[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

I just discovered this painting and I am in love..

 

I saw this painting in passing on a PBS art history program called "History of Western Art (with Michael Wood)"

it was unnamed and I had to do some research (searched Impressionist "Body of Christ" which led me to "Pieta" who was a renaissance painter who made the famous statue which inspired this painting and came up with Gaugain which I should have remembered cuz the show was highlighting Gaugain's work)

This painting perfectly captures the essence of Christianity, that the Suffering Christ, who though being God, died in the arms of inferior human beings, represents the universal suffering of the human heart. This image is like an icon of a shitty day or a depressed afternoon..

when human being suffer grief, sorrow, angst, depression, they are entering into the sufferings of Christ, or more actually when Christ suffered the Cross and died He entered into the suffering of humans, that we could all mutually relate. When we suffer (those who are Christians), we must remember this Suffering and Dying Christ, and in our sighs of sorrow and frustration, we must constantly visualize this.

Notice the body of Christ rests not in the hands of Mary as with Pieta's original (which is the theological meaning of that work, that Mary held the body as we humans can hold His body in the Communion) but on the very shoulders of the Breton woman while she works there, carrying not only the load of her daily burdens, her daily grief, but these grievous burdens of life are transformed into the Body of the Suffering Christ, that we bear His Suffering on our shoulders as the heavy, sorrowful load it can become.

I have not been so in love non-Icon religious art since I discovered Antony Fablo

 

[Lurker]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

This painting perfectly captures the essence of Christianity, that the Suffering Christ, who though being God, died in the arms of inferior human beings, represents the universal suffering of the human heart. This image is like an icon of a shitty day or a depressed afternoon..

when human being suffer grief, sorrow, angst, depression, they are entering into the sufferings of Christ, or more actually when Christ suffered the Cross and died He entered into the suffering of humans, that we could all mutually relate. When we suffer (those who are Christians), we must remember this Suffering and Dying Christ, and in our sighs of sorrow and frustration, we must constantly visualize this.

Notice the body of Christ rests not in the hands of Mary as with Pieta's original (which is the theological meaning of that work, that Mary held the body as we humans can hold His body in the Communion) but on the very shoulders of the Breton woman while she works there, carrying not only the load of her daily burdens, her daily grief, but these grievous burdens of life are transformed into the Body of the Suffering Christ, that we bear His Suffering on our shoulders as the heavy, sorrowful load it can become.

Yeah, it's this sort of absurd, disgusting, patronising, degrading stuff that puts me off Christianity.

[Lurker]

The first painting is ok though.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Lurker

The first painting is ok though.

thats the Gaugain, and he was chasing the 'superstition' of the 'pious' country women to reinterpret that classical and medieval religious art and themes to catch the sensacion behind the religious significance.

In this context, Jesus because a symbol of human grief, a widely occurring human emotion which dominates much of life. In religion, that is the point, but surely even from a purely artistic perspective you can see this powerful symbolism in the painting. I enjoy the impressionists but my favorite are surrealists..

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

 

By coincidence I printed this for something so I thought I'd bring it to the discussion..

Paulo Veronese's "Feast at the House of Levi"

This fucking thing is 5.5 x 13 meters!!

He was brought to the inquisition as a heretic for the controversial adding of the other folks in the scene..
Q. In this Supper which you painted for San Giovanni e Paolo, what signifies the figure of him whose nose is bleeding?
A. He is a servant who has a nose-bleed from some accident.
Q. What signify those armed men dressed in the fashion of Germany, with halberds in their hands?
A. It is necessary here that I should say a score of words.
Q. Say them.
A. We painters use the same license as poets and madmen, and I represented those halberdiers, the one drinking, the other eating at the foot of the stairs, but both ready to do their duty, because it seemed to me suitable and possible that the master of the house, who as I have been told was rich and magnificent, would have such servants.
Q. And the one who is dressed as a jester with a parrot on his wrist, why did you put him into the picture?
A. He is there as an ornament, as it is usual to insert such figures.
Q. Who are the persons at the table of Our Lord?
A. The twelve apostles.
Q. What is Saint Peter doing, who is the first?
A. He is carving the lamb in order to pass it to the other part of the table.
Q. What is he doing who comes next?
A. He holds a plate to see what Saint Peter will give him.
Q. Tell us what the third is doing.
A. He is picking his teeth with a fork.
Q. And who are really the persons whom you admit to have been present at this Supper?
A. I believe that there was only Christ and His Apostles; but when I have some space left over in a picture I adorn it with figures of my own invention."

I love the gall to be so sarcastic at your own Inquisition! Some space? The damn thing is enormous! You have to have a wicked sense of humor to paint such an obnoxious and heretical painting for the Monsignor or a prestigious monastery.. I almost feel that he made the thing that big JUST so he could paint all those 'heretical' figures and give such a facetious explanation as to say that you painted them to fill in the extra space.. The hell you say!