The Lamentation Over the Dead Christ
Andrea Mantegna
Posted on 02/17/2005 7:41:15 PM PST by NYer
Bold naked images of Jesus in new relief sculptures installed in Christchurch's Catholic Cathedral have attracted angry protests from parishioners.
About 20 parishioners holding placards reading "ugly" and "pornographic" protested outside the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament on the weekend.
The sculptures, by Christchurch artist Llew Summers, mark the 14 stations of the cross and were dedicated to celebrate the cathedral's 100th anniversary.
The stations of the cross depict the last hours of Jesus Christ's life.
Parishioner Monica Reedy said there was a groundswell of concerned parishioners who felt the art depicting a naked Jesus was "inappropriate".
"I don't think the committee understands the passion we have as parishioners and as art critics in our own right. We should have been involved (in the decision) step by step." said Reedy. "(The works) look like Neanderthal man."
Modern art was inappropriate in a neo-classical building, Reedy said. She described the new stations of the cross as a sad milestone in the church's history which damaged the essence of the church.
"Can you imagine that they would be allowed to do that in any sophisticated and intact building in Europe?"
Summers, who is not a Catholic, welcomed the protests, saying they encouraged discussion around the artwork.
"There is almost no naked Christs in the world. It's a truth that you are bringing to it," he said.
There was a lot of celebration of the female body, but very little of the male body, he said. "I'm interested in the glorification of humanity, not the evilness of humanity."
Cathedral Trust committee member Professor John Simpson said the committee had carefully considered the selection of Summers for the difficult task of exploring "the drama, the poetry and the absolute pathos" of the last few hours of Christ's life.
It was too soon to condemn the value of the artwork, he said.
"There are bound to be some who are uplifted by the work and some who consider it unworthy. We believed that his understanding of the matter of the passion of Christ was such that we would end up with something unique," Simpson said.
Michelangelo's sculpture of David was attacked and damaged in its early days but now it was considered a great work, he said.
He was upset that people were unhappy with the stations of the cross and would be happy to speak to them about his own understanding of the sculptures.
Christchurch poet Bernadette Hall said the artwork was historically accurate because crucifixion was traditionally reserved for slaves who were stripped to humiliate them.
"They really bring out the humanity of Jesus Christ. For me, personally, it is quite a relief to see the human figure of Christ. It was very brave and extraordinarily honest."
Reedy understood the intention of the artist was to emphasise Christ's naked vulnerability but even so, she said, it was not necessary.
The committee did not consult widely enough within the diocese, she said. "I wonder who they have their mandate from."
Cathedral administrator Monsignor Barry Jones said the protesters were a minority in the parish.
"They (the sculptures) are just so unusual. When I first saw them I did not know what to make of them.
"The more I see them the more they grow on me. I think we need to spend time with them," he said.
Amen!
Exhibition modern art doesn't bother me. I love some of it, from Picasso to Rauschenberg. A lot os junk, too, but that is to be expected with things modern.
The sacred art lost all meaning at about 1700, to be charitable. It became sentimentalized kitsch. The exceptions exist, I am sure, although none comes to mind. OK, may be that Giacometti's crucifix that the Pope got.
I've seen far too much excellent stained glass, wall-painting and sculpture in Catholic Churches in America, dating to the 19th and even early 20th to agree with that statement.
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IF God compel thee to this destiny,
-from 'A Thought For a Lonely Deathbed' |
I'll grant you it's never been in the mainstream of iconographic tradition in East or West. Still, we do have full-frontal nude Christs in the ancient ceiling mosaics of the Ravenna baptistries. Perhaps the real problem is our own fallen response to nudity. Given the Church's inadequate catechesis on the matter of the body, which results in the faithful's scandalised inability to deal with the unveiled image, I regretfully conclude that you're right about nude Christs being questionable in the context of ordinary parish churches serving the essentially uncatechised and unformed faithful.
Jansenist nudity hysteria on display here
Bump!
Because of the self-referential way most modern minds are formed, this category is largely invisible to all but a few. Kitsch is now the ocean in which we swim. Because our culture conditions truth upon its emotional acceptability and takes for granted the sovereignty of private choice in all things, people find it impossible to think outside that category. It makes authentic conversion all but imposible.
What, precisely, is "sentimentalized kitsch"? The answer to that question should be a definition, not an example.
That thread is an absolutely heroic, and successful, effort of yours.
