This below, with a pope seated in front of it, is a sculpture in the Paul VI Audience Hall in the Vatican, declared to be of the Resurrection of Jesus from the crater of a nuclear explosion. I’m not that sure where in Christian tradition or the Bible they felt the inspiration for such a theme, but anyway art is art, and beautiful and deep art in the service of the divine is of course deeply entwined in human history. However whatever about beautiful and deep art, this is I think one of the most vile, oppressive pieces of ‘art’ I think I’ve ever seen. To be honest my visceral inner response is that it is grotesque and repellant.
And from further back in the hall:
“What do you think of it?”
“Emm ... Was this the effect you were hoping for?”
“What do you mean?”
“The kind of demonic serpent thing you’ve got going on there, with the Pope sat on his throne between the serpent’s fangs.”
“I can see where you’re coming from, now that you mention it, but no, we weren’t really aiming for that effect.”
The Roman Catholic Church would be by some enormous distance the greatest patrons of art in the history of Western civilisation, and have been renowned, though also criticised, for their expertise in the use of the power of image and ceremony. They’re not exactly coming from nowhere in terms of art, architecture and symbolism. I’m not sure how it’s remotely possible to benignly explain away this astonishingly sinister hall, constructed in 1971. And below, a close-up of Christ from the bizarre creepy sculpture, where if we shift our focus to the side of the head rather than at its face, it looks decidedly serpent-like. And just in case there was felt to be not quite enough serpent imagery going on - not the most positive of creatures in Christian tradition - we see from outside architecturally it has a very unusual shape, which appears to resemble that of a snake’s head - if you tap on the image to see it closer up, the impression becomes much stronger.
No comments:
Post a Comment