The annual Semana Santa celebrations in the Andalusian gem that is Seville are a riot of pageantry, religious fervour and artistic flare – though that artistic licence is under intense scrutiny this year due to the choice of official poster to accompany the famous Holy Week celebrations.
The majority of the processions and accompanying devotional events that Semana Santa
is famous for are organised by the General Council of Brotherhoods and
Fraternities of Seville. Each year the commission also invites a
well-known artist to produce a promotional poster for the city’s grand
event.
This year the official Semana Santa poster has
split opinion due to its portrayal of a hyper-realistic resurrected
Christ set against a stark red background, with the ensuing ruckus
suggesting that nothing nowadays can escape the so-called culture wars.
Critics of the poster have said that it makes Christ look effeminate
and too sensual, or that he has been intentionally made to look “gay” to
advance a political or cultural agenda, reports The Pillar.
The poster has set off a debate about how far artistic licence can go
within the context of religious sentiment and tradition.
Rome-based Catholic art historian Elizabeth Lev told The Pillar that she thought the painting “loathsome” and “tragically the kind of image I would expect from our sex-obsessed-confused age”.
She added that “Easter is supposed to be a great unifying holiday, yet this work is clearly meant to cause division”.
I
had a similar reaction to Lev when I first came face to face with the
poster. During a recent trip to Seville (Saint Francis had his
hermitages and rocky enclaves where he retreated to seek spiritual
solace; I find Spanish cities serve a similar purpose,
especially from the mind-forged manacles of present-day London), I came
across one of the city’s many religious brotherhoods and fraternities
who had just finished practising carrying one of the floats that will
participate in the Holy Week celebratory processions.
These brotherhoods and fraternities lie at the heart of Semana Santa.
Dotted around the city are numerous churches, each of which has a
brotherhood/fraternity that during Holy Week at its allotted time will
carry two enormous floats – known as pasos, the floats can
weigh over a tonne, and are stunningly decorated with flowers, candles
and religious accoutrements – each of which is carried by about 25 mean
in sweaty vests with special protective head gear who bear the floats
from the church to Seville cathedral and back again.
The first
float bears a sculpted image of Jesus at some point of His Passion,
while the second float bears an image of his suffering mother, the
Virgin Mary. Depending on the location of the church, the journey can
take from four to 14 hours. Accompanying the floats are thousands of
penitents who take part wearing the distinctive cone-shaped “capirote”
hats that also mask the wearer’s face (a way of making everyone equal
and remaining anonymous as you make your penance).
The
brotherhood I came across, having deposited their float back in the
church, had all piled into the bar next door (the Spanish in Seville
live out the maxim: “From Temple to Tavern”). I followed them in. Like
endless bars in Seville, its walls were covered in photos, images and
posters from previous Semana Santas.
Scanning the
beautiful images (often featuring the Virgin Mary, typically depicted in
a more classic, traditional way while encompassing abstract
flourishes), I suddenly found myself gazing directly into the piercing
eyes of the fine-boned, epicene-looking face of Christ, his well-toned
slim body clad in a skimpy loin cloth, pointing to the wound in his side
from the Roman soldier’s spear.
In that first encounter, pretty much everything Lev said crossed my mind, followed by: This isn’t what a Semana Santa poster is meant to look like!
That sentiment was echoed by various Sevillanos that The Pillar spoke
to. Gonzalo Jimenez, who participates in many of the archdiocesan
Catholic youth movements, highlighted that “many homosexual members of
the brotherhoods have come out publicly saying that they are also
against the poster”. Noting that “some sectors label as homophobic
anyone who thinks that an effeminate image of Jesus Christ is
inappropriate”, Jimenez points out that, as the reactions of the gay
members of the brotherhoods illustrate, “it has nothing to do with
homophobia, but simply with the fact that it goes against tradition”.
After a while, though, I can’t deny that the new poster began to grow
on me. Its technical expertise, in line with a particular Spanish
artistic tradition of intense realism, is hard to quibble with. And
there is undeniably a beauty about the red-soaked image and its rather
“hip”-looking Christ.
“I wanted to focus on the most radiant part
of Christ, His resurrection,” the artist, Salustiano Garcia, said at a
press conference, explaining that he modelled the image on his own son
while also being inspired by his older brother, who died at a young age.
“I meant to paint a young, beautiful Christ, no longer bearing the
marks of torture.
“Some have said that the painting is
revolutionary, but it is not, because I didn’t want it to be. I wanted
to produce a nice and respectful painting for the [organisation] that
commissioned it.”
He added: “I am faithful to tradition, and I am
faithful to the religion I was born and raised in. And all of that is
in the painting.”
Nevertheless, for some Sevillianos, such as Gonzalo Barrera, a university professor from Seville who has co-authored a study on the social importance of the Semana Santa festivities and the brotherhoods and fraternities involved, this “personal vision” doesn’t achieve the “goal of representing what Holy Week means for the city”.
He added: “Salustiano is clearly a good artist…but it was not the
best proposal for the official poster. In the end, it is more a painting
of his naked son than of Christ’s Passion. It’s not ugly, the picture
itself is amazing, but it is too great a rupture with tradition.”
But
isn’t there an argument that rupture is a fundamental part of the
Resurrection and the whole point of Easter. It’s a time when society is
meant to be challenged and shaken from its conformity.
“Seville
can be the most traditional and traditionalist city in Spain,” notes
Bernardo Mira Delgado, who has been living in Seville for two decades.
“Anything that does not conform to ‘the way things have always been’ is
criticised.
“My first reaction when I saw the image was of shock,
I thought it was an insult to the Church, but now I think it had a
positive effect, because society here needs to be rattled every once in a
while.”
For those Sevillanos who are still unsure about the poster, they
might consider themselves fortunate were they to consider the
controversy stirred in Greece by a provocative film poster that was decried as “blasphemous” by Church leaders and various politicians.
And quite possibly, by the end of the astonishing week
of float bearing and penitent processions, everyone will be so
emotionally and physically exhausted, questions and anxieties about the
poster will no longer seem to carry so much weight.