Images courtesy of Fantini Mosaici.
Late last fall the St. Paul University Catholic Center in Madison, Wis., celebrated the opening of its new home. A freshly constructed landmark in the center of the University of Wisconsin’s “Library Mall,” the building, designed by RDG Planning & Design, replaces the Brutalist Modern structure that went up in 1968 and that had ceased to meet the needs of those it serves. The goal behind the five-floor facility––which houses a cafeteria, a veranda, and a number of gathering spaces, offices and, of course, a church––aims to offer students a space to congregate to develop, grow, and share in their faith, while at the same time providing a place of worship.
The center’s most notable exterior feature is its façade: a 600-foot mosaic designed by Dony Mac Manus, an artist based in Dublin, Ireland, and executed by Fantini Mosaici, a fabricator of architectural works headquartered in Milan, Italy. Based on a mosaic housed at the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, a depiction of the Coronation of the Virgin that was completed in 1296 A.D., the replica at St. Paul updates the scene whereby Christ crowns his mother the Queen of Heaven. “It was my desire to use a [more modern] Mary and Jesus––it’s based off of St. Mary Major, but the face of Mary is less stylized,” explains Fr. Eric Nielson, pastor and executive director of St. Paul University Catholic Center.
“I only believe in changing what’s necessary to converse successfully with a contemporary audience, and to have the humility to leave what works." Dony Mac Manus, Artist, Dublin, Ireland
Respecting the core aspects of the piece created centuries ago, Mac Manus turned his focus on the faces of Mary and Jesus. “I only believe in changing what’s necessary to converse successfully with a contemporary audience, and to have the humility to leave what works,” Mac Manus explains. “The faces of the Madonna and Christ I felt needed to be [more contemporary] just to speak to a Midwest American audience with a little more ease.” To achieve this, the artist based the Virgin on a 19th Century Madonna, while Christ is based on a 21st Century depiction.
The work, in progress
Mac Manus first began by realizing a composition in oil and canvas in his Dublin studio. While the piece (which measured about six feet) could have been digitally enlarged for the fabrication of the mosaic, this process would have eliminated much of the detail that everyone involved believed was necessary to retain. And so, once his painting was complete, Mac Manus began working on the 24-foot by 28-foot drawing that would become the template for the actual mosaic. “You need to bring the work into birth naturally, and that has to be done manually so as to ensure that the feeling is transmitted through every line,” he says. “I had to enlarge the drawing by hand … so that they would work directly from my drawing so as to transfer every curve and line with all the feeling that I had put into it.” Several months later, the end result served as a template for Fantini Mosaici, while they used Mac Manus’ oil and canvas work as a color sketch.
Working with Mac Manus, the artisans at Fantini Mosaici’s workshop in Milan selected Venetian enamel, gold, and silver tiles for the mosaic. According to Andrea Falconi, director at Fantini Mosaici USA Inc. in Newport Beach, Calif., a total of 280,000 tiles––measuring from 3/8-inches by 3/8 inches and 3/4 inches by 3/4 inches, all cut by hand––figure in the final work. “We always do mosaics the ancient way: we lay down mosaic papers and then we start sketching by hand,” Falconi explains. “Then we place the mosaic in reverse––face down. This way, when you install the mosaic, you peel the paper off of the installation and every single [tile] is independent––you can adjust the pattern. This is the way you want to do it so that you have a much more linear, harmonious, and detailed pattern.” (Fantini Mosaici shipped 337 mosaic sheets out of Milan for installation in Madison.)
Falconi notes that the ability to adjust the pattern if need be was especially important in this project because of the complexity of the mosaic’s color palette, and how Mac Manus’ creation uses light. “The technical details in assembling the mosaic were the hardest to achieve,” he says. “Achieving that shading, especially on the faces, was our biggest challenge.”
“Achieving that shading, especially on the faces, was our biggest challenge.” Andrea Falconi, Director at Fantini Mosaici USA Inc., Newport Beach, CA
Falconi estimates that the design, fabrication, and installation of the mosaic took 3,000 man hours, with 50 people contributing to the project. “This is probably one of the best projects I’ve ever [been involved in] for its complexity and spirituality,” he says. “We dealt with great people.”
For Mac Manus––a sculptor accustomed to working in the Baroque style––being commissioned for this project gave him the opportunity to stretch himself in ways that he hadn’t previously. “This piece was really challenging in that I was not just dealing with a 12th Century mosaic––I had to span from the 12th Century to the 21st Century. Nine hundred years is a challenge to dialogue across,” he says. What has he learned from this unique exercise in time travel? “That pretty much you can do anything. It’s given me a lot of confidence to take on whatever these days.”
For more information, visit:
Dony Mac Manus
Fantini Mosaici
St. Paul University Catholic Center
