Early Monastic Period 1950 - 1959
Art works by Roman Verostko during his
years at Saint Vincent Archabbey, Latrobe, Pa.
Note that some works from this period were lost in a 1963 fire that destroyed
much of the monastery.
Click for a personal account of departure from the monastery.
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Untitled, c.1951, oil on canvas, 19" by 28". Roman made this painting before entering his Novitiate year (1952-53). This was a crucial time marking major life decisions. Follow the image links for a detail of the sitting figure. |
Model for a courtyard mural
executed in fresco at St. Vincent in 1954. Replaced with a version created
with brazed copper in 1956. Images of the finished mural below. Click on image
for larger image'
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Angel Choirs (1954). This fresco, on a freestanding wall adjacent to a lily-pond with a fountain, is one feature of a larger courtyard project. The text along the top is quoted from the Pseudo-Dionysius treatise on The Celestial Hierarchy (Hierarchia coelestis). See Notes Detail shows Roman viewing the work while crouched on a temporary scaffold bridging the pool. This project represents his earliest efforts to create visual forms of the "unseen". Later his interest in the "unseen" turned to visual form that could stand on its own without reference to reality or concepts "other" than the form itself. This outdoor fresco did not fare well in the Pennsylvania winter. A second version with alternative experimental media proved unstable also. These failures led him to a final version employing heavy gauge copper wire with brazed joints (see below). |
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Courtyard View. This image shows the lily pond arrangement with Roman's mural and a statue of Thomas Acquinas created out of concrete by Cecil Dietrich who was in the same monastic novitiate with Roman. The mural on this image is an image of the model superimposed to show how the mural looked in its full context. The Lily pond image used here was taken after the original mural had been removed and before the copper mural replacement. |
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In this version the traditional nine choirs are symbolized and organized following the treatise of the Pseudo-Dionysius. Nine figures are organized in three orders with three in each order. Click on the images for the groups and identities. See Notes These figures were dismounted some years later. Several have been preserved and others may be lost. |
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Drawing of Boniface
Wimmer, founder of St. Vincent Archabbey, 8.5" by 11", 1955.
Black ink line drawing with overlay of scratch lines on red.
The program cover for a 1955 play, Shadow of Glory, that
chronicled high-lights of the life of Boniface Wimmer. Technique: Line drawing in 2 layers. Layer 1 is a black & white pen and ink drawing. The text "Shadow of Glory" is also hand drawn in black. The red-orange overlay is a "scratch" drawing. A sheet of mylar coated with a solid color was scratched to reveal white lines of the paper field underneath. This was a line color separation technique for creating two zinc cut line plates, one for the black line work and one for the negative white lines in the color field. |
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