Thomas Mikkelson painted frescoes on the south wall of the South Solon Meeting House in 1953; he was invited by Margaret Blake and the Faculty of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (Cummings 47). The south wall depicts significant scenes from the New Testament that took place before and after Jesus’s Crucifixion. The wall has a light, soft cream background, while the figures are painted in red, blue, green, purple, and white. The sequence of scenes starts on the top left, with the Preparation for the Passover Meal, the Last Supper, Peter Holding the Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, the Ascension of Jesus, and finally the Descent of the Holy Spirit.
The Preparation for the Passover meal appears above the south wall’s far left window (Cummings 46). Passover is a Jewish festival commemorating the Israelites’ freedom from slavery in Egypt, as recounted in the Old Testament (Hall 194). Mikkelson painted two men standing next to a table with food being prepared. In the Gospels (Matt. 26:17 –19; Mark 14:12–16; Luke 22:7–13), we read about the preparation for the “feast of the unleavened bread” (Matt. 26:17), with Christ sending “two of his disciples” (Mark 14:13), identified by Luke as Peter and John (22:8).
The meal takes place in the next scene, in the episode that is usually referred to as the Last Supper, which Mikkelson placed between the wall’s two windows. All four Gospels mention the last meal Jesus shared with his apostles in Jerusalem on the eve of his Crucifixion. During that meal, “Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and break it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” (Matthew 26:26–28). The most important message from this passage is Jesus telling his disciples that the bread represents his body, and the wine represents his blood, which would wash away their sins. As Mikkelson explained, through the ritual celebrating the Last Supper, that is, mass and holy communion, “God gave man the opportunity for the salvation of his soul” (qtd. in Cummings 48). In Renaissance art, we often see Christ at the Last Supper “performing the actions of the priest (Hall 195).
Mikkelson depicts the Last Supper with Jesus seated behind a table, holding a chalice, a white halo above his head. Rays extend from his head to the center of what appears like open gates to a medallion that contains the letters IHS (from Jesus’s name in Latin, Ihesus). Mikkelson explained that this circular element is the “[t]he Holy Eucharist … shown in the form of a host, inscribed with IHS, the letters which symbolize the name of Jesus” (Cummings 47). In the Gospels all twelve disciples were present at the Last Supper. However, the artist chose to paint only seven figures surrounding Jesus. The reason might have been motivated by the available space but the number to which Mikkelson reduced his cast of characters, seven, is charged with symbolism in scripture, as early as the very beginning of the Bible, with God creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh (Genesis 2:2).
Six of the apostles are at the table while an eighth figure stands facing the viewer at the bottom of the composition, closer to the viewer. The money bag he holds identifies him as Judas Iscariot. In all four Gospels, we read that, as the disciples sat down to eat dinner, Jesus announced that one of them would soon betray him (Matthew 26:23; Mark 14:12; Luke 22:7; John 13:26). This is the moment selected by Leonardo da Vinci in his famous Last Supper: we see the apostles reacting to the news. In other renditions of the theme, for instance in Andrea del Castagno’s, the traitor is easily recognizable, separated from the rest of the apostles.
Mikkelson used the window to separate the Last Supper from the next scene, Christ’s Ascension. A figure stands on the top of the window frame, walking towards the previous scene but his head is turned towards the next. The man holds a large key. Although the apostle Peter is usually depicted with such an attribute, the man’s short clothes distinguish him from the disciples, who are all clad in their traditional long cloaks. The figure is placed on the same level as the large gates, which are to be understood as the gates of heaven, with the host symbolizing Christ’s sacrifice at their center. Compositionally and symbolically, the man connects the Last Supper with the Ascension.
The Ascension, when Jesus parts from the disciples and is “carried up into heaven” (Luke 24:51), appears on the center of the wall. With the city of Bethany forming the backdrop, we see on the left three standing men and one crouching, and on the right, two more figures dressed in white. These last two figures appear below rays of light that extend upwards towards Jesus’s feet. Mikkelson cleverly used the top of the wall to visually translate the passage from Acts 1:9 “he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight.” The Acts also mention two men “in white apparel” (Acts 1:10).
In earlier art, for instance in this 16th-century German painting, we see the body of Christ disappearing into clouds as he ascends to heaven. The iconographic tradition suggests that the two figures on the foreground are St. Peter, with his distinctive short beard, and next to him the Virgin Mary, dressed in blue, kneeling.
The Descent of the Holy Spirit is the last scene, on the south wall’s far right. After Christ’s death, as the apostles had gathered to celebrate Pentecost, “suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:2–4).
Before an architectural backdrop with mountains in the distance, three men stand on the left with the spirit’s flames on their heads. Two more stand further to the right, and one kneel in the center of the composition, his back to the viewer; they all have tongues of fire on their heads (although less visible). As in traditional depictions, the Holy Spirit is represented as a dove, flying above the apostles with rays connecting to them (Speake 44). Mikkelson departs from the tradition by including two other symbols that flank the dove. Placed slightly below the dove, they form a triangle and thus, taken together, represent the Trinity. As Mikkelson explained, in addition to the dove of the Holy Spirit, “God the Father is the form of a spinning circle” and “God the Son by the Cross, all bound together in a Triangle denoting the Three Persons in God” (Cummings 48).
Although the south wall of the meeting house depicts important moments in Jesus’s life as recounted in the New Testament, the most defining episode in his life is not depicted: his crucifixion. Instead of painting Christ’s death on the cross, Mikkelson showcases Jesus’s relationship with his Apostles: in the Ascension and the Descent of the Holy Spirit, we see the disciples kneeling and worshiping Christ. Mikkelson depicts scenes that are at once identifiable and yet convey a very personal vision.
—Mackenzie M. Younker
- Cummings, Mildred H. South Solon: The Story of a Meeting House. South Solon, Maine: South Solon Historical Society, 1959.
- Ferguson, George. Signs & Symbols in Christian Art: With Illustrations from Paintings of the Renaissance. New York, NY:
- Oxford University Press, 1961.
- Hall, James. Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols In Art. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2008.
- King James Bible Online.
- Speake, Jennifer. The Dent Dictionary of Symbols in Christian Art. London: Dent, 1994.