{"id":12985,"date":"2025-04-25T14:38:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T18:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=12985"},"modified":"2025-04-25T14:38:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T18:38:18","slug":"a-look-at-americas-secret-sistine-chapel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/a-look-at-americas-secret-sistine-chapel.html","title":{"rendered":"A Look at America\u2019s Secret ‘Sistine Chapel’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Magicpiano \/ commons.wikimedia.org<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the little town of Solon, Maine resides a little church called the South Solon Meeting House, referred to as \u201cMaine\u2019s Sistine Chapel\u201d by students of nearby Colby College. The house has earned the moniker for good reason: in the 1950s, artists filled the interior<\/a> of the building with inspiring murals that have drawn in crowds for decades.\u00a0 \u201cI fell in love with the place, because I have studies frescoes all my life,\u201d said V\u00e9ronique Plesch, a Colby professor of art. The site is now gaining attention from a new website by Colby students that highlights the meeting house\u2019s beautiful frescoes.<\/p>\n

The church building dates from 1842 but by 1951 it was in a state of disrepair. Margaret Day Blake, a former student at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture invited young artists into the space to beautify it. 13 artists filled the place up between the years of 1952 to 1956, painting scenes that pay homage to Leonardo Da Vinci\u2019s Last Supper and other biblical scenes such as the binding of Isaac and Noah\u2019s flood. The space remains open to the public during the day. Like the Sistine Chapel for which it is named, images of the meeting house\u2019s interior show a building brimming from head to toe with idyllic paintings, though in a style slightly more abstract than what Michaelangelo would have dabbled with.\u00a0 There is Jacob wrestling with the angel of the Lord as described in the Bible. There is also a more modern scene involving members of the community surrounding a model of the South Solon Meeting House, possibly reflecting the time prior to the building\u2019s construction. It\u2019s a rare beauty that inspires a love of art in the local residents.<\/p>\n

The site still means something to the original artists as well, though very few are still surviving. Sigmund Abeles of New York City and Sidney Hurwitz of Newton, Massachusetts are the only two remaining artists alive and are both in their nineties. \u201cIt\u2019s a very, very special place, and it was a unique experience,\u201d said Abeles. Hurwitz recalled the time fondly. \u201cWe would go out there and paint and then take a lunch break in the cemetery behind the building. It was a very idyllic time. I very much enjoyed it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the little town of Solon, Maine resides a little church called the South Solon Meeting House, referred to as \u201cMaine\u2019s Sistine Chapel\u201d by students of nearby Colby College. The house has earned the moniker for good reason: in the 1950s, artists filled the interior of the building with inspiring murals that have drawn in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":12988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nA Look at America\u2019s Secret 'Sistine Chapel'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dubbed 'Maine\u2019s Sistine Chapel,' the South Solon Meeting House stuns visitors with breathtaking biblical murals painted in the 1950s.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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