Christ The Redeemer

Christ the Redeemer is a gorgeous statue on the top of Corvocado Mountain in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. This is one of the most instantly recognizable images in South America. It stands around 130 feet tall and overlooks the city of Rio. The Redeemer was voted in 2007 one of the New 7 wonders of the World.

The construction of this statue took many years to build, as well as to conceptualize. In the 1850s Pedro Maria Boss was a Catholic Priest who saw Corvocado mountain overlooking the city of Rio and wanted to put a monument of his faith there to overlook the city. In order to do this he needed the approval of Isabella, who was the Imperial Princess of Brazil at the time. He wanted to dedicate this monument to her. It did not work out as Boss had planned, Isabella was unimpressed, and the project never gained popularity.

In 1889, the monarchy over Brazil was overthrown and a new Republic was created. Not soon after this the separation of church and state was proclaimed once again bringing doubt about the possibility of the statue's construction.

It was not until 1921 when the idea was proposed again, supported by the archdiocese, that the creation looked possible. In order to gain funding the Catholic church in Rio held a "Monument Week" where Catholics throughout Brazil sent donations to fund the project, it was a huge success.

Once there was funding for this monument, Carlos Oswaldo was to design the statue. After multiple attempts to try and create a working design for the statue, Oswaldo was dropped from the project and a civil engineer by the name of Heitor da Silva Costa was hired after he came up with the idea for a Jesus with his arms outstretched in the shape of a cross on top of Corvocado Mountain. Corvocado teamed up with French sculptor Paul Landowski to create the statue.

The statue was built in France and brought to Brazil in pieces and assembled together on the mountain using the Corvocado railway. Christ the Redeemer was created using reinforced concrete underneath an outer shell of soapstone, in order to last rough weather conditions. It took five years and $250,000 to complete the statue and there was a huge opening ceremony in 1931 to celebrate its completion.

Costa is best known for his design of The Redeemer, but Paul Landowski had many other sculptures throughout France. Much of his work is surrounded by religion, such as a statue of David, a Reformation wall and many other religious monuments. There is a museum in Paris dedicated to him and contains over 100 of his works.

This statue is amazing in my opinion, not only because of the beauty of a peaceful monument overlooking the city of Rio, but because of its simplicity. It depicts is Jesus with open arms in the symbol of the cross. He does not have much of an expression on his face, and his eyes are not detailed. The statue leaves a lot to the imagination because it is so neutral. There is not much to argue about in this depiction of Jesus because Christ the Redeemer is a very nondescript piece of work. I think this was done for a reason.

With the separation of church and state in Brazil I don't think the constructors wanted to offend anyone. If they were to go into great detail, or have Jesus posing in some aggressive manner people could be easily offended. Because this is a monument for the entire city regardless of religion, I think it was smart to be very generic in Jesus' features and clothing. Jesus shows up in many religions, not just Christianity, so by having Jesus posed in such a peaceful manner with open arms, it is probably easier for everyone to appreciate as a symbol of peace.

The state of the city of Rio is another reason I think this monument is so attractive. Rio is a very rich city in some areas, but is known for its dangerous slums and violence. In a place that is known throughout the world for both its beauty and its danger, it is very fitting to have a statue of Jesus overlooking the entire city, I think it can give hope to a lot of people.

This is such an important monument to the people of Brazil that they are currently raising money again to repair the cracks in the statue which will take around six months to complete.

Resources: http://www.ilovefiguresculpture.com/masters/france/landowski/landowski.htm,http://www.google.com/search?q=christ+the+redeemer+rio&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=7rQ&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbs=tl:1&tbo=u&ei=hMCLS-D5Io7WNb-S2KUB&sa=X&oi=timeline_result&ct=title&resnum=12&ved=0CDQQ5wIwCw,http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11626074,http://modern-latin-american-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/history_of_christ_the_redeemer_statue_brazil