Fyra vägar att förvanska den kristna ikonografin

Abstract

Four Ways of Distorting Christian Iconography

The traditional Christian iconography is a very powerful art language with all its symbols and well-known scenes even today in an extremely secular country like Sweden. When you really want to get across a message, you use and above all misuse it for the great effect it still has on people. This is a very unfortunate development, which in the end will make Christian iconography meaningless (see paragraph 4).

    1. Kitsch is usually understood as art which only repeats and confirms what we already know. Ever since the mass production of oleographs in the 19th century, millions of copies of sentimental Christian motifs have been and are still sold for private devotion and should not be criticized in that context. However, “Sweet Jesuses” and sculptures of the Virgin in pink and blue plastic with a twinkling halo around her head might alienate us as they take away the depth of the Christian message. According to the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, kitsch should be avoided in churches.

    2. Pantheism means that you rather see God´s “foot-prints” in nature than in the churches. Art reflecting these thoughts excels in sublime landscapes lit by divine beams. In Sweden this longing to seek spiritual experience in nature has grown and led to a tendency to “neutralize” church interiors belonging to the Lutheran Church of Sweden by replacing the traditional altarpiece by something depicting a landscape.

    3. Abstraction. There are many abstract glass windows ever since the 1960s in churches all over Europe. When done by great artists like Jean Bazaine or Alfred Manessier it is a fruitful way to make modern church art in a dialogue with older buildings as well as new ones. However, very often the abstract windows are done by less gifted artists and you could just as well put them anywhere, in a hotel lobby or your own bathroom, and they would be seen as mere colourful decorations. Only the context determines whether they are sacred or profane.

    4. Blasphemy is a severe theological expression hardly ever used today – at least not in Sweden. Different groups use the well-known Christian symbols and scenes for their own purposes with re-interpretations that are meant to be provocative and thereby draw attention. The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci is by far the most misused work, and it is supposed to be “great fun” to see the disciples wearing jeans with a well-known logo - or Marilyn Monroe as “Jesus” with a generous décolleté in the midst of twelve other male Hollywood stars.

    The combination of sexuality and Christianity is the most effective way to get immediate attention and it is being used very cynically knowing that very few people dare to protest for fear of being regarded as old-fashioned and rigid. In Sweden, the most striking example is the “Ecce Homo”-exhibition by the photographer Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin in 1998. It became a “scandalous success” much with the rather unexpected help of the Lutheran Church of Sweden - more particularly the Archbishop and the Dean of Uppsala Cathedral, who encouraged it to be shown in this the most sacred edifice in the country and, as a consequence, later on in other Swedish churches.

     The Lutheran Church of Sweden has got two sacraments: the Baptism and the Communion. Both were re-interpreted in a satirical way in accordance with the exhibition´s homosexual theme. Jesus and John the Baptist were shown naked in a more intimate than baptismal scene. As for the Communion, the disciples were transvestites and the person playing Jesus looked very content with champagne on the table and in his hand, not the sacred Bread but a huge powder puff used for heavy make-up, and on his feet extremely high-heeled “red-light district” shoes. If these scenes were re-interpreted in a heterosexual way it would be obvious that they are not referring to the texts in the New Testament but are erotic. With women around the table in exactly the same enticing dresses and postures, “Jesus” would be interpreted as the happy customer in a brothel. Should Mary Magdalen take the intimate place of John the Baptist close behind the naked “Jesus”, nobody would interpret that as a baptism or a mere “spiritual meeting between friends”.

    Two questions remain unanswered: a) Why are homosexual pictures met with great enthusiasm by the Swedish clergy and shown in churches, when they would refuse exactly the same heterosexual interpretations? b) What happens if Christian iconography and well-known scenes are being sexualized in one way or another? Greek mythology is an obvious reference with gods indulging in all sexual preferences described in texts that are no longer regarded as sacred but as “poetry”. A development that some of the liberal theologians encourage when it comes to the New Testament in order to show how “open-minded” and “modern” we are in Sweden.

    The French Dominican Fathers discovered in the 1940s and 1950s that it was not at all difficult to get most of the era´s greatest artists interested in church commissions. Thanks to them we have the wonderful modern churches and chapels in France, the Ronchamp Church by Le Corbusier and the Rosary Chapel by Matisse at Vence being two of the most famous examples. Renowned artists, who understand how special and serious a church commission is, could just as well be approached today, with valuable lasting church art as a result. Christian iconography, based on the New Testament, is radical enough in itself to be used for sincere interpretations ad infinitum.