Good Friday Meditation: Four Paintings Of The Crucifixion By Salvador Dali

OK, here it is, I trailed this earlier in the week: this is what I’m doing tonight for something a little different for Good Friday.

Introduction
I am no artist: ask me to draw someone and you won’t get better than matchstick
man standard. And nor am I an expert on art, although I once enjoyed a holiday
where a Christian artist was exhibiting
work and talking about it. But tonight I want to try something different. Rather
than preach I have chosen four paintings of the Crucifixion by Salvador Dali. We’ll
show them on the screen; I’ll leave you some space for silent reflection on
them. I’ll then offer a few thoughts about what they say to me about the Cross
and the Gospel.

1. Christ Of St John
Of The Cross

This is perhaps Dali’s most famous image of the crucifixion.
We look down from above the Cross, which itself is raised above the world.
To me this reminds me that God’s view of the Cross is that it is for the whole
world. The Cross is for everyone and for all creation. The Cross is for the
brokenness of the world.

But then there is the detail at the bottom: can you see the
fishing boat? What Dali has painted at the bottom is the fishing village of
Port-Lligat on the Costa Brava. It is the place where he lived. For
me this makes the point that if the Cross of Christ is for the world, it is not
merely general it is also specific: if it is for the world, it is also for our
place and time.

2. La Crucifixion,
Paris

You can find this in
the Dali Museum at Montmartre, France. According to the
photographer who took this shot of the painting,

Dali used an arquebus (like a crossbow) to shoot paint blobs
at canvases to jump-start his Bible illustrations. This blob became the hair
and blood of Jesus.

But you may also be able to see that the blob which became
the hair and blood of Jesus has spattered also onto the female disciple by
Christ. The Cross, then, is not only for the world and for our location, as I suggested
with the first painting, it is also for us personally. We might find the old
language about being ‘covered by the blood’ quaint or worse, but it captures a
truth about the Gospel: Christ died for me.
And his death is for my forgiveness and holiness, and leads me to his risen
life as I follow him.

3. Corpus Hypercubus

This one is downright peculiar, isn’t it? Dali also has a
painting of the three crosses – Jesus and the two criminals – where each cross
is painted as a ‘hypercube’. You may find this unnatural representation of the
Cross unsettling, but many depictions of the Crucifixion are, without going to
this extreme, because they sanitise Jesus (as this one does) by not showing him
completely naked, as he would have been. That was part of a condemned man’s
final humiliation. The recent controversy over the milk chocolate
sculpture of Jesus in New York got at least one thing right: Jesus was
naked.

But for all the unrealistic elements in this painting by
Dali, one thing grabbed me: it puts people at the foot of the Cross. Indeed it
was only a second or third time I looked at the painting that I realised there
was only one person at the foot of the Cross in the picture. For that is how I see
the Church: it is people who live at the foot of the Cross. ‘Jesus, keep me
near the Cross,’ says the old hymn. But keep us all near the Cross; keep us together
at the Cross. It never is a matter of ‘coming to church’; it is about ‘being
the Church’. And the place where we are the Church is when we gather at the
foot of the Cross.

4. Bare Crucifixion

This is the only picture about which I have been able to
find no background information. I don’t know the title, date, provenance or
even the gallery where it hangs. I believe it may have been painted in 1954,
but that’s the best I can do.

I see it as a ‘bare crucifixion’. No adornments, no detail,
no distractions – just the crucifixion of Christ. And it therefore speaks to me
about the sufficiency of the Cross. When you’ve got the Cross, you don’t need
anything else. I can get ‘unleaded plus’ petrol if I want, but I don’t need ‘Cross
plus’ anything. In the words of Matt
Redman, ‘The cross has said it all.’

More than that, the cross has done it all. Jesus dies with a cry of triumph on his lips: ‘It is
finished’, or, perhaps, ‘It is accomplished.’ The Cross is sufficient. ‘Nothing
in my hand I bring, simply to thy Cross I cling.’ (Augustus Montague Toplady, Rock Of Ages)

And tonight we cling to the Cross. It is our hope, it is our
all in all, it is our reason for living and dying in the hope of Christ.

UPDATE: I’m sorry, I’m not sure why the pictures haven’t appeared! Must be something to do with my OakFlickr plug-in for ScribeFire. Will see if I can solve the problem.

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