Knowing Nothing

Knowing Nothing Commentary by Clementine Kane Cite Share Show Bible Passage The Apostle Paul, eschewing the powerful rhetorical modes of his day, reiterates his simple, shocking message: Jesus Christ, crucified, is the way of life. The starkness and simplicity of Paul’s message is reflected in Graham Sutherland’s spare crucifixion. Inspired by long meditation on Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece, Sutherland’s Christ is a sharply drawn modern interpretation (Newton 1966: 282). The geometric abstraction describes his suffering; the measured lines constrict his body. Set against a deep blue background, the absence of any other figures or reference suggests an atemporal quality to this event. Outside of a particular time, it can speak to all times. Despite the extreme angles of his arms, Christ’s body does not sag under its own weight but is suspended between heaven and earth. His body is still and collected, his arms stretched out for the love of the world. Yet, the intensity of his experience is marked in his clenched face and the spearhead of his sharply drawn ribcage, which seems to emphasize the agony of each breath. But this is a meditation not on suffering but on suffering with—compassion—that marks the intersection of the human and the divine in the Christian tradition. Paul, being confirmed to his Lord, also embodies compassion: And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling. (v.3; emphasis added) Paul does what leaders are so often unable to do and admits his own weakness, his fear, and his reliance on something greater than himself. As a Roman Catholic convert in twentieth-century England, Sutherland was confronted with the severe realities of the Second World War and was no stranger to the struggles of the Christian faith. The convergence of brutal suffering and spiritual struggle seems also to be a defining feature of Grünewald’s grim work in its inspiration of Sutherland’s painting. It was only in deep contemplation of the Isenheim figure that Sutherland could alchemize the fear and suffering of his generation into a crucifix for the twentieth century—as, perhaps, for any time in need of a God who ‘suffers with’. References Davies, Hugh and Horton Davies. 1978. Sacred Art in a Secular Century (Collegeville: Liturgical Press) Kistemaker, Simon J. 1993. Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker Books) Newton, Eric and William Neil. 1966. 2000 Years of Christian Art (New York: Harper & Row)