MOA visit

Divine Resurrection
I remember when I still young enough to wear Strawberry Shortcake shirts looking over my shoulder as a half nude painting of Christ disappeared behind the labyrinth of statues and canvases. Years later when I returned to Brigham Young University as a student, I found myself fixated on the same painting. I scribbled the title Jesus and Mary: The Moment After and the artist, Trevor Southey, in my daily planner, and wondered why the painting had smoldered in my memory for so many years. Unlike the exposed depictions of Christ on the cross, Trevor Southey’s contemporary approach expresses the divinity of the Savior’s body through lighting, color, and physical strength. As I trace and retrace all three figures in the painting in my mind my appreciation of Jesus’ resurrected body grows.
The painting of Jesus and Mary: The Moment After has a unique history. It is an oil on canvas painting done in 1975. The artist, Trevor Southey, was born in South Africa of European descent in 1940. The South African cultural greatly affected his technique and personal views of painting. He worked as a professor at Brigham Young University, and after being excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints he moved to the San Francisco area. Although he had an unconventional association with the church it is undeniable that Southey’s infamous nude paintings influenced the contemporary Mormon-related art era. He depicted Christ and people in an unconventional way. During the 1970s the Utah public considered nude art pornographic, and Southey was encouraged to “drape” much of his work before publishing it. It is believed that Jesus and Mary: The Moment After was one of these works.
In Jesus and Mary: The Moment After lighting is possibly my favorite aspect of art work, because the shades and shadows develop the focus that the artist wants. Because an artist cannot use actual lighting on an oil and canvas painting the artist uses lighter shades to identify were the light is coming from. The Savior is the source of light in painting. There is a faint hallow of gold surrounding his head, but the illuminating effect surrounds his entire figure. Unlike most paintings where the light comes from the sun, a light bulb, or an unseen force, Southey makes a point to establish that the light in painting is coming from Jesus, and he literally depicts Christ as “the light of the world,” (John 8:12). A traditional artist paints a halo only around the divinities head, representing celestial thoughts. There is a faint halo around Christ’s head in the painting, but the light illuminates from his entire body, establishing Jesus’ entire body as a divine light source, and not simply his intellect, thoughts, or ideas.
Christ’s royal heritage is depicted in Jesus and Mary: The Moment After by a distinct half-inch blue line along Christ’s side. The color blue symbolizes the common English phrase “Blue blooded” which originated from the Spanish expression “sangre azul” that describes noble birth. While conquering, the Iberian Peninsula Spanish nobility would show the blue veins under their thin and pale skin in their hands to distinguish themselves from the Moorish people they had conquered. The blue out lines Jesus’ entire body depicting Christ’s entire body as royal, and not simply his hands.
Southey painted Jesus’ with a bare torso to focus on Christ’s divine and resurrected body. Naturally your eye follows Christ’s bare torso by tracing a discolored line across his left shoulder and down his side. He is uncovered, but does not seem exposed. The soft lines in Christ’s turned face invite you to examine his outstretched arms and toned frame. Not only does he look beautiful, but strong. The veins in his arms are enormous, and his hands seem disproportionately large. Southey paints Christ with defined muscles and broad shoulders to establish God’s strength not only in his hands, but in his entire physic.
When I saw the depiction of Christ in Jesus and Mary: The Moment After my head dropped to one side and I felt questions blossom in my mind. Why no wool red scratchy robe? Why a pale silk framing his bare torso? It took specific details such as the halo, the blue outline, and the veins in his extended hands to understand the message of Christ’s divine body dipected in the art work.
I almost missed the form wrapped in shire cloth on the right side of the Christ in the painting, because I was focusing the painted Savior. I don’t know who the huddled form is. My initial response was the figure must be the Savior prior to his resurrection. As I began to ponder “the moment after” I realized that the Savior was not bound the moment after his resurrection, but Mary was because she needed the atonement to free her from her sin. I was fairly determined the covered figure was Mary until I reflected on the binding power of sin. Could the figure be me? In my mind the figure is all three of us. The person under the cloth changes every time I look, causing me to appreciate the painting differently each time. When the wrapped figure is Jesus I am overwhelmed by his strength to break the power of death. If I see Mary’s figure covered by the cloth I feel the personal love intertwined in the atonement. I don’t like imagining that I am the figure wrapped in the painting, because I feel blind to the divinity of the resurrection when I do.
There I am, after one of the most important moments in all eternity, wrapped in my own sins; blinded by my pride and ignorance; and unable to see the light beaming from my God.
It makes me wish the covered person was someone else; some other unfortunate soul. Someone who made too much money, never gave to the poor, and got too fat to feel the spirit any more. How could you miss something like that? Recognizing Christ as a good man who lived an exceptional life is not enough. When I look at “Jesus and Mary: The Moment After” I am reminded that Christ lives. He died for me, and now his body illuminates light, divinity, and strength.

Work Cited

Blue Blood. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 25 September 2009 at 13:32. Web. 14 October 2009.

Lacey, Robert. Aristocrats. Little, Brown and Company, 1983, p. 67.

Puri, Janak. Community Centre. Compare Infobase Limited. New Delhi, 2000. Web. 14 October 2009.

Southey, Trevor. Jesus and Mary: The Moment After. 1975. Oil on canvas. Brigham Young University Museum of Art.