The canvas "Christ of St. John of the Cross" (1950-52) marks the return of the surrealist Salvador Dali to Catholicism and the intention to devote himself to religious art. I saw this painting in the Scottish Museum of Kelvingrove (Glasgow), where it has been located since 1952. It shows the crucified Jesus, presented from an unexpected angle. Not from below, from the foot of the cross, i.e. through the eyes of disciples and descendants, bowing before the sacrifice of the Savior. We see the crucifixion from above, from heavenly heights, where Jesus ascends.
This is how the Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross (Juan de la Cruz, 1542 - 1591) saw him, who left a pencil sketch of his vision.
Based on his motives, Dali created his huge canvas (200 cm x 116 cm).
Darkness surrounds Jesus. The cross hovers in the black space above the sky and the luminaries, in a void that would be invisible if there were no source of light even higher. This source itself remains invisible, but the hands of Jesus cast a shadow on the crossbar. There are no traditional attributes of crucifixion: no nails, no wounds, no blood, no crown of thorns, no traces of suffering and death. The body of Jesus impresses with an athletic build, strong muscles, he looks like an athlete who, starting from the cross, is preparing to make a high jump.
The crucifix hangs over the surface of the sky, earth and water. At the very bottom of the picture is a lake and three human figures resembling fishermen. Obviously, this is the Sea of Galilee and the apostles, that earthly life of Jesus, which ended with the crucifixion. Above this picture from the past are clouds and clouds in several rows, a dense, multi-layered earthly sky, above which the crucifix soars. Christ appears free from the cross, it seems to take off on it - and above it. We do not see the face - it is turned down, to the past, which he leaves, ascending to the source of light. This reduced world is seen from above - as if through the eyes of Jesus himself.
In my opinion, S. Dali brings together two scenes that are usually presented separately in the artistic tradition: the mournful scene of the Crucifixion and the enlightened one - the Ascension. And according to the gospel story, and according to the schedule of church services, three days pass between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, and then between the Resurrection and the Ascension forty more, during which Jesus reveals himself to the apostles, talks with them. After the meeting in Jerusalem and the last instructions about the imminent descent of the Holy Spirit (Pentecost), he ascends to heaven in full view of the apostles:
"... You will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth." Having said this, He was lifted up in their eyes, and a cloud took Him out of their sight "(Acts of the Apostles, 1: 8-9) .
The painting by S. Dali is an image of Jesus not only "to the ends of the earth", but also to the ends of time. Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension are chronologically three different events. But on a spiritual continuum, they are one: turning the greatest sacrifice into the greatest victory. The canvas by S. Dali reduces two extreme limits: the Cross itself exalts Jesus.
In the Apocalypse, the angel swears "Those who live forever and ever - the One who created the heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is on it, the sea and what is in it, that there will be no more time!" (Revelation of John the Theologian, 10:5,6). This apocalyptic point of view is conveyed by S. Dali. In the vertical section of the picture, all three elements are represented: sky, earth and sea. Time has no power over them. Forty days is a human countdown, and where Jesus ascends, there is no more time. The cross, the instrument of crucifixion, is also the instrument of the Ascension, the image of the liberated and liberating Christ.
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"Christ of St. John on the Cross" is one of the most famous paintings by Salvador Dali. In 1951, the artist moved to the positions of Catholic surrealism, and the frightening images born from the twilight of the subconscious were replaced in his work by a new interpretation of Christian symbols. Like much else in Dali's art, this canvas is associated with the Spanish spiritual tradition.
Saint John of Dali's painting is Juan de la Cruz (1542 - 1591), the famous mystic poet who lived during the era of the Catholic Reform. He was born into an impoverished noble family and at a young age entered the Carmelite monastic order, which attracted him with its harsh charter.
Salvador Dali (Salvador Domenec Felip Jacint Dali i Domenech, Marques de Dali de Pubol, May 11, 1904 - January 23, 1989) - Spanish painter, graphic artist, sculptor, director, writer. One of the most famous representatives of surrealism.
Description of the painting by Salvador Dali “The Crucifixion of Christ from St. John”
The artwork, written by Dali, shows a mystical poet named Juan de la Cruus, who is of Spanish origin. He appears to the viewer in the image of St. John, who in the world was listed as a champion of human freedom. The Church and its representatives cannot act as God or be his mediator. It is subject only to the implementation of assistance in solving everyday problems of people, supporting them verbally. In those days, it was an unattainable dream, since religion turned out to be such a weapon in the hands of power structures.
