Capel Salem, Llanbedr facts for kids
Capel Salem is a special old building in Pentre Gwynfryn, a small village in Gwynedd, Wales. It's a Grade II listed building, which means it's important and protected. This building is a Baptist chapel, a type of church. You can find it about a mile upriver from Llanbedr, sitting on a ridge between two valleys. It's only about 300 meters upstream from where two rivers meet. The chapel was started in 1826 and finished in 1851. Ten years later, it was made bigger to include a chapel house and its inside was updated.
What is the Salem Painting?
Capel Salem is super famous because it's in a painting called Salem. This painting was made in 1908 by an artist named Sidney Curnow Vosper. Just one year later, in 1909, a rich person called Lord Leverhulme bought the painting.
At that time, many homes didn't have much art. So, the Salem painting became really popular, especially among working-class families in Wales. It was unique because so many people knew it.
Hidden Secrets in the Painting
As the painting became more famous, people started talking about it. Rumors spread that it had a hidden figure. The most talked-about rumor was that the devil's face was hidden in the shawl of the main person in the painting. People had different ideas about what the painting meant. These ideas also showed how people viewed small, religious communities in the countryside, and how Welsh people saw themselves.
Vosper, the artist, always said he didn't paint any faces into the shawl. However, he did say that he painted a ghostly face in the window above the main person. People knew there was *some* hidden face in the painting. This might have been why they started believing there was a devil in the shawl. Today, the painting and its hidden faces are often used as an example of pareidolia. This is when your brain sees faces or patterns in random things. The original Salem painting is now kept at the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight.
