The Mocking of Christ--Beato Angelico

Lots of people love this genius; he/his work has been an object of adulation for more than 500 years. And this is among the most revolutionary of all his visions; it's a surreal representation of The Mocking of Christ (tapto enlarge!) before anyone had thought of a concept like surrealism. The blindfolded Christ (really? did that happen?) is accosted by a floating head that spits at him and floating hands that strike him with sticks. He is set against a light green backdrop like a roll of photographer's seamless--Christ and his torturers float in a sea of oceanic color.

Meanwhile, Mary and Saint Dominic sit in sorrowful contemplation--not so much observers as imaginers, or maybe rememberers. They are both next to and a million miles from the event.

Fra Angelico, a Dominican monk who at one point led Florence's San Marco monastery, conceived and largely executed a complete series of frescoes--over 40 in all--inside the rooms of San Marco, with the vast majority being placed on the walls of the cells of individual monks. The shape of the frescoes echoed the arched shape of each cell's small window, which are always immediately adjacent to the image. One is a window to the world, the other is a window to the spiritual life. These images were the first things the monks saw on awakening, and the last thing they saw before sleep. It was the most powerful site I visited in all of Italy.

But this is not a life I aspire to; I have serious issues with the guilt basis of much Christianity (like my friend Christine, "I'm shame based"), but I can't help but be moved by the power people attribute to such imagery and to imagination. I can understand why so many Protestant sects got rid of these images, and I can understand why other strands of Christian faith cling to them. But here is what I don't know: how would an artist like Fra Angelico have responded to the catastrophes of the mid-20th century, for example? How would he invent a secular version of suffering? He lived in a world where the Roman Catholic Church dominated and organized all--it was the basis of the social fabric. I am not against the church; I just am grateful that I live in an age when there are many ways to celebrate life and the spirit. If all things were possible, what would Fra Angelico do now?