I would characterize it as a better example of modern religious art. It suffers from the affected cuteness, so typical of things modern, -- note the lovable big feet and the overdone deadness of the hung head. But it is not offensive. Certainly the nudity is not, it is a part of the message of a suffering child, which the artist clearly intended and is successful conveying.
I would agree that it breaks with tradition of the church art that fears nudity and so is inappropriate in a parish church. But it doesn't anger me in the same way as jazzed-up decorum of some modernized churches does.
The proportions are all wrong ... hands too small, feet too big, arm length ratio all wrong (in another one His arms are longer, proportionally, than a gorilla's), the body 'way too small for the legs. And there's no inscription. The total nudity is the least of the problems, if indeed it is a problem.
Yes. Modernity cannot express a thought without making a cartoon character out of the subject matter. This is a given, -- you just cannot criticize modern art by pointing out the exaggerrated anatomy. The esthetics here are from a children book (I am reminded of Maurice Sendak's illustrations). This is part of the sentimentalization of art Romulus and I are talking about.
It is not kitsch though.
I like Giacometti's crucifix on the Pope's staff, and it is exaggerrated anatomy too, and very modern. But Giacometti does not condescend to me in the way this artist does.
Those who clamor for women's ordination are nothing more than modern-day docetists who insist that the maleness of Christ, our High Priest, is a contingent reality. To combat these neo-docetists, IMO every crucifix on every altar throughout the world should bear a nude corpus, to remind everyone seeing it that the Body of Christ, our High Priest, is really male.
Kitsch is a German word that isn't readily translatable. It's the antonym of "kunst", which is not just "art" as we understand the word, but "art" with all its overtones of merit and accomplishment and skill. Kitsch applies to a product that's shoddy or bogus or feeble because the goal lies beyond the artist's technical, aesthetic, or philosophical range. It's an artistic (not necessarily aesthetic) miscarriage, especially one that fails through the incompetence, ignorance, or negligence of the artist.
The Coca-Cola Santa is kitsch. Treacly religious art is kitsch. Even though they may be well-drawn, because they're manipulative and sentimental -- or rather, manipulative because they're sentimental. They exist to comfort us with the message that everything's OK. They conform themselves to our expectations. They're kitsch not because the artist lacks technical skill, but because the skill is debauched in the service of something less than truth.
I might add that the Novus Ordo Mass as all-too-often celebrated in AmChurch environs is, notwithstanding its validity, kitsch, by virtue of dishonest translation and insipid language, shabby vestments, lack of due regard for liturgical reverence, and relentlessly commonplace, utilitarian setting, decorations, altar vessels, etc.
The excessive realism of later religious art, especially in the West, is spiritually dangerous not just because it's sentimental, but also because it supresses the vertical dimension, the element of mystery.
With reference to the spiritual danger of sentimentality in art, please consider what Walker Percy or (even more) Flannery O'Connor had to say. O'Connor points out that sentimentality is tenderness detached from the source of tenderness. It is tenderness for its own sake, thus it makes the individualised self the standard of truth and beauty, rather than anything eternal. Because sentimentality recoils from what's not emotionally congenial, it devolves into self-worship. And once self-worship sets in, any cruelty imaginable can result. As O'Connor concludes" "When tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness [i.e., Christ] its logical outcome is terror. It ends in forced-labor camps and in the fumes of the gas chamber."
There is a purpose. The purpose is to make a huggable, lovable, childlike creature that is sadly dead. The artist achieved his purpose well, it is just not deep enough as far as purposes go. And the reason is, the artist is not humble enough. A medieval artist never thought of himself as interesting enough to express original thoughts. He humbly repeated what he learned from the elders. The results were majestic, although very often anatomically just as incorrect as this one.
I think that Sommers' crudity is studied and affected. If you look at some other, secular art on his web page, it shows human forms that are very deliberate in their anatomy-defying weirdness.
I was going to look for some medieval crucifixes, but what you posted illustrate my point as well. The folk artists were not presumptious. There was no grand message that the esteemed artiste has for us. Their lack of skill is real. If they could make a finer sculpture they would. Not incidentally, the message in their case comes from Christ Himself, and it contains a mystery. Why is Christ surrounded by angels and saints? Why does he seem calm and unperturbed? The Paschal mystery is absent in Sommers' work, because he, of course, cannot comprehend it, and he refuses to be an instrument of grace, -- he wants to be the author of it. But what he does comprehend is huggability, cuteness, pity, -- things sufficient for exhibition art, pathetically shallow in church art.
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