The Crucifix and the Cross

NEW YORK - The Easter season unveiling of a milk chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ, dubbed 'My Sweet Lord' by its creator, left a sour taste in the mouths of a Catholic group infuriated by the anatomically correct confection.

'This is one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever,' said Mr Bill Donohue, head of the watchdog Catholic League, on Thursday. 'It's not just the ugliness of the portrayal, but the timing - to choose Holy Week is astounding.'

The 1.8-metre sculpture by artist Cosimo Cavallaro was to debut on Monday evening, the day after Palm Sunday and just four days before Roman Catholics mark the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Good Friday. The final day of the exhibit at the Lab Gallery inside midtown Manhattan's Roger Smith Hotel was planned for Easter Sunday.

'The fact that they chose Holy Week shows this is calculated, and the timing is deliberate,' said Mr Donohue, whose group represents 350,000 Catholics nationwide. He called for an economic boycott of the hotel, which he described as 'already morally bankrupt.'

The gallery's creative director, Mr Matt Semler, said the Lab and the hotel were overrun with angry telephone calls and e-mails about the exhibit. Although he described Mr Donohue's response as 'a Catholic fatwa,' Mr Semler said the gallery was considering its options amid the criticism.

'We're obviously surprised by the overwhelming response and offence people have taken,' said Mr Semler, adding that the Holy Week timing was an unfortunate coincidence. 'We are certainly in the process of trying to figure out what we're going to do next.'

The artwork was created from more than 90kg of milk chocolate, and it features Christ with his arms outstretched as if on an invisible cross. Unlike the typical religious portrayal of Christ, the Cavallaro creation does not include a loincloth.

Mr Cavallaro, who was raised in Canada and Italy, is best known for his quirky work with food as art: Past efforts include repainting a Manhattan hotel room in melted mozzarella, spraying 5 tonnes of pepper jack cheese on a Wyoming home and festooning a four-poster bed with 142kg of processed ham. -- AP

The article that I came across today reminded me of the discussion of Christian iconography I had in class.

Party because of my protestant upbringing, I've never been comfortable with the image of the crucifix. The holy image in a protestant church is simply the Cross, sans dying body impaled in it. I suppose the point it makes is that Jesus has resurrected from the dead, his body should no longer be the focus.

Being trained in art history, I can appreciate the debate around the depiction of the cruxifiction better. The Catholic depiction of the dying body is tied up with the emphasis on the humanity and therefore suffering of Jesus which people are supposed to identify with and contemplate upon.

However, because I consider myself an artist in my own right, I am not comfortable with how other artists depict Christ. In the history of Christian iconography, the image of Jesus has dramatically changed.

In the lands were Neo-Attic conservationism rules, as in Greece and Asia Minor, Christ was a youth with long black hair falling on his shoulders (frontispiece), after a pattern of hero or divinity that harks back to Attic idealizations such as the Praxitelean Eubouleus, revived in the second century A.D. to impersonate Hadrian’s deified favorite Antinous. Where the progressive “Alexandrian” style prevailed, as in Egypt and Italy, Christ was first conceived in the form of a youthful Hermes with short curly hair. Later, in Syria and Palestine, arose the oriental ideal, the bearded head that became at last the norm for all the Christian world.

Morey, Charles Rufus. Early Christian Art. USA: Princeton University Press, 1953, p. 64

The image of Christ is never neutral, but culturally biased and is in fact fluid. However, the progression in which the portrayal of Jesus and the Crucifix took place does not reflect an ever-changing God, but his ever-changing followers.

The Thief, the Cross and the Wheel by Mitchell Merback documents pain and the spectable of punishment in Medieval and Renaissance Europe. My interpretation of the pictures under analysis seem to glorify the wounds - and in turn violence - more than the purpose of God's salvation plan.

Honestly, I do not identify with the Crucifix as a symbol of my faith. And since I've always thought the that plain wooden Cross isn't sufficient for Catholics, I've felt alienated amongst them.

And then I came across the Franciscans, with their plain wooden Cross, and then I realized, that perhaps we are not all that different.

When I get my own home one day, it would be the plain wooden Franciscan Cross that I'll place up.