Saint Simeon reopens from the ruins near Aleppo
Near Aleppo, the sanctuary of Saint Simeon Stylites has reopened to visitors after more than a decade of closure. The move is an early step in Syria’s heritage restoration policy, also meant to help revive tourism.
The site, about 30 km from Aleppo, had been closed for more than ten years. Its reopening comes as Syrian authorities begin a heritage-restoration drive that is also being presented as a way to bring activity back to the area.
For artists, Saint Simeon is прежде all a place of looking: a landscape of ruins, broken volumes and surviving traces that speaks of time as much as of architecture. The sanctuary offers a subject where damaged stone, open voids and still-legible lines create an image of both loss and endurance.
For painters and draughtsmen, the site is a reminder that heritage is not only a historical matter but a visual one. It shows how a work or building can remain present in fragments, and how restoration can alter the reading of a place without erasing what the ruins have kept.
Source : Le Journal des Arts