Chapel in Apostolic Palace: "Rupnik Lied to Replace Mosaics with His Own"
Kornoukhov was commissioned in 1996 to decorate the Redemptoris Mater Chapel in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace. It was a gift to John Paul II for his 50th anniversary as a priest.
The mosaics on walls and ceilings included motifs such as the Annunciation, Jacob's Dream, and some figures of saints (pictures of these destroyed works below).
The picture at the top of this article shows, on the left, the mosaic of Christ by Kornoukhov and then redone as a soulless version by Rupnik, on the right.
Kornoukhov recalls that Rupnik claimed that "the glue was unsuitable". He explains that and "the mosaics were destroyed on the pretext that the tiles had fallen down, but it was absolutely impossible. I still have a strong suspicion that Rupnik invented this 'accusation' in order to replace me as the mosaicist for the project."
After Kornoukhov was finished, Rupnik was hired to replace his mosaics. All but one motif, the Heavenly Jerusalem, were destroyed, Kornoukhov learned only months later.
He accused Rupnik of replacing them in order to get final credit for the work. Rupnik's fame was born from this first prestigious commission. He never made mosaics before. Until then, he was only a painter.
Rupnik also "reinvented" the chapel's original inspiration: "I think that Rupnik's art is far from the Byzantine tradition and is an example of postmodernism, without any connection to architecture," Kornoukhov comments.
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