Juan de la Cruusa is known for his theory of human development, which proceeded from a reasonable component that is beyond the control of ordinary people. He sees life as a procession in the dark, from which not everyone can get out. Each of those living on earth, like Christ himself, must move towards reuniting his soul with the Mysteries of Being and being able to cast aside all worldly problems, gaining peace. Only suffering will open the way to Heaven.
Dali revered this theory, so on the canvas he combined the features of what was close to him in spirit.
Examining the canvas over and over again, you can find new details in it. And this is not surprising, because the author used more than one plot at once, combining them into one line. The sea surface and the fisherman's boat are associated with enlightenment, as evidenced by the bright sky over the horizon. It calls for a better life. The black abyss is an image of Christ suffering for humanity. The red shades of the sky are suffering and sacrifice. And the darkness of the background speaks of loneliness. By linking together the symbolic cross of man and the Divine cross, Dali, as it were, hints at the depth of philosophical secrets.
The picture can have a dual effect on the mind: to please the eye and cause a depressing state.
Fedor Pirvits, Specially for Family Treasures, St. Petersburg
Along with Chagall and Picasso, Salvador Dali is one of the most famous artists of the 20th century. In our country, even a kind of "cult" of Dali has developed. It is his image with antennae-antennas and a half-crazy look that is recalled with the phrase "brilliant artist." There is so much stuck on this image that you won’t even understand who Dali really is: a genius mystifier, which even those who have never been to a museum know about, or a greedy clown, as some art critics thought, is he a Catholic , or a Freudian ... Let's try to figure it out using the example of the history of one of the most famous paintings by the master.
CONSTRUCTIVISTS VS. SURREALISTS
The artistic and ideological life of the first half of the 20th century was marked by a confrontation between constructivists and surrealists. Constructivism was the ideology of rational and mathematically cold art. Constructivists saw their goal in changing the whole of life, the structure of human relationships, the type of household items, apartments, houses and even cities. The super-task of constructivism was, of course, utopian - to create a new society that exists on the principles of well-thought-out functionalism. An armchair is a sitting machine, and a bed is a lying machine, and, accordingly, an apartment is just a “living machine”! Painting was replaced by painted squares and circles on the walls. The notorious sleeping areas, “Khrushchevs”, became a monument of such an attitude to urban planning and design.
If the ideal of the constructivists was the design engineer, then the ideal of the surrealists was the psychoanalyst. Surrealism emphasized the intuitive, the dreamy, the fantastic. Among the surrealists, a person (an artist or a poet) himself turned out to be a machine, a mechanism with a pencil in his hand. It was necessary to simply turn on the mechanism of self-writing or self-drawing and in no case “turn on the head”, so as not to interfere with the creative process. The success of this irrational enterprise was allegedly guaranteed by the theory of Sigmund Freud.
In the early 1930s, Salvador Dali actively participated in the triumphal procession of surrealism in the world capitals, but already in 1934 Dali was expelled from the surrealist group with a scandal. And after he proclaims himself a supporter of Catholicism and the monarchy, almost all former friends break off all personal relations with him (as you know, the surrealists sympathized with the communists, and not at all with the Vatican).
CATHOLIC DANDY
The question is, for what reason did the Freudian Dali, known for his blasphemy, megalomania and cynicism, become interested in Catholicism?
By that time, there was already a fairly respectable tradition of the relationship between bohemian nihilism and Catholicism. The French dandies were the first to trod the path here, striving to turn their whole life into a work of art. The extreme of such an aesthetic position is depicted by the writer Huysmans on the example of des Essent from the novel “On the contrary”. This dandy hero leads a nocturnal lifestyle, as the light of day "opposes" him. He spends time in a constant search for more and more sensations and temptations. Over time, temptations become boring, and you want something even sharper, “forbidden”. As Oscar Wilde wrote: “Tired of wandering over the peaks, I voluntarily descended into the abyss. There I looked for new charms. I craved sickness or madness, or rather both." Oscar Wilde convincingly showed where this path leads with the example of his literary hero Dorian Gray.
This eerie ideal did not remain only on paper, but was put into practice by a very real person, the aristocrat Eric Stenbock. Count Stenbock lived in the 19th century and died at the age of 36. He was an extremely eccentric figure: homosexual, decadent, drug addict, alcoholic and poet. Stenbock was obsessed with Satanism, vampirism, and Catholicism. In the last years of his life, he appeared accompanied by his confessor and a huge wooden doll the size of a man, he called the doll "the little count" and seemed to consider her his son ... Brrr!
