Tuesday 21 July 2015

The Veneration of the Chook

I started noticing the images in churches and royal castles, in paintings, murals, and sculptures, as we visited Metz Cathedral in NE France in the second week of the trip.

A chook!

Lambs yes, but the humble chook hadn't really meant anything to me until we were guided to it in an audio on the amazing St Vitus Cathedral in the castle in Prague. So the hen and rooster represented love, shelter, devotion, caring. All those good things with which one would want to be associated.

Sometimes the chook or rooster is as bold as, well, as bold as brass really. Centre stage in the iconographic depiction.


Other times, more subtle, a softer depiction.


Then they pop up in Astronomical Clocks from the Middle Ages, and of course, heralding the passing hours makes sense.



But then I found the chook used in wall paintings.


In advertising, of course.


And outside the entrances to fresh food markets.


I now enjoy hunting out these images. But sometimes other animals are just as compelling to photograph.










But then there is this:



Pat






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