The Lenten Season is officially upon us, embodied by a spirit of reflection and repentance culminating in the Celebration of Easter on April 16th. As there is an undeniable influence of Christian theology on the history of art, every Sunday of Lent we will explore art with distinctly Christian themes in a methodology known as visual theology. Today marks the beginning of Holy week with Palm Sunday. In honor of this period of reflection nearing its conclusion, this week will simply be dedicated to the recurring themes of Holy week found within Christian imagery: the Last Supper, the Passion, Pietàs and of course the Crucifixion. Each theme will be accompanied with biblical scripture and some images with brief artistic commentary to provide further context for greater appreciation and/or deeper reflection. The Last Supper "When it was evening, he took his place with the twelve; and while they were eating, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.” And they became greatly distressed and began to say to him one after another, “Surely not I, Lord?” He answered, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.” Judas, who betrayed him, said, “Surely not I, Rabbi?” He replied, “You have said so.” While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take it, eat; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will never again drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” -MATTHEW 26: 20-29 Garden of Gethsemane "Then he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground." -LUKE 22:41-44 "Although Christ had to suffer this alone, without the Father, His love seems evident by the strong light shining down through the darkness of the night. Almost unable to bear the burden of mankind’s salvation, he takes rest and comfort in a greatly needed supporter. Although Christ bares expressions of sheer exhaustion and pain, he appears loving, selfless and accomplished. His comforter is empathetic and patient. Engulfed in the arms of the visitor, Christ slowly gains the strength to face his betrayer and the final excruciating act of his ultimate sacrifice." - Artist Carl Bloch Ecce Homo "Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they slapped him in the face. Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him.” When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!” -John 19:1-6 " Whether or not we regard Jesus as a deity, he was at the very least a political leader of an oppressed people. The sculpture alludes to the recent historical past and its sad record of religious and racial intolerance." -Sculptor Mark Wallinger Crucifixion "Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, 'I am thirsty.' A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, 'It is finished.' With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." - John 19:28-30 "Most people would expect the Good Thief, who is nearly always shown on Christ's right, to be in the light; yet Rembrandt illumines the Bad Thief, crucified on his left. This is not as perverse as it seems. We understand that what saves us is not to be in the light, but to be able to see it, to recognize the presence of God. The Bad Thief cannot see the light, that surrounds him, for he is blindfolded -- a physical indication of his spiritual blindness. As he dies he writhes in anguish." -Neil MacGregor, Seeing Salvation. "One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” -Luke 23: 39-43 "At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”)." -Mark 15:33-34 " [Chagall] transformed the traditional subject of the Christian iconography of the Christus patiens into the lyrical testimony of the condition of the Jews, presenting Jesus as a martyr and the symbol of his peoples' suffering. Chagall replaced Jesus' traditional loincloth with a tallit, a prayer shawl, the crown of thorns with a headcloth, and the mourning angels that customarily surround him with three biblical patriarchs and a matriarch, clad in traditional Jewish garments." -Divine Beauty Exhibition Guide "No one has ever really understood who this Jesus really was. One of our most loving rabbis who always helped the needy, the persecuted[...] For me, he is the archetype of the greatest Jewish martyr of all time." -Artist Marc Chagall "Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'" -Luke 23:34 Vesperbild & Pietà "The image of pain evokes the sufferings of all mothers in a cry that pierces through time: the image is vibrant, the image is surprising. Christian devotion... in an eternal scene of compassion." - L'osservatore Romano "As she holds Jesus' lifeless body on her lap, the Virgin's face emanates sweetness, serenity and a majestic acceptance of this immense sorrow, combined with her faith in the Redeemer. It seems almost as if Jesus is about to reawaken from a tranquil sleep and that after so much suffering and thorns, the rose of resurrection is about to bloom. As we contemplate the Pietà which conveys peace and tranquility, we can feel that the great sufferings of this life and its pain can be mitigated." -- Saint Peter's Basilica. Deposition & Entombment "Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there."-John 19:40-42 "The gleaming white shroud is being used to bear Christ, to lower him lovingly and reverently down from the Cross into the sepulcher. It is not a sepulcher that stands below, but at the altar -- and for the Church the altar is Christ's sepulcher. Here the body sacrificed for others will be distributed as the eucharistic host -- just as the basin of blood Rubens painted beneath the Cross will reappear as the eucharistic wine." --Neil MacGregor, Seeing Salvation.
