Ad Imaginem Dei: Holy Week with Giotto – Good Friday, Mid-Morning, Via Crucis

Friday, April 22, 2011

Holy Week with Giotto – Good Friday, Mid-Morning, Via Crucis

Giotto, Christ Carrying the Cross
Italian, c. 1304-1308
Padua, Scrovegni/Arena Chapel

“And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the cloak, dressed him in his own clothes, and led him off to crucify him. “ (Matthew 27:31)

“A large crowd of people followed Jesus, including many women who mourned and lamented him."
(Luke 23:27)

This painting is the most dynamic of all the pictures we have seen since Palm Sunday. Movement is dramatically conveyed by the placing of the figures. Jesus is seen slightly to the right of center. One of the two figures leading the procession appears to have partially walked “out of the picture”.

Detail. Leading soldiers

This movement “out of the picture” implies a conceptual revolution. It implies that what we are seeing is a slice of an independently existing reality, which we are observing through a window. This concept shows how radical and advanced Giotto’s thinking was and would be the driving force of the development of art throughout the Renaissance, culminating in such grand illusions as “The School of Athens” by Raphael two hundred years later.

Detail. The group following Jesus. One of them if prodding Jesus with a stick.

In addition to the dynamic interpretation of the scene, emotion is also evident. Jesus is prodded by one of the guards. And Mary stands, in an agony of motherly grief, at the far left. She appears to be restrained by another person, though it may just possibly be an action of comfort instead.

Detail. Mary

The painting of these figures is, in the main, more assured than the painting in the “Christ Before Caiaphas” and “Mocking of Christ” and may well be by Giotto himself. However, the head of Christ seems oddly out of proportion to his body. This is especially obvious in comparison with the heads of the other figures in the scene. This may be an indication of the hand of an assistant or the work of a restorer during the intervening centuries.

Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Uniquely among the monotheistic religions Christianity permits the use of images of God. Why? The answer lies in the Christian belief in the reality of the Incarnation. Since God has assumed human nature and form the Biblical prohibition against making images of God ceases to apply. As the second Council of Nicea declared in 787 "Following the divinely inspired teaching of our holy Fathers and the tradition of the Catholic Church (for we know that this tradition comes from the Holy Spirit who dwells in her) we rightly define with full certainty and correctness that, like the figure of the precious and life-giving cross, venerable and holy images of our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ, our inviolate Lady, the holy Mother of God, and the venerated angels, all the saints and the just, whether painted or made of mosaic or another suitable material, are to be exhibited in the holy churches of God, on sacred vessels and vestments, walls and panels, in houses and on streets."
(Council of Nicaea II: DS 600)

This decree of Nicea II was promulgated for the entire church, both Greek and Latin speaking, and was a response to the strongly held beliefs of the iconoclasts, who wished to suppress the use of images, which had convulsed the Byzantine Empire and the eastern churches for almost 100 years. In addition, St. John Damascene, last of the Greek Fathers and a staunch defender of images, had written in De imagine ("In Defense of Images") "Of old, God the incorporeal and uncircumscribed was never depicted. Now, however, when God is seen clothed in flesh, and conversing with men, (Bar. 3.38) I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter." (St. John Damascene, De Imagine, Part I, 15-16, from Internet Medieival Sourcebook.)

The ways in which this imaging of the divine has been accomplished in the course of time is the subject of Christian iconography. To quote from the Merriam-Webster dictionary, iconography is "1: pictorial material relating to or illustrating a subject; 2: the traditional or conventional images or symbols associated with a subject and especially a religious or legendary subject; 3: the imagery or symbolism of a work of art, an artist, or a body of art".

The iconography of any subject develops and changes over time. Christian iconography develops and changes too, as reflection on the Gospels and Tradition develops over time and as the act of making art develops and changes as well. This is the background for this blog.

Ad Imaginem Dei

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Friday, April 22, 2011

Holy Week with Giotto – Good Friday, Mid-Morning, Via Crucis

Central Park Sunset

Oscar Wild 1997(?)-2014