pile of stone at the east end of the field adjacent to the north transept. This pile was the remains of the reredos. How they stayed on the Cathedral grounds for almost 40 years is a mystery. Joseph Kincannon took a piece to carve. He researched and began to carve a misericord. These have been used since the 11th century. It is a small wooden ledge, often intricately carved, on the underside of a hinged church stall seat. It acts as a subtle support for monks or clergy to lean against while standing during long liturgical services.

Joseph Kincannon presented this misericord to his good friend and colleague, Master Mason Stephen Boyle. While still an apprentice carver, Kincannon considered it a breakthrough carving. He went on to be head carver and is now Chair of Stone Carving, teaching the next generation at the American College of Building Arts.

The misericord may be all that is left of the early reredos.

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• Previous Divine Stone story “Where Did The Reredos Go”

(This is the final story in Robert F. Rodriguez’ deep dive into the Portal of Paradise, the stunning sculptural work of Simon Verity and assistants.) – RM

Simon Verity and Jean-Claude Marchionni finish work on the Portal of Paradise

After completing the 14 carvings for the upper-rank figures of the Portal of Paradise, Simon Verity and Jean-Claude Marchionni still had much to do before they could finally pull down the scaffolding for the last time.

There were still several pedestals below the major-rank figures to carve, a decorative band on the top capitals needed carving and some naughty secrets and tributes required attention. Simon and Jean-Claude also decided to add color to the 3 ½-foot-tall upper-rank figures.

Senior Cathedral docent Tom Fedorek explains that in the Middle Ages, it was customary to paint the portal sculptures in bright colors. All the stone carvers working on the portal project employed the tools and techniques that built the great Medieval Gothic cathedrals, and painting was another way they carried on the traditions of their predecessors.

Simon made the paints himself, the colors derived from minerals. “I take the mineral crystals that are mentioned in the Book of Revelation,” Simon once said, (I use) “chrysoprase, malachite, beryl and work them into pigments to paint the figures. One should always use beautiful and rare materials in the creation of anything of honor.”

Twelve minerals are listed in Revelation, Book 21. Among them are jasper – usually red, yellow, brown or green in color; sapphire; chrysoprase – normally apple green to deep green in tone; amethyst; emerald, sardonyx – with shades of red to brown; and beryl – which is colorless, but often reveals hues of green, blue, yellow and pink.

Binders are the second component of paint, holding the pigment particles in a concentrated suspension and then keeping the color in place after the paint has dried. Historically, binders have included natural substances such as egg yolk (tempera), linseed and poppy seed oil, tree resins, animal glues, saliva, milk, gelatin, and even blood. Simon used casein, a derivative of milk, as his binding agent. 

Simon exchanged hammers and chisels for pigments and paintbrushes as he mixed his palette of colors into small paper or plastic coffee cups to paint the figures, adding deep colors of purple and emerald to the flowing robes, softer hues for the figures’ hair and even adding bright colors for the eyes. The paint is water-soluble and the once vibrant colors have softened and faded over time. The colors are more pronounced on the portal’s south side since it is out of direct sunlight most of the time.

Over the course of their work, Simon and Jean-Claude placed a number of tributes and secrets throughout the portal carvings. 

In at least two places, illustrations of carnal lust are carved in hard-to-locate spots. Simon and Jean Claude artistically incorporated these naughty scenes into the overall design, making them difficult to see without binoculars or a telephoto lens (or knowing exactly where to look).

Two other special carvings are visible on the north side of the portal. Tucked behind the left shoulder of the major-rank figure of Elisha is a tribute to stone carvers. A solitary figure with a large mallet and chisel toils away at a rough block of stone.

Directly across, just above Samuel’s right shoulder, is a moment frozen, a time stamp – a rendering of the unfinished Cathedral as it looked in the mid-1990s with the southwest tower rising – and the way it still looks today. The upper-rank figure of Samuel has one more secret. Jean-Claude Marchionni disclosed that his rather prominent schnozz served as the model for Samuel’s nose.

With the upper-rank figures all completed, there was still more carving work to be done. While the Stoneyard apprentices and Simon had carved most of the base pedestals and columns, three were either uncarved or unfinished. Jean-Claude took on the task of carving the pedestals beneath the major-rank figures of David and Amos/Hosea and finishing the carving below the figure of John the Baptist.

