Art Religion in Dali's Christ of St.John of the Cross - Essay Example

Salvador Dalis ‘Christ of St.John of the Cross’ Introduction There have been many attempts at depicting Jesus Christ during there last two millennia.and it would be in part a truism to say this crucifixion is just one more. The term crucifix or crucifixion derives from the Roman Latin word crucifixus or cruci fixus and refers to a form of execution which involved being fixed to a cross. However in Dali’s work of 1951, an oil on canvas measuring 205 cm by 116 cm, although it does depict Christ on the cross, with darkened sky above an expansive sea, the bay of Port Lligat, a frequent source of Dali’s inspiration, contains no actual visible means of fixation. The Kelvin Grove Museum web page points out that the small boat and figures are copied from artists Velazquez , the16th century Spanish artist whom Dali claimed as an inspiration, and Le Nain., a 16th century French artist. Sometimes called ‘The Crucifixion of Saint John of the Cross’, it is unique, in part from its perspective and because of the reason it was painted as it is. It is not meant to depict the crucifixion as it was seen by the various onlookers. This is shown in more than the angle from which the figure is viewed. The whole, seen from distance, is in the shape of an hourglass – perhaps a reminder that this, although a dream, is a depiction of an actual event. The work has been , ever since it went on display in 1952, the source of much admiration, controversy and criticism it is definitely not just another crucifixion. The unusual viewpoint is from a similar angle to that shown in the earlier drawing by St John of the Cross, his only surviving known art work, kept in the Carmelite convent at Avila. It is not the usual viewpoint of worshippers before a depiction of the crucifixion as depicted by earlier artists, both in medieval times and in the 20th century as for example in Marc Chagall’s ‘The White Crucifixion’ of 1936. This is another important work as , with the presence of a Jewish prayer shawl, it unusually serves as a reminder that Jesus was a Jew. Schweig in 2000 suggested that the painting is from the point of view of the bride ( i.e. the church as the bride of Christ, Bible, Revelation 22) looking down upon her tortured bridegroom. Although there are several figures, there is no one either worshipping or praying. As in the earlier work by St John of the Cross, there is a total absence of many of the items associated with the crucifixion, and sacred depictions of it, i.e. the crown of thorns, the soldiers, the blood and nails. No halo, not even a vague one to tell the onlooker that this is someone very special. The superscription is there, but merely as a piece of paper. There is no explaining to onlookers who this is and why he is there. It is not needed. This absence of the various elements already mentioned stresses that it is Christ himself who holds his own body on the cross., an important point doctrinally in Chrsitianity. The artist’s fantastic image also depicts his very precise draftsmanship, which is of the highest standard. In comparison to Dali’s larger work, John’s is only 4 inches by 3, yet within that small compass he depicts his faith in the crucified Christ. Graham Schwieg describes the view as from a ‘one-point perspective from a three-quarter aerial view.’ It seems that Dali had a dream in 1950, a time nuclear power was very much a topic of the time. Most dreams are forgotten soon after waking, but Dali has managed to capture his dream in oil and canvas. In his dream it was apparently shown to him that including these things would spoil his work and so they were omitted. According to Robert Decharnes in 2003 he said:- I had a cosmic dream in which I saw this image in color and in which my dream represented the nucleus of the atom. This nucleus later took on a metaphysical sense; I considered it the very unity of the universe; the Christ.’ He go on to describe, as quoted on the web page ‘Christ of Saint John of the Cross’ how a certain Carmelite, a Father Bruno, showed him a drawing by St John of the Cross. I saw the Christ drawn by Saint John of the Cross, I worked out geometrically a triangle and a circle, which ‘aesthetically’ summarized all my previous experiments, and I inscribed my Christ in this triangle. Saint John of the Cross, according to the web page dedicated to him, early on in life, was aware of the power of sacrificial love, which is depicted in his work and in this piece by Dali. John was famous for preaching that it was necessary fro Christians to break the cords of their earthly desires in order that they are enabled to fly up into the presence of God. The painting is put together in such a way that there are several triangulations, thought to represent the three aspects of the Trinity. Christ hangs suspended between