The photos above were taken inside the Rosary Basilica (on the ground level of the Domaine) and show some of the side altars. Fr. George Byers has some close-ups of each mosaic (as he was a chaplain at Lourdes for two years, he had plenty of opportunity to snap away!) 
This last photo (in this post, anyway) shows a photo of the main mosaic of Our Lady, taken by Fr. Tim. My effort this year was a little blurred, and so I used one of his old ones instead.
I used to hate this mosaic, as it was so different from other representations of Our Lady, and the proportions seemed all wrong - something I ascribed to the angle of the mosaic. However, one day I was sitting and praying in front of it, and I suddenly realised that it was my own view which was skewed. The face is actually not that of a woman, but of a young girl. So, the bone structure of the face is different. Once I got my head around that, the mosaic took on a completely different aspect, and I am now very attached to it. I don't know if it works so well on screen or photo, but "in the flesh," it is quite startling.
At first, I felt uneasy about this mosaic too. I put it down to the look in Our Lady's face, which seems very unlike traditional depictions in which she looks somewhat more humble and pious.
ReplyDeleteHere, she looks more triumphant and confident - rather like a Celtic warrior queen (think Boudicca - and she's depicted as a red-head too, very inculturated). I'm still not entirely sure what to think of it but in a way such a view of her seems quite apt.