Tuesday 17 August 2010

To remember...


It's funny the things we remember. I was referred by my school to a Child Guidance Clinic when I was 5 years old - I don't know why, and the only answer I can get from my mother is that I was considered ''odd.'' One small oddity about me was that I was gifted at drawing - but only images of the Crucifixion. I drew nothing else, and this seemed curious to the child psychologist I saw. In fact I remember doing catechesis with my mother, and continually turning to a wonderful painting of Calvary and making a rough copy of it. I remember my first trip to the National Gallery I insisted on staring for minutes on end at Raphael's Mond Crucifixion - I had to be dragged away, and with great distress, by my grandparents, who offered me a Milky Bar. The first thing I ever drew that was not a Crucifix was a small Aspen tree I saw in a book. Curiously I found out later that a cherished tradition has it that Our Lord was nailed to the wood of an Aspen tree.

Perugino's Triptych is my favourite depiction of the Crucifixion. Not accurate like Duccio, nor overly grisly. This painting gives me hope.

1 comment:

  1. Addiction to representations of crucifixion attributable to an experience of transverberation in early infancy. Since then, said addiction muted into daily exercises of obessional(largely historically justified) papal and curial character assassination and litugical rantings. Strongly advise for a crystal meth treatment tempered with generous doses of industrial custard. Gagging might be necessary...

    Otherwise, i hope you're doing fine. My favourite representation of the Crucifixion is actually a mediaeval crucifix representing Christ with a crown- it was lost for many centuries and then discovered not too long ago. In France but i cannot recall the name.

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