As Otto Mann, a scholar of dandyism, writes, “Falling into evil and union with evil are not only the result of a wrong step. The dandy has a religious problem here. And he can solve it only if he returns to religion. Such a change can occur in the face of the collapse of the "aesthetic" being. At the end of the novel "On the contrary" the dandy falls, crying out to Jesus Christ. The writer Huysmans, who portrayed himself here, leaves dandyism for asceticism, becoming a monk.
Salvador Dali, of course, did not become a monk (of course!), and I doubt the sincerity of his “conversion”, but the artist was really captured by mystical images, he often began to work on paintings immediately after waking up, as he was very sensitive to visions and dreams (remember Freud). Dali was also very fond of and carefully studied the work of the old Spanish masters Zurbaran and Murillo, sincerely believing Catholics who drew their inspiration from religious subjects.
In 1950, the Carmelite monk Bruno de Jesus (who loved to make acquaintances with intellectuals and artists) told Dali about a rare old image of a crucifix. It belonged to the hand of a poet and mystic writer named Juan de la Cruz. Here it is worth making a brief digression into the history of Catholic spirituality.
SPANISH MYSTICS, "BALE BROTHERS"
The sixteenth century, the golden age of Spanish mysticism, was also the heyday of the Inquisition. In this terrible time for Spain and the entire Western Church, it was against the background of this darkness, night, that the lights that were later called "Spanish mystics" were revealed to the world. The most famous of them: the Catholic saints Teresa of Avila and her disciple Juan de la Cruz.
In the seventies of the XVI century, Teresa of Avila began to implement her reforms. She had a character at least where: as a child, Teresa persuaded her younger brother to run away from home in order to die for her faith in the country of the Moors. Of course, the fugitives were returned. At the age of twenty, against the will of her father, Teresa went to the Carmelite monastery.
The idea of the need to return the order to the original charter came to her after recovering from a serious illness. The nuns have already dug the grave, but the crisis has passed. From a contemplative life, Teresa rushed to active work and walked hundreds of kilometers throughout Spain, personally founding new monasteries.
Art lovers know Teresa of Avila from Bernini's chic sculpture "The Ecstasy of St. Teresa":
According to Teresa of Avila, a cherub pierced her heart with a fiery spear. She wrote:
I feel an unexpected blow,
and my soul was gone!
How did I get this honor?
What did this strange feat accomplish?
What a mortal pleasure -
feel this wound in your heart!
Pain that has no equal; death - and life, what is its reward!
(translated by L. Vinarova)
Teresa of Avila was the first woman writer in Spain - and the first woman theologian.
JUAN DE LA CRUZ
John of the Cross (Juan de la Cruz, Spanish Juan de la Cruz) is a Catholic saint, writer and mystic poet. Reformer of the Carmelite Order. In 1952 he was proclaimed the patron saint of Spanish poets. His story is like this.
Juan de Yepes d'Alvarez was born in the summer of 1542. His parents were very poor and Juan was sent to an orphanage, where he studied the crafts of a shoemaker, carpenter and painter. In his youth, he studied literature, philosophy and theology with the Jesuits, and earned his livelihood by working in the Medina hospital for syphilitic. In 1563, Juan Yepes was tonsured into the Carmelite Order. A very strict charter was developed in the order: poverty, ascetic exercises, fasting, long prayers, physical labor. At the end of the XIV - beginning of the XV century, the order began to lose its former influence, and by the moment described began to split into two branches - the so-called "shod" and "barefoot".
The first meeting of the future great reformers took place in the summer of 1567. Brother Juan was very small in stature - Teresa, when he first appeared before her with a like-minded person, exclaimed: “Glory to Jesus, I already have one and a half monks!” (He was then 25 years old, Teresa - 52 years old.)
The Carmelite order split; the reformed branch was called "barefoot". (This does not mean that barefoot Carmelites literally went barefoot all year round. They wore thong sandals and preached poverty, unlike the unreformed branch, which wore warm shoes in winter.)
Juan de la Cruz wrote that all visions and revelations, no matter how many, are not worth even one humble act. But reliable evidence of one vision of the saint has been preserved. Christ from the cell icon turned to him and asked: “What do you want, brother Juan, for your labors?” Juan de la Cruz replied: "Let me suffer for You!" The request was fulfilled - in prison he was treated in such a way that Teresa wrote to the Spanish king Philip II: "It would be better if he fell into the hands of the Moors, because the Moors would be more merciful."
