Thursday 10 November 2011

Two Baroque churches

Koscoil Sw. Anny, or the Church of St Anne, is described by my guide book as “over the top Baroque”. What more can I say, it’s like an inside out wedding cake. Here’s the pictures.













It wasn’t my intention to go into the Church of St Andrew but I arrived there by accident. It doesn’t look as impressive as some of the other churches in the city but it is the only one to have survived the Tartar invasion of 1241.


I was almost deterred by the anonymity of the door and the heavy curtain behind it….


…..but once I was in what a treat. The church is very small and divided into two parts. Behind the locked gates it is plainly decorated with a few small pews and a confessional but in front of the gate it is a little island of Baroque extravagance.



I expect that behind the gate is for the public and in front is for the convent of Poor Clare nuns that is attached. Just to help my visit along, somebody struck up the organ while I was there and sang along.



The pulpit here was in the shape of a silver boat complete with sails laden with angels.


It is interesting to note that like the pulpit from St Anne’s, one of the angels of falling off.



6 comments:

The Glebe Blog said...

It's amazing what you can find in old churches Sandy.
Looks like you're having a good time in Poland.Watch out for that Polish Vodka,my uncle Casimir got me on it as a fourteen year old.It's taken a long time to recover.

Shundo said...

When I see stuff like this, I always think that Calvin and Luther had a pretty good point. I mean, who was paying for all this fancy decor? I'm more of a Norman simplicity kind of guy...

Anonymous said...

Such a contrast between the outsides and insides of those churches... I love the falling angels, it tickles my dark sense of humour.

Poppy (aka Val) said...

Both of the churches are beautiful, and although I do like 'fancy' stonework etc I think the first one is overdone! Thank you so much for sharing the photos with us :)

Sandy's witterings said...

Thank you for comments good people.

Indeed it's hard to credit sometimes the money that must have paid for these churches when at the time it could so easily have been spent somewhere else. But that is putting a modern way of thinking onto past generations who thought about things very differently.
I suppose it's the very same with what we think is over the top and what your well to do baroque bod thought - I suspect that there was no over the top then - if you could pay for it and get someone to do then it was good.

Jim, I had only one vodka in Poland, cherry stuff. Impressed enough to bring back a bottle though.

Shundo said...

Well put, Sandy. I hope you are enjoying the vodka.