The pedestal beneath the major-rank figure of David shows him and a number of women celebrating the arrival of the Ark of the Covenant. Twelve musicians “making merry before the Lord with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals” also mark the scene. (2 Samuel 6:5) Elsewhere on the pedestal, we see a young David holding the head of the slain Goliath along with a Star of David.

The next pedestal shows the northern kingdom caught in a downward spiral of lawlessness and civil disorder. Following the Renaissance tradition of placing Biblical scenes in contemporary settings, Jean-Claude has transplanted the scene to modern New York City. It is a terrifying representation of the words of the prophets of doom. A bus and cars plunge into the water as the Brooklyn Bridge collapses.  Further, along this downward spiral we see the New York Stock Exchange (perhaps after a financial crash) with snakes, spiders and skeletons depicting malice, evil and destruction.

Jean-Claude also had to complete the unfinished pedestal capital under the figure of John the Baptist that D’Ellis “Jeep” Kincannon started. Jean-Claude added oversized ears and hands to the honeycombs and carob trees on the column shaft carved by “Jeep,” who had to leave the carving midway to do drafting work for Cathedral Stoneworks. The combined work instructs us to listen to the preaching of John, which foreshadows the coming of Christ.

A June 29, 1997 New York Times article proclaimed, “It took almost 10 years, $500,000, half a dozen artisans and some 40 million blows. But tomorrow, work will end on the Portal of Paradise, the central entrance on the west face of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.”

Asked his feelings when the project was finished, Jean-Claude replied, “Mixed, mixed emotion,” adding, “You feel great because it’s done but you miss (all the carvings on) the arch.”

Jean-Claude had several items on his wish list to continue working on the portal and beyond. To fully complete the Portal of Paradise, 46 archivolts would have to be carved above all the figures and above the central tympanum of St. John the Divine. An archivolt is an ornamental molding or band following the curve on the underside of an arch.

According to the Commission of Stained Glass and Iconography of 1927, in the archivolts, “46 small figures of angels singing, in adoration etc.” were indicated. In all likelihood, James Park Morton, Dean of the Cathedral, and his advisory panel would probably have opted for something more in line with Simon Verity’s execution of the portal. 

And, to further extend his time working at the Cathedral, Jean-Claude could also envision carving the eight major-rank figures for the Preacher’s Portal or south portal below St. Paul’s tower. Dean Morton initially wanted Simon to carve here.

But Jean-Claude’s dream of more carving on the west façade would not be realized as the cathedral had to shift dwindling finances and resources away from new construction. Major funding from The Florence Gould Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation allowed the portal project to finish even though construction of the southeast tower stopped several years earlier due to a lack of money. 

A March 9, 1997 New York Times article stated: “the Portal of Paradise, the central entrance to the west façade, should be finished in June, after which no new construction on the unfinished 105-year Episcopal cathedral is planned. Upon completion of the portal, emphasis will shift for several years to conservation and preservation, Mr. Farrah (Jere Farrah, the Cathedral’s executive vice president) said. These include repairs on the cathedral’s leaky roof, restoration of the Great Organ and the conservation of the 12 17^th-century Barberini tapestries.” The cathedral clearly had other pressing concerns.

With the scaffolding finally removed, visitors flocked to see the finished work.

Senior docent Tom Fedorek says that Simon and his crew were very fortunate to work with a Dean (James Park Morton) who gave them wide latitude to exercise artistic freedom. 

Joseph Kincannon, a long-serving stone carver at the Cathedral, observes, “I would say that initially the carvings on the west front were not well received. We had plenty of cheerleaders at the cathedral, but many in the community were highly critical of the statuary. It was such a contrast to the work of John Angel and his team, that there was a lot of opposition to such a stylistic departure from one portal to the next.” Sculptor John Angel’s more traditional and classical carvings of saints and scholars are seen on the nearby north portal.

“Fortunately,” Joseph adds, “the further Simon and Jean-Claude took the work, the more it was embraced by the public. It was a brave move on Simon’s part to forge ahead and not compromise his vision under pressure.”

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In case you missed earlier parts of this series or wish to revisit them, below are the links:

A Son Visits His Father’s Masterpiece – Johno Verity Visits the Portal of Paradise, one of his father’s major works.

