Is this an alien or a horror movie monster? WHAT!? THIS is suppose to be Jesus!?

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Sabda said:
No, they would not because most of the pictures you see are clear about what they are. A person who did not know Jesus would not know who the person was in the pictures but they would know that they suffered a horrible death. They would know that their death was important.

That’s a stretch

Yes, these pictures are about death but I would not say that they are recognizable as the Stations. From reading this thread it seems to me that is the main problem with these particular set of pictures.
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to each his own, but I had no problems.
 
Sabda said:
Yes, these pictures are about death but I would not say that they are recognizable as the Stations. From reading this thread it seems to me that is the main problem with these particular set of pictures.
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Kind of like a musical “tone poem”. The music might be beautiful and inspiring to some, but would we really know what the music was trying to depict if the composer didn’t put a title or an explanation after?

i.e. Holst’s “The Planets”. I love the work, but would I truly get the idea that each movement represented a planet? Most likely not.

Or better comparison which works quite well with the Stations theme, is Liszt’s “Via Crucis”. It is for choir and organ, but there are movements where it is only the organ playing. So, you have in one movement, “Station II Jesus Takes Up His Cross”, which is a trudging organ solo. One could imagine Jesus dramatically taking up His cross. But it’s not necessarily the case for everyone to imagine. If Liszt just had those movements as singular organ or piano works without a title, would they be recogonized as a religious piece of work depicting the Stations. Perhaps not. (This was done for years in our choir for Lenten concerts. My husband and I being Franz Liszt fans absolutely loved the piece. It’s grotesquely beautiful and very “Lisztian” in terms of his drammatics. BUT many of the choir were revolted by the piece, because it was ugly and didn’t inspire. There were “beautiful” moments in it but many times, the chords ate away at you - and for us that totally represented a feeling of despair and pain for Jesus. The choir no longer does this work every year for the Lenten concert except for a few movements because of this.)
 
I think that I have said all that I should about whether I think these are good art or not. As we are dealing with opinion, it becomes a matter of diminishing usefulness to debate about it.

I do have some questions which all may answer about these, though, whether you like these Stations or no.

We have seen that they portray death and pain. Well, I can understand that. However, death and pain are not all there is to the crucifixion.
  1. Do these Stations adequately express that Christ is God? Even in His being put to death, Christ still maintained His divine presence.
  2. Do these Stations show the triumph of Our Lord? In the midst of His sacrifice, even while being crucified, Christ triumphed. He conquered death. This is an important thing along with the pain.
  3. Do these Stations show that it is our sins which have led to Christ’s crucifixion? Older portrayals of this event use the crowds and the soldiers to represent mankind’s wickedness.
 
I’ve seen better religious art painted on the sides of train box cars.
 
Do we suppose that a blond haired/blue eyed Jesus was truly how our Lord and Savior looked in appearance?:o He was born as a Jew, in the middle east…doubtful He looked remotely like that, but is often the portrayal of Him by many artists. I think the issue with this art, is that the artist paints a picture of Jesus as appearing like something sub human–or not human at all, which is upsetting to the naked eye. But, abstract art is not meant to be taken literally–the artist is not trying to send a demeaning message by portraying Jesus in this way–it is merely this artist’s imagination of the events leading up to Christ’s death. (and of course for publicity–publicity will draw people to his work)

But, I jsut wanted to say that, because there have been controversial discussions about the ‘arian’ form of Jesus in paintings, which most definitely is not accurate, because of the culture in which Jesus was born.

Just some food for thought.🙂
 
Part of the purpose of having stained glass, statues, stations, paintings, etc is for educational purposes. I think such art that is displayed in a Catholic Church, should be very clear–as it is a teaching tool. Interpretive art is fine, for a Museum, not so much in a Church–where the images should be clear, concise AND moving.
 
