Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Thursday 14 April 2022

Gethsemane - beauty and betrayal


Last year I posted a reproduction of one of Giotto’s most famous frescos, that of the Kiss of Judas from the Scrovegni or Arena Chapel in Padua. That short post can be seen at The Betrayal in Gethsemane

The Kiss of Judas 
1304–06 by Giotto (c.1267- 1337) in the Scrovegni or Arena Chspel in Padua
Image: thetempleblog.com

Such is the impact of the central figures in that painting I am returning to it again, as I have in past years on this day. I think of all Giotto’s paintings in the chapel this is the greatest, the most eloquent, the most timeless. The interaction of the two central figures of Our Lord and Judas is not only the height of the drama of the scene but of Giotto’s skill. It is a supremely great painting. It conveys a great truth. 

Giotto. Kiss of Judas (detail).
Giotto Detail from The Kiss of Judas 1303-1305. Fresco in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy.
Image: arts-pad.com
There is an online study of the painting at Kiss of Judas' by Giotto. Why is it considered a masterpiece?

This Holy Week as we reflect on the story of our Redemption in a time of contemporary brutal destruction in the Ukraine by a savage invader let us be thankful to the providence that Giotto’s work, unlike so much else in Padua, was not blasted to smithereens but survived the bombing of the city in 1943-5 as set out on Wikipedia in Bombing of Padua in World War II

 

We live in a terribly fallen world where the beautiful is fragile and which, as the Triduum and Easter tells us - not merely reminds us - tells us is only redeemed at a unique and terrible price.


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