earth and heaven above a sea in which there is a small boat and fishermen. The boat can be considered to be a representation of the church, and the fishermen as those ‘fishers of men ‘described in Matthew 4 v 19. It is the peculiar angle of the work that is said to have led to it being damaged in 1961 by a visitor to the Glasgow art gallery, where it is usually situated. He was dissatisfied by the way in which the view looks down from above on the crucified Christ. The artist seems to be God himself looking down on a dark world and at it center, his crucified son, suspended between earth and heaven. Although its true name is ‘Christ of St John of the Cross’, it is often called simply ‘The Christ of St John’ and it is in that gospel that we see clearly that Christ was not crucified against his will, but that it was all part of the plan of God. In John 3 v 16 we read :- For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. In his gospel the evangelist John ( Chapter 11) Jesus deliberately sets out for Judea knowing that this is likely to lead to a clash with the authorities. There are various predictions of his death throughout the gospel and in chapter 18 v 8 he freely admits his name to the guards seeking him. In chapter 19 Pilate states that he has the power ( John19 v 10) to crucify him, but Jesus tells the governor that he only has power because it has been given to him. In verse 30 of the same chapter Christ seems to deliberately give up his life when he states ‘It is finished’. Religion According to the web page ‘Christ of St John of the Cross’ Dali was a Spanish Catholic, educated for a time by the rigorous Christian Brothers, according to Robert Harvard ( page x,, The Crucified Mind, Rafael Alberti and the Surrealist Ethos in Spain, 2001) In that sense he was typical of his place and generation. Harvard describes it ( page xi) as the kind of religion that was repressive and likely to induce neuroses. The same author describes ( page 4) Surrealism as a combination of religion and paranoia. Andre Breton in The Dalí Case, (‘Surrealism and Painting,’ 1965, page 133) felt that Dali was of such a strong personality that he could cope with the participation in the events in his subconscious, in this case in a dream, both as onlooker and as participant. This was his Savior on the cross dying for Dali’s sins as well as those of everyone else. Harvard ( page 8 ) describes how Dali’s early works, from 1913 onwards, are realistic landscapes as in ‘Landscape with River’ and then portraits, such as the darkly moody ‘My cousin Montserrat’ from 1917. From 1928 onwards things change. He would carefully display on his canvases the objects which were important in his inner life, as when in 1931 he produced ‘Partial hallucination, six portrait of Lenin on a grand piano.’ He joined the Surrealist group in 1929 according to his web biography. The virtual Dali’ web page says he considered himself to be the ‘Savior of Art’. He went through various stages with his art. Osborne ( Page 297) mentions ‘Cubism, Futurism and Metaphysical Painting’. His biographer on the biographybase web page ‘Salvador Dali Biography’ also mentions Dadaism, which the author believes affected his art for the rest of his life. The Salvador Dali Society describes him as being ‘fixated by his subconscious mind’. He was neurotic, but treated that as a positive thing, a subject to be depicted. John Baxter, in Brunuel, 1994, page 228 describes Dali’s religious affiliation. It was a huge move to Catholicism from the communism and anarchism of his youth. This is not the only depiction of a gospel incident. A well known example is ‘The Sacrament of the Last Supper’ , now in the Washington D.C. National Gallery of Art. This, Dali claimed , was an :- Arithmetic and philosophical cosmogony based on the paranoiac sublimity of the number twelve...the pentagon contains microcosmic man: Christ. Surrealism According to Harold Osborne, writing in the 1970 work ‘The Oxford Companion to Art ‘( 1984 edition , page 1115), Surrealism is not so much an art movement, but claimed instead to be a way of life. The Surrealists, holding to their belief in a higher reality and the all powerfulness of dreams, were seeking to explore the frontiers of human experience and to fuse together the real and logical with the world of dreams, instinct and the subconscious. Osborne speaks of attempts to ‘breach the dominance of reason and conscious control’. Breton ( page 20) describes it as turning symptoms into creative art. Much is made of the way in which Dali promoted his own genius, but he actually said in 1960:- Compared to Velázquez, I am nothing, but compared to contemporary painters, I am the most big genius of modern time. The Context of Religious Art. Dali is not the first artist to depict things from an unusual angle. I am thinking in particular of Michelangelo’s