day 46 Christ of St John of the Cross

 

A large print of this painting by Salvador Dali hung in the assembly hall of the middle school I attended many many decades ago.  I wasnt brought up in a Christian family and we never went to church but I did get sent to brownies and later girl guides.  Both of these had a definite Christian ethos and I now know were run by good and godly women.  The only other christian input into my life came through school.  This picture made a great impression on me.  Every day we had school dinners in the hall where this painting hung.  Every assembly we all sat on the floor cross legged underneath it.   I remember staring at it and feeling moved by its beauty and its symbolism.  

We sang hymns at school.  We prayed the Lords Prayer.  All under the watchful eye of Jesus on the cross.   I didnt know anything about the painting then except that I liked it alot.  It was only many years later that I discovered that it had been painted by Salvador Dali.

I havent seen this image for years but at some point this week it popped up on my screen.  Once again I found myself fascinated by it and so I decided to do a bit of digging into the picture itself and the man who painted it.   What I found out was really quite amazing.   Dali doesnt appear to have had much of a religious background.  He was more concerned with politics and the emerging surrealist art scene.  He did convert to Catholicism at some point but it wouldnt seem that he had much of a personal faith.  Regardless of this fact  Dali was shown this painting in a dream.  He just painted what he had seen - the christ suspended in such a way that His face is obscured.  The black heavens and the lake  beneath with the fishing boats.  None of this came from the imagination of the artist - it was all a download direct from heaven.  Which is no doubt why it is such an arresting and profound image.  It was painted in 1951 - which was only 15 years before I was born.  But somehow it feels very modern - or rather it feels timeless.  It could have been painted yesterday.  There is a hyper realism about the figure on the cross. And yet it is nothing like a 'realistic' portrayal of a crucifixion.  There is no blood, there are no wounds, no crown of thorns.   Theres a sense that the viewer is standing somewhere in eternity looking down through heaven, past the crucifixion suspended in history and time, into the world at an indeterminate moment in the past.   In order to have that viewpoint you would have to be God.

And then theres the light.  Its such a very strong part of the image.  Darkness above, light shining on the cross and on Jesus, the shadows His arms are casting, the light in the clouds and the glow on the blue horizon. It is so beautiful, but the light is there to show us that God was eternally illuminating the crucifixion and that Jesus is indeed the light of the world.

If you search for this image in high resolution and magnify it you can see the amazing details which you might miss on a first viewing.  The notice above Jesus's head has no writing on it. It has been carefully unfolded and stuck up there but it says nothing.  There are no nails in His hands or feet.  He is spotlessly clean and unblemished.   The fishermen are dressed in what looks like 16th century doublet and hose. There is a reason why Dali's dream showed him these specific details.  I think its worth pondering on the painting for a while and seeing if God has anything to say through it.                                                                                                                                             

400 years previously a Spanish monk called Juan de Yepes y Alvarez had a similar vision of Christ on the cross as viewed from above,  He too drew what he saw.

The monk was later canonised and became St John of the Cross. He clearly wasn't really an artist. But his poetry is amazing and well worth checking out if you like 16th century writing 😇

I wonder if God is still downloading images into artists dreams.  Im sure He is.  I do hope they are continuing to paint/sculpt/draw/write/perform what they see and hear.  I hope I get to discover more of them - Im really happy I rediscovered Dali's crucifixion this week.