Lent begins on Ash Wednesday today. Lenten cloths are now hung in the chancel of many churches. Traditionally an eye-catcher is the one in Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral, for which a different artist is responsible every year. This year it is a versatile work of art by the Slovenian Eva Petric entitled “Human Cocoon”. The 9.5 by 4.5 meter puzzle sculpture consists of an aluminum and plastic compound.
The cocoon floats “as a symbolic stem cell against the background of a greatly enlarged image of mixed red blood cells,” according to the cathedral parish priest. The blood cells come from three different people – an artist, a doctor/scientist and a priest – and are intended to “illustrate the diversity of humanity and the special nature of each individual human being”. Then, on Holy Saturday (April 8), Petric transforms the cocoon into a trio of human butterflies. The installation, which then bears the title “Human Butterfly@ArtScienceSpirituality”, will subsequently hover under the high ceiling of the cathedral until June 5, i.e. until shortly before Corpus Christi.
The tradition of the Lenten cloth (also Hunger cloth, Palm cloth, Passion cloth or Schmachtlappen) is a thousand years old. The “Consuetudines” of the Farfa Abbey in Italy already mentioned the custom around the year 1000, which goes back to the curtain in the Jewish temple. This is mentioned several times in the New Testament in connection with Jesus’ death on the cross. Initially mostly a single-colored cloth made of linen or silk, it increasingly became a work of art from the 12th century onwards.
