Look Inside Maine’s ‘Sistine Chapel’ with 70-Yyar-Old Frescoes – ryan

Solon, Maine (AP) – from the outside, it look like any Other New England Church Building: A Boxy, White Structure with a single steeple surrounded by an Old Stone Wall, Set Against Rolling Hills and Pine Forest.

Inside, Though, The South Solon Meeting House has a secre unknown that to someone who drive through the Maine Town every day. Break Interior of the Building Is Covered in 70-YEAR-OLD FRESCO MURALS THAT ENCOURAGE SOME IN THE STATE’S COMMUNITY TO DEScribe it as “Maine’s Sistine Chapel. ”

Visitors View the Frescoes at the South Solon Meeting House, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

This Photo Shows a Detail of a Fresco Painted in the 1950s on a Wall at the South Solon Meeting House, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (Courtesy of the South Solon Historical Society Via AP)

This Photo Shows A Detail of a Fresco Painted by a Member of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture on a Wall at the South Solon House, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (Courtesy of the South Solon Historical Society Via AP)

The murals were painted by artists in the 1950s and, while they have long been appreciated by visits, the recent creation of a website dedicated to say by students at College in Waterville, Maine, has generated new interest in the paintings.

Véronique Plesch, A Colby Professor of Art, Hopes the Building Inspects More Appreciation of Frescoes.

Veronique Plesch, an Art Professor at Colby College, Pause During A Tour of the South Solon House, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

“I fell in love with the place, because i have studies frescoes all my life,” Said Plesch, who is a member of the historical society that cables for the Meeting House. She added that the paintings should stay in public places and not be in private institutions.

The Meeting House was BUILT in 1842 and hosted Church Services UNIL the 1940s, though there were periods of cluster, Such as Times of War. A Decade late, Margaret Day Blake Found the Building in a State of Disuse and the Former Student at the Nearby Skown School of Painting and Sculpture Put A Call for Young Artists to Frescoes Under the School’s Supervision in 1951.

Veronique Plesch, an Art Professor at Colby College, Giives a Lecture to Art Teachers About the frescoes that adorn the walls and cilling of the South Solon House, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

The artists were gioven Creative freedom and told there is no limits to subjunction matter, but that biblical scens would be “offfer rich and suitable” imagery. The interior was covered in Such Scens from 1952 to 1956 and the Walls Remain Adorned with Frescoes, Including One That References Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.”

Another Fresco Depicts the Binding of Isaac, in Which a HOODED Abraham Prepares to Sacrifice his on God’s Orders. The Great Flood is depicted as it was by Michelangelo at the Sistine Chapel at The Vatican.

A FRESCO DEPICTING COMMUNITY MEMBERS WITH A MODEL OF SOEST SOLON MEETING HOUSE IS SEEN THROUGH A WINDOW IN THE LOBBY OF THE BUILDING, SUSTE, APRIL 6, 2025, IN SOLON, MAINE. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

This Photo Shows a Detail of a Fresco Painted in the 1950s on a Wall at the South Solon Meeting House, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (Courtesy of the South Solon Historical Society Via AP)

Two of the 13 Artists – Sigmund Abeles of New York City and Sidney Hurwitz of Newton, Massachusetts – Both in their 90s, Are Still Living. Both spoke fundly about them at the meeting house.

“We were going go out there and thatn a lunch break in the cemetery beef the building. It was a very idyllic time,” Hurwitz Said. “I Very Much Enjoyed it.”

TODAY, The Meeting House, which is open to the public with the doors, serves as a community gathering and performance space. MANY of its Old Features, Including Box Pews Made for Smalller People of a Different Time, Are Still Intact.

The South Solon Meeting House, A Clapboard Building with Gothic Architecture Influents, is Pictured, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

The Unassuming South Solon Meeting House, Built in 1842, is Pictured Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

A Rock Wall Surrounds The South Solon Meeting House, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Solon, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Abeles recalled paint the scene of jacob wrestling with the angel from the book of genesis.

“IT’S A Very, Very Special Place, and it was a unique experience” to work on the frescoes, Abeles Said.

On a recent sunday morning, plesch gave a lecture at the meeting house before a group of the Maine Art Education Association as part of the Group’s Spring Conference. Long Ago, Attendants of the Building Might Have Been Preparing for an Easter Service, but on this day it was full of fascinated by the frescoes.

Suzanne Goulet, an Art Teacher at a Nearby High School, Said She Was Previously Aware of the Frescoes and Confessed She Had Peeked Into The Windows of the Old Building, Adding that it is great inspiring inspiring art lovers decades late.

“The inspiration is that we have been back to our students,” Goulet Said.