Jennifer_J said:
Part of the purpose of having stained glass, statues, stations, paintings, etc is for educational purposes. I think such art that is displayed in a Catholic Church, should be very clear–as it is a teaching tool. Interpretive art is fine, for a Museum, not so much in a Church–where the images should be clear, concise AND moving.
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agree with that!👍 I don’t believe that this artwork belongs in a church.
 
Jennifer_J said:
Part of the purpose of having stained glass, statues, stations, paintings, etc is for educational purposes. I think such art that is displayed in a Catholic Church, should be very clear–as it is a teaching tool. Interpretive art is fine, for a Museum, not so much in a Church–where the images should be clear, concise AND moving.
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Yes… most definitely. Thank you for being concise in defining my beliefs on the subject as well. My verbosity in my previous posts sometimes gets the best of me. 😉

There is nothing wrong with the work as a piece of abstract religious art (whether or not a viewer “likes” it according to his/her sensibilities), but it really does belong more in a museum for pleasure, interest or criticism just based on the misinterpretations and reactions here.
 
whatevergirl said:
Do we suppose that a blond haired/blue eyed Jesus was truly how our Lord and Savior looked in appearance?:o He was born as a Jew, in the middle east…doubtful He looked remotely like that, but is often the portrayal of Him by many artists.
But, I jsut wanted to say that, because there have been controversial discussions about the ‘arian’ form of Jesus in paintings, which most definitely is not accurate, because of the culture in which Jesus was born.

Just some food for thought.🙂
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Not trying to get too far off topic, here, and it has been discussed elsewhere, but:

Actually, I don’t think anyone knows what Jesus looked like. There are plenty of blonde, blue-eyed Israelis, Palestinians and Syrians too. There are a lot of explanations given for that; “Europeanized” Jews, Brits, Crusader genes, Gallic/teutonic “Roman” soldiers posted in Syria, Macedonians, Hyskos, various Indo-European invaders, on and on and on. We can no more assume Jesus looked like an Ashkenazi Jew from New York City than we can assume he looked like the fair-skinned, blue-eyed, red-haired “Sephardic” Jewish lawyer who practices in a town near where I live, or a black Ethiopian Jew.

But I have no more problem with His being portrayed as an “Irish” Jesus than I have with His being portrayed as a Mestizo Jesus or an Oriental Jesus. I do think it matters some whether the people in a particular parish can see and identify with His humanness; something those awful stations do not encourage. Certainly, a crucifixion is a grim business, but there ought to be a dignity and a hopefulness expressed in it; not unremitting horror. I do not think “Church art” ought to be some kind of academic exercise for the elites. Stuff like that has left most people cold for a century now, and more.
And why? Because it has no natural resonance with the human mind and, to the extent it has an emotional impact, it is confusing and bizarre at best, horrific at worst. With all due respect to those on here who understand “modern art” and like it, to most people these images are going to evoke the emotions that their horror-show kin evoke. There is something really awful about grotesque distortions of the human body; gender-bending, unnatural expressions and the appearance of evisceration and/or putrefaction. The artist might have been well-meaning in packing all sorts of esoteric symbolism into these paintings, but that’s a bit like assigning James Joyce’s “Ulysses” to eight graders, and expecting them to figure it out on their own and somehow come out the better for it. To most people, particularly to young people, the symbolism is lost, and all that really appears is the “monster-like” image. And that awfulness DOES communicate something, but it’s a negative something, in the same way that monster movies communicate something negative about the monster “persona”.
 
Actually, I have seen Christ portrayed with brown hair most of the time. I cannot even recall the last time I actually saw Him with blond hair.
 
whatevergirl said:
agree with that!👍 I don’t believe that this artwork belongs in a church.
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You’re quite possibly in luck – as far as I can tell, it’s web-only. I haven’t found any references to these Stations being in an actual church building.
 
