Stations of the Cross (II): Jesus Takes Up His Cross (Final Version)

'Stations of the Cross (II): Jesus Takes Up His Cross' (Final Version)

Category: Paintings

Artist: Chris Gollon

Subject: Installation

Year of Work: 2002

Media: mixed media on canvas

Size: 44" x 44"

Chris Gollon's 'Stations of the Cross' in the Church of St John on Bethnal Green, London.

This painting belongs to the series of Stations of the Cross Chris Gollon has been commissioned to paint by the Church of England for a grade-one listed church in London, designed by Sir John Soane. See Commissions page for further details on the whole series of works, and a critique by art critic Laura Gascoigne.

In this painting, and the previous painting in the series, we do not see Jesus' face entirely, we just begin to see his eye and his consciousness. The grotesque guards surround him still, even more frightening in their strange half-drawn forms, and half-lit world. Jesus now bears his Cross, and is about to step out into the public gaze, his fate sealed, the grotesque hands pushing him, he moves forward hemmed in by spears. The arrows, as well as being symbols of soldiery, also act as cursors. One indicating Jesus as the chosen one, another pointing to the child, bemused, and looking at us like an open question. A dwarfish trumpet player drunkenly plays, perhaps trumpeting Jesus's emergence out into the harsh light, the heat and the crowd, as if in mocking celebration of this (as the stone number 2 indicates) the second stage in Jesus' last journey.

As may be seen from the text on the About Chris Gollon section of this website, Gollon uses comedy and humour, and stylistic improvizations to great effect to insinuate a serious message. In 2000, in a final and lengthy interview with Chris Gollon, prior to the commission being offered and accepted, the Church of England's art advisor (Tom Devonshire Jones, editor of The Art & Christianity Enquiry Bulletin) made it very clear that the Church wished the artist not to hold back, but wished him to bring all he had in his modern artistic canon to the table when carrying out the commission.

This painting was reviewed in Richard Crowe's article in New York's Whitehot Magazine Feb 2008