Love Story

I whiled away an hour on Good Friday, trying to decide what my favourite Holy Week painting is. I tend to shy away from paintings of the crucifixion as they are so distressing. Crucifixion paintings are any empath’s worst nightmare; even the biblical accounts freak me out. A process that is so agonising that a new word had to be coined to describe how painful it is: excruciating. Thanks, but no thanks. I do love Salvador Dali’s ‘Christ of Saint John of the Cross‘ though, because it is so original and beautifully conceived. I remember the first time I saw Zurbaran’s ‘Agnus Dei‘ at the National Gallery. It literally stopped me in my tracks. You don’t need to understand its cultural significance for your heart to bleed for this lamb that was bound and would soon be slain. It’s way up there in the list of paintings I wish I’d painted.

So, Easter. Bunnies and chocolate and hot cross buns? Not really, terrific as those things are. For the times when I am under so much stress I feel like my head will explode; for the times I wonder what the blazes I am doing on this benighted rock; for the times when the world is so beautiful, I find it hard to breathe; for the times I feel like I am in a pressure cooker and the heat is being turned up fast; for the times I feel like a bird in a cage that is hurling itself at the bars’ let me out, let me out’; for the times I turn a corner in a gallery and unexpectedly come across Holman Hunt’s ‘Light of the world‘; for the times when a baby beams at me and stretches out its arms, asking to be carried; for the sheer relief of sins forgiven and conscience cleansed; because wars will cease from Pole to Pole and all be prayer and praise. That is the significance of Easter Sunday and the astonishing work that Jesus carried out on that cross. So hush your noise you men of war, and hear the angels sing. People, I won’t lie to you. I would let a million worlds burn down before I would let anyone crucify my son. But then, I’m not God, and his ways are not my ways, and we can all thank our lucky stars for that 🙂

Tied in with the crucifixion is the agony of poor Mary who had her heart pierced, probably having spent many an anxious day watching her son steadily and unerringly heading for that cross. Sassoferrato’s ‘The Virgin Mary in Prayer‘ is a beaut and one of my all time faves. Those colours and shadows, that blue. It’s tremendous, as is Michelangelo’s ‘Pieta‘ which makes me want to cry every time I see it. For sheer exuberance, I also love Giorgio Vasari’s picture of a triumphant Christ. The first time I saw it at the Church of Santa Maria Novella, I actually burst into laughter. Pure swagger. This Jesus had obviously been eating 3 Shredded Wheat for breakfast and drank nothing but Irn-Bru, made from girders. If you’ve ever read Vasari’s ‘Lives of The Artists‘, you’d have no trouble reconciling the painting with the man. He was a first class delinquent.

I also love Titian’s beautifully composed  ‘Noli Me Tangere‘. Most of these paintings are in the National Gallery. Don’t waste Easter Monday; go there and look and wonder. I leave you, not with one of my dopey poems, but a snippet of a Chris Tomlin hymn. Happy Easter.

My chains are gone; I’ve been set free.

My God, my Saviour; has ransomed me.

And like a flood, His mercy reigns

Unending love, amazing grace.

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