This may be foolish, it is at the same time
admirable.
But the tendency of the crucifix, as it nears the ridge to the south, is
to become weak and sentimental. The carved Christs turn up their faces
and roll back their eyes very piteously, in the approved Guido Reni
fashion. They are overdoing the pathetic turn. They are looking to
heaven and thinking about themselves, in self-commiseration. Others
again are beautiful as elegies. It is dead Hyacinth lifted and extended
to view, in all his beautiful, dead youth. The young, male body droops
forward on the cross, like a dead flower. It looks as if its only true
nature were to be dead. How lovely is death, how poignant, real,
satisfying! It is the true elegiac spirit.
Then there are the ordinary, factory-made Christs, which are not very
significant. They are as null as the Christs we see represented in
England, just vulgar nothingness. But these figures have gashes of red,
a red paint of blood, which is sensational.
Beyond the Brenner, I have only seen vulgar or sensational crucifixes.
There are great gashes on the breast and the knees of the Christ-figure,
and the scarlet flows out and trickles down, till the crucified body has
become a ghastly striped thing of red and white, just a sickly thing of
striped red.
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