Art through Gospel Lens: Hieronymus Bosch’s Christ Carrying the Cross

I want to share a quick thought from a painting that has fascinated me the last few months.

 

It is called Christ Carrying the Cross and it is a painting by the Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch who was active from 1480 – 1516 (note: some people think this painting is by an imitator). This work is on display today in the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium.

What is it about the painting that fascinates me?

The painting shows Christ’s last hours before He die.

Jesus is carrying the cross to head towards His crucifixion.

Christ is in the center of the picture.  Artistically He should be the main focus.  This is further reinforced with the huge cross on the left corner going down to the middle where Christ is at, which serves almost like an arrow pointing to Christ.  Christ also stands out from the rest of the figures in the picture, with his beautiful lit face that is at peace, eyes closed.  The crown of thorns is nevertheless a crown that crowns Him as important in the portrait.

However for most people the focus is diverted elsewhere in the picture.

We are more taken aback by the other 17 faces.  The expressions of those surrounding Jesus captures our immediate attention…and focus.  There are more details given in these faces than that of the Savior.  For the most part they are grotesque.  Given the event that the painting depict it makes these faces even more sinister.  Most of them aren’t even focusing on Jesus the Savior but caught up in the triviality of their own moment.  Each faces has a story to tell other than the immediate matter at hand and thus as you look at each face it makes you stay longer on them, trying to figure out what is going on, what’s going through the minds as portrayed by the expression of the faces.  The expression ranges from apathy, boredom, cynicism, deception, hearts entertained by gossip and mockery.  But with the longer we look at the faces the further away we are looking away from Christ.  It seems to be done so intentionally by the artist given how much details he has given with the different faces.

There’s a lesson I get from this painting.

We are so easily caught up with the mundane, the trivial and that which is sinful.  So much so that it robs our focus on Christ.  Our curiosity with the gossips in the right corner reveal how we are often driven to want to know juicy information or laugh at inappropriate jokes.  We can find the grotesque…fascinating.  So much so it robs the centrality of Christ and the Cross from our lives.  I think the artist definitely did a good job in showing that.

But with biblical lens we even learn something more about how sinful man is.  This is art.  If one were to be at the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ that day I think what is physically grotesque and attractive would be the other way around.  Isaiah 52:14 states of the Messiah:

Just as many were astonished at you, My people,
So His appearance was marred more than any man
And His form more than the sons of men.

Christ that day would have been hard to physically look at.  The people surrounding him would have looked much more appealing than those crucified.

And yet most of the people who looked upon Jesus that day would have seen the brutality upon Jesus and mocked Jesus.  Again the depraved human nature with its morbid fascination with the grotesque pops up.  We are so incline to be fascinated with the wicked, what is messed up and twisted.

Spiritually the script is flipped again.  The One being crucified who calls Himself the Son of Man–that One, that One is my Savior…my BEAUTIFUL Savior who died for my sins so I can be justified and have eternal life.  The well dressed religious leaders mocking Jesus?  They were spiritually grotesque to do such a thing.

But let’s not our fascination with evil rob us of Christ.  Let Christ be the greater fascination, the One whom we willing give Him His due Worship.