Altman Building
lower level

All children from 3rd through 8th grade are welcome!

THE MOSAICS OF RAVENNA: A DELUGE OF PRECIOUS STONES. A PAINTING FOR ETERNITY.

It is truly a matter of great amazement to see Christian grace silently open a luminous path in a turbulent and dark moment of European history. The beauty of Ravenna's mosaics, made between 400–500 AD, is the Beauty of a world of light that overcomes darkness and reawakens hope and love in the human being. 

“How could this flower blossom without losing a petal under the hammering of weapons, without being dragged away by the muddy torrent of invasions? When the Church was divided within itself, torn by schisms.” (1)

“Beauty wounds, but precisely in this way, it calls man back to his ultimate Destiny. The encounter with beauty can become the blow of the dart that wounds the soul and, in this way, opens its eyes. (…) Precisely in this way it places us in relationship with the force of truth” (Ratzinger).

“In Ravenn, there is talent, art, inspiration "and something more, something mysterious that fascinates the intelligence and insensibly leads it to discover its own soul. This mysterious something is precisely the Christian mystery of a "Christocentric" vision that expands from the cross of Christ. (…) It is the cross that radiates light and life to the ends of the universe and gives everything that is and will now be without end a rate of reality, of density infinitely higher than what has been in time and history. (…) The secret of Ravenna, of this beauty (…), is precisely this representation of a finally reconciled world, this intimate union of the sky and the Earth (…).

Because here the sky and the earth are one, the earth literally filled with sky shines in indestructible bliss, and the sky rests in it as in a cradle. Impossible to separate them, one and the other are intimately interpenetrated because of a literally nuclear fusion of faith and hope in the sun of charity. And mosaic is more suitable than any other form of art to express all this. (…) The mosaic is a deluge of precious stones fallen from the seventh heaven. A painting for eternity.

A beauty - better: the Beauty of the other world. In these mosaics, a foretaste of paradise shines, which is already foretasted in this world. "It is a prophetic vision of what the world will be when Christ has finished saving it, a reconciled world, transfigured by light, which is the color of divine charity." (1)

In the Infinity Lab we will experience a foretaste of the beauty of Ravenna’s mosaics, as we re-create, in glass mosaics, one of its luminous images.   

(1) Andre’ Frossard – The Gospel according to Ravenna.

SCHEDULE

Saturday, Feb 15

9:30–11:30 AM: introduction to the Infinity Lab, presentation of the Mosaic, work on Ravenna Mosaic

2 PM–3 PM:  exhibit on Vietnam

3 PM–5 PM: work on Ravenna mosaic 

5:15 PM: presentation on Vietnam

Sunday, Feb 1

10 AM–12 PM: work on Ravenna mosaic

2 PM–3 PM: presentation of the exhibit, "A Life Rich in Music"

3 PM–4 PM: presentation of the work done by the kids of the Infinity Lab