I think this is entirely appropriate to the role of Icons given in the Catechism:

“the contemplation of sacred icons, united with meditation on the Word of God and the singing of liturgical hymns, enters into the harmony of the signs of celebration so that the mystery celebrated is imprinted in the heart’s memory and is then expressed in the new life of the faithful” CCC 1162

Clearly in the 21st century, icons no longer need to be a literal telling of the story, the “poor man’s Bible” as they were in the middle ages. We know the basics. The Word of God, which we can all read and hear for ourselves, tells us the whole outline and gives us the whole basis for meditation. All the same, art speaks to the emotions and leads us deeper into those mysteries.
 
Ridgerunner said:
Not trying to get too far off topic, here, and it has been discussed elsewhere, but:

Actually, I don’t think anyone knows what Jesus looked like. There are plenty of blonde, blue-eyed Israelis, Palestinians and Syrians too. There are a lot of explanations given for that; “Europeanized” Jews, Brits, Crusader genes, Gallic/teutonic “Roman” soldiers posted in Syria, Macedonians, Hyskos, various Indo-European invaders, on and on and on. We can no more assume Jesus looked like an Ashkenazi Jew from New York City than we can assume he looked like the fair-skinned, blue-eyed, red-haired “Sephardic” Jewish lawyer who practices in a town near where I live, or a black Ethiopian Jew.

But I have no more problem with His being portrayed as an “Irish” Jesus than I have with His being portrayed as a Mestizo Jesus or an Oriental Jesus. I do think it matters some whether the people in a particular parish can see and identify with His humanness; something those awful stations do not encourage. Certainly, a crucifixion is a grim business, but there ought to be a dignity and a hopefulness expressed in it; not unremitting horror. I do not think “Church art” ought to be some kind of academic exercise for the elites. Stuff like that has left most people cold for a century now, and more.
And why? Because it has no natural resonance with the human mind and, to the extent it has an emotional impact, it is confusing and bizarre at best, horrific at worst. With all due respect to those on here who understand “modern art” and like it, to most people these images are going to evoke the emotions that their horror-show kin evoke. There is something really awful about grotesque distortions of the human body; gender-bending, unnatural expressions and the appearance of evisceration and/or putrefaction. The artist might have been well-meaning in packing all sorts of esoteric symbolism into these paintings, but that’s a bit like assigning James Joyce’s “Ulysses” to eight graders, and expecting them to figure it out on their own and somehow come out the better for it. To most people, particularly to young people, the symbolism is lost, and all that really appears is the “monster-like” image. And that awfulness DOES communicate something, but it’s a negative something, in the same way that monster movies communicate something negative about the monster “persona”.
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I agree, the symbolism is lost, but Christ dying was more than a symbol to us, indeed. When I see a traditional stations of the cross, I don’t get hung up on the way Jesus is artistically interpreted, but rather see the Man of Jesus, suffering for our salvation. But, I can see in this artwork where we would get hung up on the way this art looks, rather than what it is to represent.
 
Mirdath said:
You’re quite possibly in luck – as far as I can tell, it’s web-only. I haven’t found any references to these Stations being in an actual church building.
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whew–oh good!🙂 In a museum I could see it.
 
DL82 said:
I think this is entirely appropriate to the role of Icons given in the Catechism:

“the contemplation of sacred icons, united with meditation on the Word of God and the singing of liturgical hymns, enters into the harmony of the signs of celebration so that the mystery celebrated is imprinted in the heart’s memory and is then expressed in the new life of the faithful” CCC 1162

Clearly in the 21st century, icons no longer need to be a literal telling of the story, the “poor man’s Bible” as they were in the middle ages. We know the basics. The Word of God, which we can all read and hear for ourselves, tells us the whole outline and gives us the whole basis for meditation. All the same, art speaks to the emotions and leads us deeper into those mysteries.
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Clearly in the 21st century we shouldn’t have to have an art degree to meditate on the stations
 
whatevergirl said:
agree with that!👍 I don’t believe that this artwork belongs in a church.
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I’ll agree with that. But I think it would be superb for decorating the inside of an outhouse. There’s no doubt it would certainly make you want to finish moving your bowels and getting out as soon as possible.
 
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