"CRUCIFIXION" - WAYSIDE CROSS. PUBLIC MONUMENTAL WORK OF RELIGIOUS CHARACTER - MOSAIC - CONTEMPORARY PLASTIC DESIGN APPROACH, LOCATED IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

The article presents briefly, in a personal vision, the execution of a public monumental work, with a religious theme, namely The Wayside Cross, with a step-by-step description of the phases of design and execution of the necessary components resulting from the project. The entire work is realized in a contemporary, personal innovative vision, and the variety of materials and techniques that were used are meant to emphasize the complexity of its building. The paper highlights the difficulties in establishing formal motives for the given theme and describes the moments when the Divine inspiration and protection were felt during the elaboration process, giving a very special note to the evolution and completion of the whole artistic approach. The mosaic - of pictorial type - is different from the slightly monochrome chromatics characteristic for the tradition of this type of monument-size representation. The basic structure of the cross pedestal, with candle shelves; the perfectly symmetrical, metallic, laced grids, of great technical difficulty; the side windows carefully made in the stained-glass technique – the Tiffany technique; the whole range of technical solutions for their installation inside the edifice that shelters the work, as well as the harmonic insertion of the complex into the ambiental atmosphere of the site, all these were challenges of high complexity. The result of this long execution process of about 5 months and its assembling in a unitary religious complex, namely the Wayside Cross, was received with real appreciation both by the priests of the parish in which it is located and by its parishioners, inhabitants of Între Lacuri district from Cluj-Napoca.