Cross examination

As Easter comes upon us in this bitter spring, many of us are drawn to contemplate the mystery of Christ’s passion: his Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven. You don’t have to go to church to do this, for reverie or prayer can take place in a quiet landscape or by a cosy fireside, but there are various aids to meditation, and none better than the appropriate visual art. Although we live in an increasingly irreligious age, there have been religious painters of real power in recent years, and perhaps none more so than Craigie Aitchison (1926–2009). Aitchison is an unlikely choice because he himself professed no particular belief, although his grandfather, the Reverend James Aitchison, a United Free Church clergyman, was Minister of the Erskine Church in Falkirk for more than 50 years. Yet Craigie felt compelled to paint the Crucifixion again and again — ever since his student days at the Slade when a misguided tutor told him that the subject was far too serious for him to attempt. Some of his most moving and deeply spiritual paintings are on this theme.

One of the most exquisite is ‘Crucifixion with Mountain’ (c.1998). In this small painting, Christ’s body stands in for the upright of the Cross, and as a consequence he carries the weight of the crossbar on his head. Anatomy has been radically simplified, with arms and legs reduced to verticals suggested by shadow. Placed against a field of ecclesiastical purple, Christ is given striking red hair and a long straight nose, his features suggestive of suffering and sorrow. On his left a Bedlington terrier is in attendance, and between man and dog a tree branches twiggily in the sap green of renewal. A blue bird perches on the crossbar. (Aitchison liked to tell a story about the blue bird of happiness that was never there if you looked for it, but could be discovered sitting on your shoulder if you didn’t.)