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Dating back through the centuries to early Egyptian, Pompeiian and Chinese dynasties, the technique of Fresco Bueno is the most ancient and permanent method known for painting on walls. In some instances these frescoes are in good condition after 2,000 years of weathering.
True fresco (such as the impressive panels on the West wall of Calvary's Chapel), entails the application of pure pigments, ground in distilled water, to wet lime plaster. The mural must be painted, section by section, while the plaster is moist. Each day a new segment is plastered and painted completely. The artist must work with extreme precision, for corrections can be made only by removing the wall surface, replastering and repainting.
The frescoes of Calvary's Kit Stewart Chapel (from left to right):
Martin Luther (1483-1546) is shown clasping his well-worn Bible with passion and tenderness. At his feet is the charred Papal Bull "Exurge Domine" which threatened his excommunication. Above him is Wittenburg, the town where he studied, preached and lived most of his life and at the left, one of the best loved hyms he composed.
The frontispiece of the first edition of his famous translation of the Bible into German is below Luther, along with one of the many spirited letters he wrote. On the right are the words he uttered at his trial in Worms, which he represented his final schism with Rome: "…My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen."
John Calvin (1509-1564) stands at the pulpit as he was best known, a teacher of ecclesiastical discipline, pointing to a passage of the Bible. Above him is the town of his exile, "Genova", as it appeared then. Some of his great tracts are used below: his book Institutes of the Christian Religion in its earliest Latin version, one of the greatest theological works of all time; a pamphlet against certain deviationists from the new creed, a sample of his handwriting with his signature and a device found on many pamphlets in efficace, "plus penetrante que tout glaive a dex tranchans. Ebreus 4" (Translation: The Word of God is true and efficient and more piercing than a two-edged blade" – Hebrews 4).
John Knox (1505-1572) is seen in the pulpit. The chain on his wrist and water at his feet represent his imprisonment and punishment nineteen months as a galley slave, and symbolize his many exiles from Scotland. Half submerged is a broken church statue, which he threw in the English Channel rather than accept the rituals of "idolatry".
Among his many pamphlets is shown the famous First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment (regimen-rule) of Women, an "attack on the reigning queens of his country". Another booklet is the Admonition pamphlet. Also included is a letter to Queen Elizabeth and his Historie of the Reformation in Scotland. Above him in the castle of Holrood where he and Mary, Queen of Scots, debated dramatically about the Reformation. It was during one such confrontation that he said, in reply to Mary's question concerning the absolute need for an intermediary (the Pope) in interpreting the Bible, "…the word of God is plain in itself."
Holdreich Zwingli (1484-1531), the Swiss Reformation leader, stands holding a Greek Bible with his own annotations in the margins. Above him is the city of Zurich where he lived his life and preached. His passion for independence and freedom, both nationally and theologically, brought about his death in the Battle of Kappel, symbolized in the mural by his sword.
Below him are the broken bells of churches, representing the excess of zeal among early Protestants when they frantically destroyed all that recalled Catholic tyranny at that time. Because one of his first acts of defiance as a priest was to take a wife, a letter to his wife is shown. Also seen are a page from his book, Architeles, a reproduction of the signatures of Reformation leaders in 1529 under the "Marburger Artikel". He is quoted as saying, "The letter killeth but the Spirit maketh alive." Smoke in the distance, as well as in the Calvin panel, symbolizes the bitter struggles of the next decades.
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