Christian Art
* * * The various hieratic forms of the Cross represent different modalities of Divine radiation: the Divine Center reveals itself in the dark space that is the world. In these various forms, all of which blossomed during the early centuries of Christianity, it is sometimes the radiating aspect of the cross, and sometimes the static aspect of the square, that predominates, and these two elements combine in various ways with the circle or the disc. The Cross of Jerusalem, for example, with its branches ending in so many smaller crosses, evokes, in its multiple reflection of the Divine Center, the omnipresence of Grace, while at the same time mysteriously linking the cross with the square. In Celtic Christian art, the cross and the solar wheel are united in a synthesis rich in spiritual suggestiveness. The cross inscribed in a circle can be considered as the key-figure in sacred architecture.
First row: Romanesque, Jerusalem, and Greek crosses. Second row: Irish, Copt, and Anglo-Saxon. At the bottom: Irish.
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