BEATS OF LOVE
113. Reflection on the Crucifixion of Our Lord, Jesus Christ by John Littleford
WE SKIPPED film class to attend this talk in my local church community hall. It's fascinating to learn about the other life of people and even more fascinating when they turn you onto their art.
The Idenheim Altarpiece inspired John’s crucifixion series, copying its three-panel layout and modern theme but using abstract shapes. I prefer realistic art, so I was glad his final piece returned to recognisable figures. It also felt highly relevant today, likely because of the massive success of the movie Oppenheimer. Because photos fail to capture the deep texture of mixed-media art, I left the exhibition truly wanting to see the physical paintings in person.
His gently painted World War I figures climb out of the trenches toward death. He only hints at this violence, out of respect for today's reflective audience, who can easily look up graphic war images. In contrast, Grünewald fearlessly painted a plague-stricken Christ to show deep empathy. He created this for a hospice where doctors wore the bird-like masks that inspired Hieronymus Bosch. Those suffering patients desperately needed hope. John’s artwork sits well in the ordinary, modern parish church, perhaps ours. We, too, still need that same hope.
Depicting the second atomic bomb because its cloud lends itself to encasing Christ better is odd, but that's the problem with schematic figurative art, I guess. Thumbing through the delightful draughtsmanship of John's sketch-books is fascinating coz you see how reworked his Christ was before he arrived at the Gauguin-esque figure. A figure dwarfed by the famous sentence of reconciliation 'Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.' These words of God still have great global force. The 20th century made horror inescapable while introducing collective shock and mass spectacle into society. The 21st century, with its Millennium dome, the first building in history to put a gun to its own head and pull the trigger, summarises this state of overkill we now live through.
Liberated from the bubble wrap of John's attic, this series is bound for a higher purpose. It serves as an urgent wake-up call for the church to defend social justice, offering a defiant lifeline to a world drowning in hopelessness.
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