Stations of the Cross (X): Jesus Is Stripped Of His Garments

Category: Paintings

Artist: Chris Gollon

Subject: Installation

Year of Work: 2007

Media: acrylic on canvas

Size: 40" x 30"

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

In this painting the artist had the decision to make whether to depict the guards throwing lots for Jesus's garments, or the rarer depiction of Jesus totally alone, on the cold stone. Chris Gollon chose the latter, and the image offers a moment of reflexion for both the subject and the spectator, a moment's respite between two periods of brutality.
This painting is part of a commission from the Church of England accepted by Chris Gollon to paint 14 Stations of the Cross for a grade-one listed church in London, designed by Sir John Soane. More details on the series of works to which this painting belongs are on the Commissions page of this website.

There is no stained glass in the Church of St John on Bethnal Green, London, but very large windows along the southern sunlit nave. Therefore, Stations III-VI are obliged to compete with the direct sunlight streaming through the large, clear windows and into the interior of the church. Gollon has chosen to use electric yellow backgrounds to compete with this, but his skies (in the earlier Stations) also convey the heat and hardship Jesus suffers on his last journey. In this painting the artist has depicted the moon a first time, since it conjures in our minds the thought of the impending eclipse which will occur later as Jesus is dying on the Cross. The arrows as symbols of soldiery which Gollon used in the earlier Stations are now the real lances, a grim reminder that this is the final stage of Jesus's last journey. The negative spaces in this composition are perfectly balanced, and the spectator can almost feel the violence of those holding the spears beyond the picture plane.