detail ‘The creation of Adam’ in which the view is taken from outside – the artist is witnessing God and Adam. By far the majority of artistic ‘Crucifixions’ are from the point of view of an earthbound onlooker. ‘Art is essentially form’ according to Titus Burckhardt, (The Universality of Sacred Art). He goes on to state that art cannot be called sacred just because it depicts a subject that is considered to be religious. Nor, he says, can there be any such thing as Catholic Art ( page 141, Brain Keeble, Every Man an Artist, 2005. He describes, in ‘The Universality of Sacred Art’, Renaissance art as profane art with religious theme. This is very different from early Christian art which were meant to inspire religious faith as in the form of icons, still being produced today as in the monasteries of Mount Athos. In 1955 Dali , as quoted by John Baxter, had just announced his conversion to Catholicism. He and his wife Gala, whom he had married in a civil ceremony in 1929, were remarried in a religious ceremony in the Roman Catholic church in 1958. Following his conversion he swore that :- My painting in future will be an amalgam of my Surrealist experience and the classicism of the Pre-Raphaelites and the Renaissance. This is perhaps most obvious in pieces such as his fairly conventional ‘Madonna with a Mystical Rose’ of 1963 and the tortured ‘Saint Sebastian’ of 1982, one of his very last pieces. Historical context The web page ‘Medieval Images of the Crucifixion’ from ‘Archeology in Europe’ show many artistic depictions of the crucifixion. There are few known before the middle of the first millenium – one of the earliest is a piece of graffito deigned to deride the idea of worshipping a dead god. The images on the web site reveal a progression of the artistic point of view over the centuries. The change is from a heroic defiance, with head erect, as on for example the early Viking crucifixes depicted. This was reflected in literature of the time as in the 8th century ‘Dream of the Rood :- The young hero stripped himself then (that was God Almighty), strong and resolute. He ascended onto the high gallows. This was Christ in control of his own future. By the early 12th century the figures have changed to a position that can no longer be described as heroic – slumped, had to one side, sometime so much so that it is difficult to fully make out the complete face of Christ, as in Canterbury Cathedral’s Crucifixion window. By the 15th century the figures depicted are often gaunt, as in the Sarum Missal, and tortured and contorted as in Matthias Grunewald’s Crucifixion of 1515. Grotesque open wounds can be clearly seen and blood flows freely. This reflects the literature of the period as from Julian of Norwich:- I saw His sweet face as it were dry and bloodless with pale dying. And later, more pale, dead, languoring; and then turned more dead unto blue; and then more brown-blue, as the flesh turned more deeply dead. In Dali’s work Christ once again in control. Christ himself, not nails or rope, hold himself erect upon the wooden frame, a worthy sacrifice. His head is bowed, the face hidden, but there are no signs of torment. The crucifixion of Christ as Savior is the center of his Christian faith. Conclusion Art in many forms has included sacred subjects from a very early period. Within Christianity in its earliest days meetings were in the individual houses of members, but once there were specially dedicated buildings, the believers began to decorate them , as described in 1947 by Walter Lowrie (page105) From the earliest depictions of the Last Supper in the Roman catacombs onwards Christian artist have wanted to express their faith and to be able to use their artistic skills for God and for the benefit of the faith of the church, his people. Dali responded to many influences. Evan as an unbeliever he could not have avoided the religious imagery of 20th century Spain, His famous moustache is said to have been inspired by that of Velázquez, a classic Spanish artist, and this work in one that was influenced by Dali’s new found faith. The Spanish government is purported to have offered many millions of pounds to acquire this special piece of sacred art. Their offer to Glasgow Corporation was refused, such was considered the value of the work to the people of Glasgow, as was seen in the Glasgow Herald poll of 2006 when it won 29% of the poll. Although the work has resided in a Glasgow Art Gallery for most of its life, and was never meant to be displayed in a place of worship, it is nevertheless a piece of sacred art. It is also very popular as a poll in a Glasgow newspaper revealed. It is an image that has traveled around the world and is much loved. Whether this is because it inspires faith in the sacrificial Christ, or just as a piece of extremely well executed art it is harder to discover. Many people who