Unusual Depictions of the Crucifixion: Chagall and Dal

White Crucifixion by Marc Chagall, 1938.

Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) by Salvador Dal, 1953.

A storywriter must try to paint a picture using words. A painter must try to tell a story using paint. Just as stories sometimes have underlying messages that must be interpreted (Jesuss parables, for instance), paintings can also contain deeper meanings which require a closer look. Traditionally, illustrations of the Jesuss crucifixion at Calvary portray the scene as it might have actually looked, albeit usually much less gruesome, based off the written descriptions in the Gospels. However, Jewish painter Marc Chagall and Catholic painter Salvador Dal have both painted very unconventional representations of Jesuss crucifixion. Chagalls White Crucifixion (1938) shows a dead Jesus on the cross, wearing a Jewish prayer shawl as a loin cloth, with scenes of Jewish persecution in the background. Dals Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus), painted in 1954, depicts Jesus crucified upon an unfolded hypercube, which is a fourdimensional conception of a cube. Both paintings deviate strikingly from typical crucifixion scenes, and both tell stories rather differently than those recounted in the Gospels. The unfolded hypercube is a high mathematical concept which Dal uses to present the high theological mystery of the Crucifixion. A hypercube is a theoretical cube in the fourth dimension, which we cannot perceive. We can only conceptualize the idea and attempt to draw the way a hypercube might be structured. In the following figure, the shape on the left is a threedimensional cube. On the right is one possible construct of the four-dimensional hypercube.

If a three-dimensional cube is unfolded and laid flat into two dimensions, it takes the shape of a cross like the typical representations of Jesuss, made up of six square faces:

If one takes the four-dimensional hypercube and unfolds it into three dimensions, it looks like the unusual cross on which Jesus is crucified in Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus). Dal may have chosen this concept in his painting to say that the mystery of the Crucifixion is an event that originated in a higher plane of existence, and then unfolded into the world that we perceive. Today, that event continues to unfold as the redemptive grace of the Resurrection acts in human lives. This may be represented by the way Jesuss body is in p erfect shape, as if it had already been raised from the dead. Many traditional images of the Crucifixion do show a Jesus free from marrs on His body for the sake of aesthetics, but they also usually show Him thin and fragile as He hangs from the cross. Dali has painted Jesus full-bodied, with strong leg muscles and a fleshy abdomen. This is the body of a Christ who, though He still suffers on the cross, has paradoxically already redeemed the world.

At the bottom left corner of Dals painting, a woman is d epicted staring up at the crucified Christ in contemplation. One aspect of the painting which is easy to overlook is how frighteningly big Jesus is in comparison to the woman. When viewed alone, Jesuss body parts are proportional, and His body takes up th e amount of canvas space typical of traditional Crucifixion paintings. However, if compared with the woman below Him, her full height is only about the length of His leg. Jesus now looks massive. Through the great size of Jesus in comparison with the small on-looking woman, Dal may be symbolizing that the Crucifixion is a highly important event in human history. Furthermore, like the hypercubic cross and the dramatically shaded folds in the womans clothing, this event is still unfolding today. Chagalls painting also deals with a sort of unfolding of events, though specifically in the Jewish experience. Bordering the painting are scenes of Jewish persecution, and in the center is the crucified Jesus. This is reminiscent of the Stations of the Cross in a Catholic church, where the scenes of Jesuss persecution appear in a border around the church, and the focal point of the church is usually a large Crucifix. In White Crucifixion, the events of Jewish persecution are depicted around the canvas, with a crucified Jesus in the center. The most recognizable theme in Chagalls White Crucifixion is Jewish suffering. There is a ravaged neighborhood with houses turned on their roofs, a burning and vandalized synagogue, and Jewish people with alarmed and frightened expressions. The Russian Red Army is encroaching, people are running in escape, and a mother is trying to protect her baby from the violence. These

horrific images portray the sufferings of Jews in 20th century Europe; Chagall had painted White Crucifixion in response to the Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass, when Jewish homes, businesses, schools, hospitals, and synagogues throughout Nazi Germany were ravaged, and many Jewish men were taken away to concentration camps. In the very center of these painted scenes, Jesus hangs dead on the cross. He is wearing a Jewish prayer shawl around his waist, where traditional Christian paintings would depict a white loincloth. Whereas a traditional white loincloth would symbolize His holiness and divinity, the prayer shawl points out His identity as a Jewish man. Additionally, He wears a Jewish head covering and a full beard, unlike the traditional long-haired, clean-shaven

depictions. Above His head is the typical inscription in Hebrew, The King of the Jews, but it is ironic in the context of this painting. In the Christian Gospels, the inscription was used by the persecutors in mockery of Jesuss reputation among His followers as their King. In those stories, the parts that are haunting about the inscription above his head are the words, The King. In this painting, however, we are drawn to the second half of the title, focusing on His identity as one of the Jews. In the Gospels, He is persecuted because He is The King. In this painting, He is persecuted because He is one of the Jews. Jesus suffers and dies with the Jewish people of the 20th century, as their fellow Jew. Their sufferings are united with His own. The theme of suffering united to Jesus Christ is not readily seen in Dals Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus), but it can be inferred with closer contemplation. Jesus hangs upon an

unfolded hypercube, a theoretical figure which exists on a higher plane of existence than we can experience. It can be said that God also exists in this theoretical plane of existence; being infinite and eternal, He is outside of our boundaries of space and time. Yet in the Christian worldview, God entered into time and space when He became incarnate as Christ, who was a man but also in the form of God (Phil 2:6). In the painting, Jesus is painted in the traditional style with an idealistic adult male body. During His time on earth, He suffered on the cross at Calvary temporally as a man. Yet in the belief that He is also God, who is not limited by the confines of time and space, the suffering on the cross is then the action of a God who is infinite and eternal: though it happened for only a few hours temporally, it happens infinitely and eternally outside of space and time. If His suffering on the cross is infinite and eternal, then every type of human suffering from all of time is experienced by Him there. Therefore, we can never suffer alone, and no suffering is too great, too modern for Christ to understand. Even now, He is suffering at Calvary, so even now we can unite our sufferings with His, as we are told cast your cares on Him because He cares for you (1 Peter 5:7). The ladder next to the cross in Chagalls White Crucifixion is reminiscent of Jacobs ladder in the Hebrew Scripture Genesis. The ladder is a symbol of Gods promise to Jacob in a dream, when God tells him, I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you (Gen 28:25). Yet the ladder in Chagalls painting is vanishing into a cloud, which suggests that either Gods promise is also vanishing, or the memory of the promise is vanishing in the midst of all the suffering. Either way, the Jesus on the cross in this

painting is not the Jesus who was victorious over death, but rather the one who said Abba, Father, why have you forsaken me? (Matt 27:46). This abandoned Jesus is the one with whom Jewish people of the 20th century could relate. Though both of these paintings recount the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, they would not function well as illustrations of the Gospel narratives. This is because the paintings tell their own stories about the Crucifixion. Chagalls White Crucifixion tells the story of Jesus crucified not for being a King, but for being a Jew. He is abandoned, suffers, and dies as a Jewish man, united in suffering with the Jewish people of 20th century Europe. Dalis Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) tells a never-ending story: Christ suffers infinitely and eternally outside of time and space, and the grace of His redemption is still unfolding in lives today. Though they may deviate from the Crucifixion scenes in the Gospels, looking at these nontraditional representations of the Crucifixion from both a Catholic and a Jewish artists perspective does paint a fuller picture of who Jesus is and what He means for humankind still today.