The Portal Project Begins – Stoneyard apprentices contribute solidly to the first phase.

Dry Bones and Tiny Towers – Apprentices tackle portal bases on the South side.

Carving The Major Rank Figures – Simon Verity as a medieval image maker.

Small Carvings Play a Major Role – A closer view of the often-overlooked work behind the major figures.

French and English – How Could They Work Together – The bonds of friendship and teamwork grow between Simon Verity and Jean-Claude Marchionni.

Sources: 

• Tom Fedorek: Virtual Tour of the Portal of Paradise
• Portal of Paradise: A Guide to the Sculptures
• New York Observer June 4, 1997
• New York Newsday, July 6, 1994
• New York Times June 29, 1997
• New York Times March 9, 1997
• Gemological Institute of America
• Wikipedia

The bonds of friendship and teamwork grow between Simon Verity and Jean-Claude Marchionni

Simon Verity and Jean-Claude Marchionni were hitting their collective strides while carving the upper-rank figures of the Portal of Paradise at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

However, Jean-Claude Marchionni confides, that was not the case when they first started working together in 1993. “I know it was not easy in the beginning…because of our personalities.” 

Jean-Claude, called Simon’s “irreverent French sidekick” in a NY Observer article, explains the early differences as the “English side and the French side.” 

Speaking from his stone carving studio in Midland Park, NJ, Jean-Claude remembers that as they worked together, the bonds of friendship grew. “We complemented each other. I learned things that I didn’t know from him and he learned things from me…you share things.” Later, Jean-Claude says, “we kind of appreciated each other.” Jean-Claude’s cramped studio is lined with fireplace mantles, small statues awaiting the final touches and other stone projects he is working on.

Mutual trust and respect also developed as they worked together. “Simon trusted me,” Jean-Claude says, “we would switch carving the other’s work.”

In an essay titled Cathedrals, Simon remarked, “I climb up and shake hands with Jean-Claude. How does he get up so early after such drinking sessions? (Perhaps another indication of their early differences.) Half my age, he has taught me so much. The French concentration is ferocious, and nothing is too difficult for him. From a family of stonecutters, he can visualize how the finished work will look at a glance and has an instinctive grasp of the tools to get him there.”

Jean-Claude’s father and two brothers were stone carvers and his rigorous training came from the Compagnons du Devoir (Companions of Duty), a French organization of craftsmen and artisans dating from the Middle Ages. Their traditional, technical education includes taking a tour, the Tour de France, around France and doing apprenticeships with masters. (Not to be confused with the well-known Tour de France bike race.)

In his essay, Simon added, “the French training as compagnons is more medieval than the English. They may start at fourteen and will lead a semi-monastic life for years. They travel extensively to get a grasp of different aspects of the trade so that by their twenties, they are superb craftsmen, even if arrogance keeps them from learning what they could from foreigners.” (Perhaps another dig on French culture by Simon.)

But, Jean-Claude needed to get away from that restrictive environment and he found himself in New York City, where he saw scaffolding around the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. As it happened, Michael Davidson, Director of Restoration for Cathedral Stoneworks, was leading a major rehabilitation of the church’s exterior and Jean-Claude’s expertise fit right in. He soon joined the team with Jean-Claude working on various restoration jobs with Stoneworks before collaborating with Simon to work on the portal.

The entire portal project was a departure from previous sculptural carvings in the Cathedral’s history.

Simon and Jean-Claude employed direct carving on the portal project. There were no plaster models, no pointing tools or enlarging machines. They worked primarily from sketches and their own creative instincts. This contrasts with the style of John Angel, a British-born architectural and ecclesiastical sculptor, who created various works at the Cathedral from the mid-1920s through the 1950s. Angel used the Renaissance technique of creating clay models for other carvers to execute the work. He started by sculpting a small model in clay, then enlarging it to full size in clay. A plaster cast was created and handed off to a stone carver with Angel putting final changes on the piece as needed.

One of John Angel’s major works at the Cathedral is the trumeau, or center post, of the Portal of Paradise depicting St. John, the namesake of the Cathedral. The 8-½ foot tall carving, situated between the Bronze Doors, was dedicated in 1935. 

In addition, John Angel carved the eight major-rank figures on the north portal dedicated to St. Peter.

