Picasso To Souza: The Crucifixion

My latest article for Artlyst explores powerfully expressive crucifixion images found in two of the Tate’s current exhibitions. In 1932, the ‘year of wonders’ explored by Tate Modern’s Picasso 1932: Love Fame Tragedy, Picasso created thirteen seminal ink drawings of the Crucifixion, while All Too Human: Bacon, Freud and a Century of Painting Life at Tate Britain showcases the fearful and terrible grandeur of the 1959 Crucifixion by F.N. Souza:

'Between the two World Wars and in the aftermath of World War II, Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece with its brutally realistic depiction of the suffering endured by the crucified provided a frame and inspiration for artists such as Picasso, Rouault, Buffet, Bacon, Sutherland and Souza to protest the violence unleashed by human beings in that most bloody of centuries. The Tate’s current exhibitions provide an opportunity to explore some of less well-known and less frequently exhibited of these images, which ultimately stand as a warning against our human tendency to attack and destroy those we scapegoat.'

My other Artlyst articles and interviews are:

• Apocalypse Now: Michael Takeo Magruder Interviewed
• Jonathan Anderson: Religious Inspirations Behind Modernism
• Michael Takeo Magruder: De / coding the Apocalypse – Panacea Museum
• Giorgio Griffa: The Golden Ratio And Inexplicable Knowledge
• Arabella Dorman Unveils New Installation At St James Church Piccadilly
• Can Art Transform Society?
• Art Awakening Humanity Conference Report
• Central St Martins in the Fields Design Then And Now
• The Sacramental And Liturgical Nature Of Conceptual Art
• Caravan – An Interview With Rev Paul Gordon Chandler On Arts Peacebuilding
• Art Awakening Humanity Alexander de Cadenet Interviewed
• Polish Art In Britain Centenary Marked At London’s Ben Uri Gallery
• Michael Pendry New Installation Lights Up St Martin In The Fields;
• Mark Dean Projects Stations of the Cross Videos On Henry Moore Altar;
• Refugee Artists Learning from The Lives Of Others;
• The Religious Impulses Of Robert Rauschenberg;
• The Christian Science Connection Within The British Modern Art Movement;
• Artists Rebranding The Christmas Tree Tradition;
• Art Impacted - A Radical Response To Radicalisation;
• The Art of St Martin-in-the-Fields; and
• Was Caravaggio A Good Christian?

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Sufjan Stevens - Ring Them Bells.