Christ of St John on the Cross
When I paint, the Sea Roars. Others Splash about in the bath
Salvador Dali
I am now of an age when I look to achieve more on my bucket list. It is not an extensive or exotic list. There are just a few things I wish to enjoy before shuffling off this mortal coil. This Reflection is my journey a few years ago to see one of the items on my list; Salvador Dali’s ‘Christ of St John on the Cross’. And I should add at this point, I am not a man of faith.
St John of the Cross, a Spanish friar, lived in the mid to late 1500s. His poetry and essays now considered one of the peaks of Spanish literature. He coined the phrase ‘Dark night of the soul’, a person’s journey taken from despair to hope.
St John also drew. It was one of his drawings that proved an inspiration to Dali for his painting, ‘Christ of St John of the Cross’. Dali’s depiction has the viewer looking down, as if from the heavens, on Christ. A Christ that hovers above the earth suspended supernaturally on the cross. There is no blood. There is no crown of thorns. According to Dali, a dream convinced him that these features would despoil his painting. Dali further claimed that another dream told him to depict Christ from above.
Portraying a Christ upon which the viewer looks down provoked much controversy. Many Christians believing one should always look upwards to the subject of Christ on the cross. Personally, it’s the top-down view that makes Dali’s portrayal so compelling.
I was eight years old when I first saw the painting in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Museum and Art gallery with my father. My affection for Dali’s piece began that day. Yet, up until the visit of which I now write, I had not seen it ‘in the flesh’ for over 50 years.
My father told me to try to ‘lose myself’ in the painting. And as I did, I saw a living figure in torment. Straining for every breath. An everyman looking down upon a peaceful lakeside scene. Very few paintings since had such an effect upon me. It was, for this reason, I decided to travel to Glasgow to look upon it for a second and what might be the last time. As I so much enjoy train journeys, I opted for that mode of transport.
I arrived in Euston station to a molten mass of humanity, as the constant arrival of trains fed a heavy flow of people onto the concourse as if feeding some hungry monster. Most of those people made their way in a determined fashion. Their gaze the unflinchingly fixed look of the seasoned London commuter. Speedily and yet unerringly weaving their way between those, such as I, waiting on the concourse. I, too, had once been as those other commuters. However, now I could relax, find a seat for a while, and become a people watcher.
Whenever the train announcer newly advised of a train departure, a swathe of those waiting would head off in the direction of the relevant platform. Every person pulled a wheeled case behind them as if in some form of an urban wagon train. I was sorely tempted to call out “move ’em out” in the style of a 1940s western. For a few brief moments after the various herds of people had moved from the concourse, it took on an empty silence that soon filled again with people, borne on some unseen tide. Then the call came for my train, and I too headed off to the announced platform.
Travelling by train in a small country such as the UK means the view outside the window changes quickly as the train speeds along the track. You turn away to read a newspaper article or conduct a short conversation. When you turn back, an urban scene has transformed into the countryside and a few moments later back to urbanity. Very rapidly, the familiar view of graffiti-covered railway sidings and sheds moved to become row upon row of Greater London’s Victorian townhouses, now of faded grandeur, before becoming the rolling fields of Hertfordshire. Sadly, the weather took something of the ‘shine’ from the scene, as the sky was a blanket of dull grey cloud, heavy with rain.
The much-threatened rain began to fall as we passed through Northampton, the ever-darkening clouds finally releasing their burden across the landscape. As I watched, the heavy raindrops raced each other horizontally across the window. Through that window, I could see people close to the nearby Grand Union canal hurrying to find shelter. At this point on the route, the train line, the M6 motorway and the canal all follow a parallel course and all stand in stark contrast. One, the waterway of yesteryear once crammed with traffic carrying goods. Now empty other than for the occasional pleasure craft. The railway then took the load before they, too, passed their burden to the motorways.
As we left Preston, and while I didn’t think it possible, the low clouds I saw on one side of the train took on an ever-angrier dark complexion. Signalling a heightening storm. A heavy water-filled blanket draped over the distant peaks of the Lake District, obscuring them from view. Yet, if I moved my gaze to the other side of the train, I saw the blue sky and hardly a trace of cloud. A weather divide if ever I saw one.
Once in the Lake District, the landscape took on a more dramatic appearance. Rocky crags, replacing gently rolling hills, and on the steep sides of those crags, an occasional house clinging on for life. Dry stonewalls, those feats of basic engineering, took over from leafy hedgerows as the fields’ separators. It wasn’t long before the crags themselves gave way to full-blown peaks that towered over the train as we made our way between them. The landscape empty, other than the streams weaving their way along the valleys, with an occasional house standing sentry-like. As if in deference to the majesty of the mountains, the heavy clouds of earlier began to lift and disperse, offering a view which stretched far away into the distance.
Crossing the border into Scotland brought no fanfare. If there was some sign or other of ‘Welcome to Scotland’, I didn’t see it.
The landscape changed again. The short journey from the border into Glasgow took us through mile upon mile of fir tree-covered mountains, interrupted at times by a bright swathe of purple heather, but not a person in sight. Sometimes the train would skirt the bottom of the peaks, and sometimes the track would take us further up their slopes so that we could look down on winding roads light of traffic. On the major roads in the distance, I could see HGVs battling indomitably to reach the top of the steep inclines. Some vehicles looking as if they longed to stop for a ‘breather’ before taking up their struggle again. Behind the HGVs, snaked cars, none of which had a chance of overtaking given the traffic volume coming in the opposite direction. The car drivers having to exhibit the patience of the saints on their slow journey north. Not I, however, as the train sped on towards Glasgow Central station.
On arrival in Glasgow, I could have a caught a cab to the Gallery, but the 30-minute walk gave me a chance to reacquaint myself with a city not visited, other than ‘flying visits’ on business, for 40 years. The walk also built further anticipation of seeing the painting again.
I entered the Gallery and soon found the room given over totally to the painting. The first thing that struck me was its size. For some reason, the decades had reduced its dimensions in my mind. I quietly took a seat in front of it.
Sitting down, I looked upon the painting from the same height as my eight-year-old self. A little wave of emotion ran through me. It came from looking again at the masterpiece and from memories of my father.
I sat in front of the painting for more than an hour. As my father had suggested those fifty years ago, I lost myself in it. I saw again the tiring shoulder and arm muscles. The painful movement of the chest gasping painful breaths. I became lost in thoughts that moved back and forth from memories and present feelings. While I sat, people came and went. Whenever they entered, all their conversation stopped. Whether it was children as young as I on my first viewing, or those older than me on this visit. All seemed caught up by the scene before them. Standing or sitting in quiet contemplation.
Finally, I took my leave of the painting. Rain fell gently as I left the Gallery. It suited my contemplative mood as I made my way back along Glasgow streets to the railway station, train, and home.
And my music this week? Something else linked to my bucket list. This item comprises a warm Sicilian night, a wall, and a genuinely encapsulating film, a movie as compelling to me as Dali’s painting.