Simon and Jean-Claude carved mostly idealized faces and details on the Biblical figures of the major-rank figures. However, for the upper tier, they involved numerous locals from the Cathedral staff, friends and people from the neighborhood to serve as models for the upper-rank figures. Many of the faces are clearly recognizable.

The upper-rank figures, on the third level of the portal, measure 3-½ feet versus the behemoth 8-foot blocks of the major-rank carvings.

According to the 1927 Cathedral Commission on Stained Glass and Iconography, “a frieze of small figures, six on each side,” were originally planned as the 12 Sybils. The commission’s recommendation also reports, “according to ecclesiastical tradition, each (sibyl) prophesied some event in the life of our Lord.”  

This was completely overhauled with Dean James Parks Morton’s committee that brought more biblical characters – men and women – to the portal opus.

The first figure on the north side is Noah, carved after James Parks Morton, Dean of the Cathedral at that time, who led the third building phase. Wearing long flowing robes, he seems to step back, as if to have a better look at the Cathedral in front of him. In his hands, he holds the unfinished ark. Since ancient times, the ark has been the symbol of salvation within the Church.

At Dean Morton’s feet, we see his pet Corgi, Pepe, frolicking with a long-snouted dragon-like carving on the periphery. This little corner of the portal is another link between John Angel and Simon, as Simon carved the friendly Corgi gazing at John Angel’s curious-looking creature. 

The carving next to Noah is the most unusual of the upper-rank figures. It depicts Hagar and Ishmael. The maidservant Hagar was given to Abram by his wife Sarah, who was old and childless, to provide him with an heir. Through a covenant with God, Sarah later conceived, bore Isaac, and then insisted that Abram (now Abraham) cast Hagar and Ishmael into the desert. Simon’s interpretation of the story shows a crouching Hagar enveloped in spiraling swirls, a cyclone of grief, and the baby Ishmael protected under a bush. Ultimately, God hears Hagar’s prayer and sends an angel to lead them to safety. Using a Tibetan woman from the community as his model, Simon created an analogy between Hagar’s banishment and the flight of the Tibetan people from their homeland.

Also on the north side is the figure of Deborah, carved as Pamela Morton, wife of Dean Morton. Just as Pamela Morton was always a steady and dignified presence on the Cathedral’s close, the Biblical character of Deborah was known for her patience and good judgment. Before the people of Israel had kings, they had rulers known as judges, with Deborah the only female judge.

Pamela recalls that Simon would occasionally stop by the Cathedral gift shop, where she was a buyer and manager, to make sketches. “He didn’t tell me what it was for,” she says. Perhaps Simon was trying to keep this carving a surprise until it was finished…but, apparently, Simon never told Pamela about the Deborah carving.

For the first time, she recently viewed detailed photos of her carving and that of Dean Morton as Noah and was pleased with the likeness and the poses.

Most of the upper-rank carvings on the portal’s south side can be traced back to specific individuals–and one canine– from Simon’s orbit of acquaintances. 

Solomon, the Biblical king with great wisdom, is carved after Robert Pirie, a friend of Simon and a patron. Solomon built the first temple in Jerusalem, which is visible atop the scepter he is holding. He became legendary not only for his great wisdom and vast wealth, but also for his 700 wives and 300 concubines.

Simon used an English friend, coincidentally named Naomi, for the character of Naomi, who shares the second block with Ruth. Naomi is Ruth’s mother-in-law and a strong bond grew between them, even though they were from different tribes that were often in conflict. Following the deaths of their husbands, Naomi started to return alone to her home village of Bethlehem and urged Ruth to move on and remarry. However, Ruth loved Naomi dearly and could not bear the separation, exclaiming, “Whither thou goest, I will go.” Here, in Simon’s composition, Ruth and Naomi clasp hands and their bodies virtually merge with one another, expressing the deep connection between them.

When Simon and Jean-Claude needed their morning coffee, they usually went to the nearby Hungarian Pastry Shop, long a fixture in the neighborhood. One of the workers there was George, who Simon immortalized by using his likeness for the carving of Simeon. In the New Testament Gospel of Luke, the Holy Spirit revealed to the elderly and devout Simeon that he would not see death before he had seen the Savior. Simeon was at the temple when Joseph and Mary presented the infant Jesus and upon seeing the Messiah, Simeon exclaimed, “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace.”

