A couple of years ago, when Gascot incorporated the crucifixion into one of his paintings, he didn’t have anywhere to show it. “It’s not an Art Walk painting — people come with kids to that,” Gascot tells me.
The painting in question, “Hurts So Good,” injects BDSM culture into a traditional crucifixion scene. In it, Jesus is bound to the cross, blindfolded and gagged, wearing fishnet stockings and a leather jock strap. Obviously, this is not how the Bible describes Christ’s appearance at the crucifixion. (On Christ’s appearance, the Bible says very little.)
When Christ was captured by the Romans, soldiers dressed him in a purple robe, made a crown of thorns, placed it upon his head, and mocked him as “The King of the Jews.” The New Testament states that, after this, Christ walked to his death wearing his own clothes. As for what he wore when nailed to the cross, the Bible is unclear. At some point, Roman soldiers cast lots for his clothing, but this could have been before or after his death, the way it’s worded.
History records that criminals sentenced to crucifixion during Roman times were stripped naked prior to being nailed to the cross. This is how Christ appeared in Michelangelo’s crucifix at Santo Spirito, completed in 1492, but most artistic interpretations of the crucifixion show Christ wearing a loincloth.
The most interesting aspect of the crucifixion is not what Christ was wearing, but how complicit he was in his own death. Christ predicted his death multiple times, as reported in the New Testament. The third time, he said to his disciples, “We are going to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise (Matthew 10:33).” So basically, he’s saying, “They’re going to kill me in Jerusalem. Let’s go to Jerusalem.” I think it’s perfectly reasonable for a person to question why Christ chose to go to Jerusalem. The decision was difficult for even his disciples to accept; they “all felt varying degrees of anger, fear, and disappointment,” according to the NIV Bible.
The NIV states that Jesus’ decision to die on the cross was both a submission to God’s will and “a sacrifice that would forgive sin once and for all.”
Gascot’s interpretation stresses the submissive aspect of the story by incorporating BDSM imagery into “Hurts So Good.” But knowing the submissive aspect of the crucifixion story doesn’t make Gascot’s painting any less shocking for those of us who grew up with the classic crucifix. We, as a society, have gotten so used to seeing Jesus portrayed in a loincloth and a crown of thorns that it’s shocking to see him any other way, whether you’re a religious person or not.
If Gascot’s Jesus didn’t have a short beard, long brown hair and a halo, I wonder if we’d even recognize him as Jesus. Nowhere in the Bible is Jesus described as having a short beard and long brown hair, but this seems to be how we always see him. According to art historian Michele Bacci, this didn’t happen until the sixth century. Before then, you’d see more varied interpretations of Christ. Sometimes he’d have a beard and sometimes he wouldn’t. Sometimes he’d have blonde curly hair like Apollo instead of long brown hair. Sometimes, he’d look more triumphant than tortured, as though he was already on his way to resurrection, according to another art historian, Felicity Harley-McGowan.
No one’s sure how Jesus acquired long brown hair and a short beard, but Bacci has a theory. In a 2015 radio interview for ABC’s The Body Sphere, Bacci describes the long-haired bearded look as being particular to philosophers and “miracle workers” in the Greco-Roman world. It was also the look of Nazirites (those dedicated to God since birth) in the Jewish tradition of late antiquity. For better or for worse, we now associate these features with Jesus Christ. With these traditions already set, it’s rare for artists to alter the crucifixion scene — it’s not something you see every day. And as Gascot mentioned, there aren’t many places where it’s appropriate to show this kind of work.
When Gascot discovered that St. Petersburg dive bar The Bends was willing to hang “Hurts So Good” on their wall, it inspired a series of paintings combining Bible tales with current issues.
In “Eve in the City,” we see a modern depiction of Eve surrounded by skyscrapers and the typical temptations a city presents — money, sex and drugs.
“Covergirl” paints the Virgin Mary on the cover of Vogue, holding the Baby Jesus. Both have polka dot halos as identifiers. Mary also wears a hooded cape, as she is traditionally portrayed. But in Gascot’s painting, the cape is dark red (instead of white or blue), with JC and the cross patterned onto the fabric as though it were a fashion brand. Christianity could technically be seen as a brand of religion; this explains how Christian images acquired a degree of uniformity over the years, as brand images do.
Gascot breaks out of the brand imaging to show us a modern view of Mary in the #metoo era. Mary never consented to that famous pregnancy. It’s something Gascot alludes to with a book, held in Mary’s right hand, titled Mary: The Immaculate Assault. “He didn’t ask. He just put that baby in her,” says Gascot.
Like “Covergirl,” all of Gascot’s Sunday School images break free from the rules of traditional Christian imagery in a time when people just don’t do that. How you feel about this will likely depend upon your own religious background. Are these images creative, innovative, challenging and thought-provoking? Or are they disrespectful? Offensive?
Good art often challenges our preconceptions. Sometimes we agree with it and sometimes we don’t. But if a work of art makes you think or feel something — anything at all — then it has done its job.
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This article appears in Apr 11-18, 2019.
