| This hymn by Jane
Simpson is based on some of the most powerful images of
Christ in European art and is sung to a very popular
eighteenth century tune. Thomas Olivers wrote 'Leoni'
(c.1770) after he heard Meyer Lyon, a chorister in the
Great Synagogue, Duke's Place, London, sing the Yigdal or
Hebrew Confession of Faith. His hymn in the minor key,
The God of Abraham praise, is based on direct quotations
and paraphrases of verses from both the Hebrew scriptures
and from the New Testament. The images of Christ from Matthias Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece (c.1509-11) are particularly direct, in contrast to the language of many passion hymns, which tend to use abstract nouns and distance the singer from Christ's experience. The lyrics in See Grünewald's Dying Christ evoke Grünewald's earliest datable work, The Mocking of Christ (1503), and two panels from Isenheim - the searingly powerful dying Christ and the soaring risen Christ. Mathis Gothard, who became known as Matthias Grünewald, was a German painter, who lived at the time of the Protestant Reformation. Fierce debates about salvation divided brother against brother. He painted this altarpiece for the Antonite monks at Isenheim, who cared for lepers and others dying from incurable, disfiguring diseases. As a young boy Mathis was familiar with horror. One of his earliest drawings shows his mother screaming, after she witnessed an act of unspeakable savagery meted out by Bishop Albrecht as punishment for a crime. The Crucifixion panel is one of the very few images in the history of western art to show Christ dying, still in struggle. While Christ appears hideous, his skin torn as a result of flagellation, the artist keeps before us the conviction of salvation. This tension draws many people to meditate on the painting. In impasse (vs.2), 'the dark night of the soul' (vs.1), and emptiness (v.3) nothing happens in meditation. One cannot relate to the beloved as before. The loss of meaning brings existential pain, necessary to critique our present images of God. Christ's dying, in a paradoxical way, frees God to be God. In his Resurrection panel Grünewald paints Christ bursting from a cold tomb into white-hot flame as he ascends. Salvation in See Grünewald's Dying Christ is both personal and 'ecological'. It is for all relation- ships in the whole earth, which groans within, (vs.2). Twelve years after Grünewald completed his masterpiece, his commitment to the poor and suffering took him away from painting. He joined the cause of the Seligenstadt peasants in the Peasants' Revolt of 1525. He died in 1528, and his papers showed how he agonised to try to understand Christ's work in salvation brought into sharp focus by the Protestant Reformation. |
| © Jane Simpson 2001 |
[Home] [Next Hymn] [Who we are] [Contact] [Catalogue] [Feedback]
This page last updated
29/05/2001 20:50:50 New Zealand Standard Time
Contact Webmaster
Scorch
2 is required to run some media on these pages