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The Lenten Season is officially upon us, embodied by a spirit of reflection and repentance culminating in the Celebration of Easter on April 16th. As there is an undeniable influence of Christian theology on the history of art, every Sunday of Lent we will explore art with distinctly Christian themes in a methodology known as visual theology. This week is not an original post from The Artist's Job, but rather from famous former curator and director of the British Museum & London's National Gallery, Neil MacGregor. His 2000 publication, Seeing Salvation, was the inspiration for this blog's research and original writings in visual Theology. "Epilgoue" from Neil MacGregor's Seeing SalvationIn a world without God, is there still a future for the image of Christ? No longer dreading Judgment, we do not picture him as a Ruler and Judge. Crucifixes may be ubiquitous, but since the First World War the imagery of suffering has become steadily richer with photographs of real people and real events. Since many of those who suffer most today are not Christians, it is hard now to view the Crucifixion as an emblem of universal suffering. The crosses outside Auschwitz were seen to have been put up to call Jewish suffering into question - or worse - and were decried for that reason. And perhaps the scale of suffering has become too great, and a creed of atonement too remote, for a suffering God to speak to many of redemption, or to move us to acts of charity. Americans looked with horror and remorse at the news photograph of a Vietnamese child burned with napalm. As earlier centuries might have reacted to an altarpiece of the Crucifixion, they knew that this suffering was in a general sense their fault and that their actions could help to alleviate the wider injustice and suffering that it represented. And it was this image, and not one of Christ on the Cross, that provided an impetus for bringing war to an end. Yet you could argue that, in a way, this speaks to the continuing power of the tradition we have been examining: the Franciscan response of pity, followed by contrition and then action was actively present, but the trigger was not a suffering god, but a suffering child. As Francis had argued over seven centuries earlier, it is the love all of us can feel for a child that recalls us most powerfully and most simply to our highest duties of love for all humanity. And nothing will ignite that love more rapidly than an affecting image. If Mark Wallinger still invokes the Ecce Homo, many Western artists today, believers and unbelievers, try to represent the divine and spiritual in different ways. Some, as Mark Rothko did, return to the aniconic traditions of observant Jews and iconoclasts, depicting the transcendental as radiance or luminous fields of colour. Others seek universality by combining Western and foreign traditions. Stephen Cox, an English sculptor responsible for the altar and reredos of St. Paul's Haringay, has been inspired by images of divinity in traditional Indian stone carving. The American video artist Bill Viola turns to the writings of Western and Eastern mystics and Jungian psychoanalysis. His installation at Durham Cathedral, The Messenger, associates a Christ-like male nude with the Sanskrit concept of prana, the breath which animates, the life force - and this itself goes back to pagan Greek and heretic early Christian notions. But if we no longer heed the messages of the great Christian images of the past, and admire them mainly for aesthetic qualities, there is one traditional image of Christ that, I believe, remains universally valid. It moves people from any cultural background, whether or not they recognize it as an image of the incarnate God. It is the Christ Child. Like all babies, the infant Christ is the focus of our aspirations and our apprehensions. We know what he will have to endure, and we want to protect him from it. If there is one emotion that can come close to uniting all humanity, it is surely awe in the face of a new-born child - tender, over-whelming, humbling, strengthening. No artist ever painted it more powerfully than Rembrandt in the picture now in the museum of Stockholm. The Child's parents have just handed him to Simeon, the priest in the Temple. And although he appears to be blind, he sees the essential. He intuits divinity and he knows all will now be well...Rembrandt, as so often, concentrates on the heart of the matter; he shows the scene in cinematic close-up. Simeon is transfigured; in his arms he holds Christ. But he and Anna, the aged prophetess (a figure added by a later artist), appear like any grateful grandparents near the end of their days, and Christ is every baby: a newborn child whom all are moved to protect and love, and on whom all hopes are fixed, until the last generation. Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace...For mine eyes have seen salvation. NEIL MACGREGOR Neil MacGregor is a British art historian and former museum director who was born in Glasgow in 1946. He studied at the universities of Oxford, Paris, Edinburgh and London (Courtauld Institute). MacGregor was called to the Scottish bar before becoming a lecturer in the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Reading. He was the editor of the Burlington Magazine from 1981 to 1987, then Director of the National Gallery, London, from 1987 to 2002, and finally Director of the British Museum from 2002 to 2015. He has presented three television series on painting with the BBC: Seeing Salvation, Painting the World and Making Masterpieces.
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