Jakob Laub: The 7 works Of Mercy
The Nesthauser lake in Elsen, a district in Paderborn North-Rhine Westphalia, hides an interesting example of modern religious architecture and ceiling frescoes.
It was Tuesday evening when we decided to bike around the lake. That’s when we came across the chapel of “Merciful Jesus”. Completed in 1994, the small octagonal building attracts people’s attention with its light gray lead roof and its wonderful position at the edge of the lake immediately. I found the iron entrance door half open, so I decided to visit the interior. To my disappointment, I could go only as far as to the short corridor between the entrance and the main room of the chapel. A locked iron grill door blocked my way. Through it, I could see the interior which was no more than a single room with bright leather-covered iron benches. A triptych flanked the altar. Daylight entered the room only from the glass dome that crowned the rooftop and the narrow stained glass windows surrounding the upper part of the walls. What attracted my attention was the modern frescoes on the ceiling depicting the seven corporal works of mercy.
It was getting darker, and it was clear that I had to visit the chapel again during opening hours to learn more about the frescoes and take some photos. This happened on Sunday, before the ceremony. As I entered the chapel, a kind elderly lady approached and asked me if I was from Hungary. Unfortunately, she couldn’t inform me about the painter and his work but gladly allowed me to take some photos before the worship service began.
Biography
Jakob Laub is a Hungarian filmmaker and painter. His work reflects the influences of the Post-War artistic movements.
1930 born in Vaskút, Bács-Kiskun, Hungary
1944 the family fled the war front to Hidas, the place of origin of the Laub family
1945 drafted into the military service in Sankt Lambrecht to build a position
1949-1951 Period of master school for painting with Prof. Rudolf Szyszkowitz
1951 Started studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna as a student of Prof. Albert Paris Gütersloh
1960 Graduates from Centro Sperimentale di Cinematographia in Rome acquiring a diploma in film and TV directing
1961 Becomes freelance painter and director in Vienna
1995 Establishes his own studio in Bonn for painting and video production
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Later the same day, going through my photos, I was able to see clearly what made those frescoes unique. Each of the three areas of the ceiling hosts two scenes of mercy: feeding the hungry-offering water to the thirsty, dressing the naked-caring for the sick, visiting prisoners-sheltering strangers. Only the fourth ceiling area above the main entrance depicts a single merciful act: the burial of the dead.
Painted by the Hungarian artist and filmmaker Jakob Laub, the frescoes of “Merciful Jesus” are an example of a late 20th and early 21st-century religious art which detaches from previous art periods. In contrast to the old masters who depicted the same theme, Laub doesn’t stick in detailed depictions. For him, less is more. His human figures look like monastical silhouettes baptized in the earthly tones of green, brown, blue, black, orange. Placed in a background exclusively created by geometrical shapes, clear lines, and limited sources of lighting, the artist aims directly into the viewers’ emotions, religious devotion, and recollection of memories.
In the fresco depicting visiting the prisoner, light comes in space from two sources: the jail’s window and the transparent sphere with the flowered cross offered by the visitor to the prisoner, signifying our journey through life. For background, Laub uses green tones which reveal the healing power of human caring and communication in contrast to isolation. In a more earthy background at the same panel, we can see the act of sheltering strangers. Here the entrance is the only source of light symbolizing the hope for a new start for the homeless.
Photo source: Wikipedia.org
The artistic style of Jakob Laub in many aspects reminds us of the work of the early 20th-century artist Robert Delaunay, especially in the burial scene. With a totally different choice of colors from the other frescoes, Laub skillfully incorporates in the background the architectural triangle above the main entrance. To the left of the triangle, we have a burial ceremony. A tall man dressed in a modern black suit stands in front of the dead man’s coffin. The surrounding in blue and purple geometrical shapes symbolizes pain and grief. On the right side, an angel presented in earthy colors blesses the dead. We can interpret the abstract geometrical forms between the earth and the sky as snow mountain tops giving the illusion that the angel flies from the sky to the earth.
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