In the tiny closet where Brother Juan was placed, a two-finger gap in the ceiling served as a source of air and light. There was so little light on a winter day that the prisoner had to stand on a stool to read his prayer book. His clothes were rotten. In summer he was tormented by heat, in winter he was tormented by cold. There was nothing to wait for help from the Pope. The papal vicegerent Sega took an oath to put an end to the barefoot, subordinating them to the authorities of the unreformed branch and freeing them from the “harmful” influence of Teresa de Jesus, whom he called “an annoying vagabond woman who devoted herself to writing books contrary to the commandment of the Apostle Paul:“ let your wives be silent in churches ” and founding monasteries without papal license.
DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
Spring came, and the prisoner was replaced by a jailer. The new jailer was young and kind. He asked the prisoner if he needed anything, and he asked for a pencil and paper. In prison, he wrote one of his most famous works, Dark Night of the Soul.
In Avila, in the Museum of the Monastery of the Incarnation, there is a drawing made by Brother Juan shortly before his imprisonment in prison. This is a crucifix depicted in a very strange perspective - so, from above, a soaring bird would see it. Subsequently, this angle was used by Salvador Dali in his famous painting “Christ of St. Juan de la Cruz”.
Oil/Canvas (1952)
Description
Despite the fact that many of Dali's paintings are provocative, experimental in nature, in this work the author tried to embody a deep religious and mystical meaning. The painting by Salvador Dali was inspired by a drawing made by Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591), who depicted his ecstatic vision of the Crucifixion from above, as if through the eyes of the Father. The cross in this drawing acts as a bridge between God the Father and the mortal world depicted at the bottom of the picture. Dali claimed that he, like John of the Cross, was visited by two ecstatic visions, in which the idea for this work was formed. Salvador Dali himself explained the idea of this picture as follows:
... first of all, in 1950, I saw a "cosmic dream" in which this picture appeared to me in color and which in my dream was the "nucleus of the atom". This core then acquired a metaphysical meaning, and I considered it as the main component of the Universe - Christ! Secondly, when, thanks to the instructions of Father Bruno, the Carmelite, I saw a drawing of Christ drawn by Saint John of the Cross, I developed a geometric triangle and a circle in which all my previous experiences were "aesthetically" summarized, and I entered my drawing of Christ in this triangle. Initially, I did not want to depict all the attributes of the crucifixion - nails, a crown of thorns, etc. .- and turn the blood into red carnations in the arms and legs, with three jasmine flowers dipped into the wound on the side. But only until the end my decision changed the second vision, perhaps because of the Spanish proverb that says: "little Christ, too much blood." In this second dream, I saw a picture without anecdotal attributes: only the metaphysical beauty of Christ God. ... My aesthetic ambition is that the canvas is the opposite of all depictions of Christ made by modern artists who have applied an expressionist manner, evoking emotion through ugliness. My main task is to depict the beauty of Christ as God, in what He personifies.
The triangle that forms the hands of Christ in the picture is traditionally considered an allusion to the image of the Holy Trinity, the head of Christ forms the center of this triangle. The triangle is directed with an arrow from top to bottom, which personifies the sacrifice directed from God to humanity. At the bottom of the painting, the artist depicted the landscape and the boats of Port Ligata, containing at the same time Gospel allusions. According to the original plan, the artist refused to depict the Wounds of Christ, the crown of thorns, nails in the picture, and wanted to replace them with red carnations, which he intended to put into the hands of Christ. However, he completely abandons this idea, seeking to show the “metaphysical beauty of Christ”, beauty through what He embodies, that is, to show the greatness of the Savior’s sacrifice not by the horror of His wounds, like other artists, but by His beauty. The execution of the cross and the fabric folded on top of it also indicates to us the Eucharistic meaning of the cross - the cross appears to the viewer as a table on which the Existential Bread is located.
The artist was so serious about the completion of this work that he did not want to leave the first draft. In order for the paint in this picture to dry on time, Dali installed central heating in the house in Port Ligate. In 1961, a mentally ill visitor tore the bottom of the canvas by throwing a brick at it, but the painting was successfully restored. During the closure of the Kelvingrow Museum (1993-2006), the painting was in the Museum of Religious Life and Art of St. Mungo. In 2006, she won 29% of the votes in the competition for the most beloved pictures of Scotland. The Spanish government offered $127 million for this painting, but the offer was rejected.
There are two different perspectives in the picture, exactly converging at the point of vanishing perspective. The bottom of the picture is executed in a traditionalist manner. This fragment of the painting is inspired by the work of Le Nain and Velasquez.
Despite the non-canonical depiction of the Passion of Christ, a fresco copy of the painting is in the altar of the Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Samara.
The painting is located in Kelvingrow, Glasgow.
