Open your eyes! Its all around us!!!

 

Last Friday, I was getting out of Cortelyou train station thinking for an idea for my first blog for art class. I knew Art was all around us but I couldn’t  find that one perfect thing that spoke to me. Just like everyone else, I don’t pay too much attention around me but last Friday I happened to look up and was amazed to see Rome architecture around me. I been living here for more than five years and I never noticed these windows! I have seen them around but never at the station where I took the train twice a day. I would never have care about them until now. After taking Art class, I am able to connect this with early Christian architecture . After rome became Christian is when the churches were build and these kinds of windows were mad for the light to come in. This architecture can also be connected with Basilica of Santa Sabina and Basilica of Constantine where “The wall of the nave is broken by clerestory windows that provide direct lighting in the nave”( Basilica of Santa Sabina).  These windows are also used in San Vitale and Hagia Sophia. In this train station, they have the same purpose which is to bring the light inside. They copied it beautifully and designed it in modern way by adding little flower art on it and yet it doesn’t catch people attention. This architecture have been used for several churches and mosques. Humans have been repeating the same culture of architecture for years and generations. Its devastating to see how people in our every day lives don’t question or notice these little things around them. It shows how knowledge of the simple things around us can connect us to our roots and past. People should really take the time off from their phones to observe the life around them. They will definitely be surprised to see the things they are blessed with and the beauty of our world. -Fizza Saeed, Team Hermes