view it, and travel distances to do so, are people of no faith at all. Whatever their perspective religiously it is certainly a work to make one think. Dali in his turn has inspired other art – for example Andy Warhol and his pop art. This piece would not fit in there. It must be remembered that, although important, this sacred art is only a small part of Dali’s entire output of more than 1,500 pieces of art as well as many lithographs, theatre sets, sculpture and all the rest. This is not his only crucifixion. In 1954 he produced ‘Crucifixion ( Corpus Hypercubus)’, a large canvas now in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, on which Christ is portrayed, not quite floating, but suspended upon a cubic dodecahedron, alongside many non-religious pieces. This is perhaps fitting when one considers Dali’s whole life. He came to faith relatively late and His Catholicism was part of, and yet not all of, his life. According to Nathan Wilda:- The life of Jesus Christ could be said to have influenced more peoples lives than any other thing in history. This striking depiction by Dali is part of that continued influence which began 2000 years ago. Works Cited Baxter, John Bunuel, New York, Carroll & Graf Publishers,1994, Bible, New International Version, Bible Gateway 2nd June 2010 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%20%203%20:16&version=NIV Breton, A. The Dali Case, Surrealism and Painting, London, MacDonald 1965 Burckhardt, T., The Universality of Sacred Art, Chagal, M. The White Crucifixion, 2nd June 2010, http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/jewishroots/whitecrucifixion.shtml Christ of Saint John of the Cross, 20th October 1996, 2nd June 2010, http://dali.urvas.lt/page24.html Crucifixion, ( Corpus Hypercubus,) The Artist Salvador Dali 2nd June 2010, http://www.theartistsalvadordali.com/salvador-dali-painting-poster-print-corpus-hypercubus.htm Dali,S. Landscape with a River, 1910-1914, 2nd June 2010, http://www.salvador-dali.org/cataleg_raonat/fitxa_obra.html?obra=6&inici=1910&fi=1920 Dali,S, Madonna with a Mystical Rose, 1963, 2nd June 2010, http://www.virtualdali.com/63MadonnaWithAMysticalRose.html Dali, S., My cousin Monserrat 1917, 2nd June 2010, http://www.salvador-dali.org/cataleg_raonat/fitxa_obra.html?obra=36&inici=1910&fi=1920 Dali, S. Partial hallucination; six portraits of Lenin on a grand piano, 2nd June 2010, http://www.virtualdali.com/31PartialHallucination.html Dali, S, quotation, 1960 , quoted by Stanley Meisler, 2005. Smithsonian Magazine.2nd June 2010, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/dali.html#ixzz0phKZmSfo Dali, The Sacrament of the Last Supper,2nd June 2010 http://www.ellensplace.net/dali.html Dali, S, Saint Sebastian, 1982, 2nd June 2010 http://www.virtualdali.com/82SaintSebastian.html Descharnes. R. . Dali. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2003. Harvard, R. The Crucified Mind, Rafael Alberti and the Surrealist Ethos in Spain, Rochester, New York, Tamesis, 2001) Julian of Norwich, quoted on Medieval Images of the Crucifixion, 2nd June 2010, http://archaeology.eu.com/christ/cross/ Keeble. B., Every Man an Artist, World Wisdom Inc 2005, 2nd June 2010, http://books.google.com/books?id=7bzBXJ5YguQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=every+man+an+artist&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false Lowrie, W. ,Art in the Early Church, New York, Pantheon Books, 1947 Medieval Images of the Crucifixion, Archeology in Europe, 2nd June 2010 http://archaeology.eu.com/christ/cross/ Michelangelo , Creation of Adam , ( detail) 2nd June 2010, http://www.globalgallery.com/enlarge/21051/ Osborne, H.( editor) The Oxford Companion to Art, Oxford, Clarendon Press , 1984 Saint John of the Cross, Saints and Angels, Catholic Online, 2nd June 2010, Salvador Dali Biography, 2nd June 2010, http://www.duke.edu/web/lit132/dalibio.html Salvador Dali Biography, Biographybase 2nd June 2010, http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Dali_Salvador.html Salvador Dali’s ‘Christ of Saint John of the Cross’ Scotland’s Favorite’ .Art Knowledge News, 2nd June 2010, http://www.artknowledgenews.com/Salvador_Dali-Christ_of_St_John_of_Cross-Scotland.html Schweig, G., Imagery of Divine Love: The Crucifix Drawing of Saint John of the Cross, Institute of Carmelite Studies, 2002, 2nd June 2010, http://www.icspublications.org/archives/others/cs6_13.html Sculpture Highlights and Picture Promenade - Christ of St John of the Cross by Salvador Dali, 2nd June 2010, http://www.glasgowmuseums.com/venue/building/imageDisplay.cfm?venueid=4&fID=1&iID=73 Virtual Dali, The Salvador Dali Society, 2nd Jun 2010, http://www.virtualdali.com/ Wilda, N. Biblical Accuracy in Films About Christ,: Analyzing Depictions of the Crucifxion in Film, 2nd June 2010, http://people.wcsu.edu/mccarneyh/acad/wilda.html Read More