Many visitors gazing at the Portal of Paradise ask, “Who’s the dog with the camera around its neck?” The simple answer is “Cooper,” but the backstory is more layered. While Simon was photographing Cooper’s owner, Jessica, for the figure of Esther, the black and white dog wandered into some of the shots. Simon opted to incorporate the dog’s likeness onto the stone. Coincidentally, at the same time photojournalist Martha Cooper was documenting Simon and Jean-Claude’s work on the portal. So, Simon decided to add a camera around Cooper’s neck as a nod to both Cooper the canine and Martha Cooper the photographer. 

Simon did not have to go far to find a suitable model for the face of Daniel. He found Daniel Alcide working in the Cathedral gift shop. As told in the Book of Daniel, Chapter 6, the faithful prophet Daniel was miraculously saved by God after being thrown into a lion’s den for defying a decree that forbade prayer to anyone but King Darius. Simon not only sketched Daniel Alcide but also had the young man sit atop the scaffolding so Simon could capture his likeness next to the stone he was carving.

The unusual shape of the Jonah carving provides several unusual stories and interpretations. 

Briefly, Jonah is the prophet who was swallowed by a giant whale and spit out three days later. Simon’s model for this carving came from the Cathedral’s Development office

The pointed oval shape comes from Simon’s repeated references to the overall “Sacred Geometry” of the Portal of Paradise. Here, the shape is created by taking two circles of equal diameters and overlaying them so their circumferences touch each other’s epicenters, thus creating the strong oval.

Early and medieval Christians read the story of Jonah’s three days inside the whale as a precursor of the resurrection of Jesus Christ after three days in the tomb. In Simon’s carving, Jonah is seen within an oval tomb-like enclosure and wrapped in linen cloth to symbolize his “death” while in the belly of the whale. This was later a popular symbol of resurrection during the Middle Ages.

We see Jonah emerging from the whale’s mouth, rendered here as the pointed oval. This shape, created by the Sacred Geometry of two intersecting arcs, was also known to ancient Christians as the ichthys symbol, or Jesus Fish. Ichthys is the Greek word for fish.

At one point during the portal project, money was tight, which could have put the project in jeopardy – until a chance conversation with Paula Jennings in the Cathedral’s Development office.

She approached several foundations for funding to keep the project going, caught the attention of the Gladys Brooks Foundation, and quickly wrote a grant proposal.

Shortly afterwards a check from the Brooks Foundation came in and Paula went to the work site to inform Simon and Jean-Claude. While Paula could not exactly hear what Simon and Jean-Claude were saying from high up on the scaffold, she remembers them pointing to the uncarved block of Jonah. “They had decided to put me in that statue,” she says. “I love it.”

Paula calls Jonah a “resurrection figure…very meaningful.” And, in a sense, Paula resurrected the program. 

Asked if the carving captured her true likeness, Paula demurs by saying that her “straight hair curled around her ears and little bangs” were accurate, adding that Simon’s gesture was “one of the nicest things that (ever) happened to me.”

With the new funds, Simon and Jean-Claude could continue working on their carvings with their audience of tourists and local people watching from below.

In his Cathedrals essay, Simon once remarked, “Our viewpoint of the street from the scaffolding is the best in the world, the pluralist collection of races because of Columbia University: the rich, the poor. There is a connection with every other cathedral in the world that is a pilgrimage site and a connection with medieval stories.”

Of his and Jean-Claude’s labor, Simon added, “So we hammer and scrape smooth, keep an eye out for beautiful girls, live and breathe this extraordinary life that stone gives us.”

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Sources:

• New York Times – FYI 3/9/1997
• New York Times – The City: Morningside Heights 6/29/1997
• Simon Verity “Cathedral” essay, undated
• Archives of the Episcopal Diocese of New York and Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine
• NY Observer June 4, 1997
• Country Life – Patriarchs that Live in Stone, March 11, 1999
• Simon Verity – Master Sculptor (1945-2024) – Divine Stone
• From John Angel to Simon Verity – Divine Stone
• John Angel, Sculptor – Divine Stone
• Marta Cooper photographs
• A Guide to the Sculptures – Nicole Di Paol
• Tom Fedorek’s Guide to the Portal of Paradise