Amanda- St. Agnes

I liked the art gallery in St. Agnes covenant much more than I thought I would.
First, the wood carvings caught my attention primarily due to the role reversal I saw portrayed in many of them. Contrary to many of the images we have seen these carvings displayed an active, lively baby Jesus who often had his hands outstretched to his mother, while her gaze was locked on him. There was an element of life and youth that came across in these works that were missing in many of the other pieces of art we’ve seen created in other time periods.

The most interesting thing to me in the whole gallery was the strong focus on the blood of Jesus on the cross. A large number of the paintings in the gallery showed Mary at the foot of the cross with the blood of Jesus smeared across her face. These images captured an element of Mary that was not seen in the hundreds of other crucifixion scenes we’ve encountered. The brutality of the mother’s face covered in her son’s blood allows us to understand the anguish and torment much more, and it gives us a much more personal story. The painters focused heavily on Mary’s facial expression, as well as that of Jesus, which provoked much more sorrow within me as well as forming a lasting impression on me. This is much more than any of the other images of similar themes did, and gave me much more insight into the historical account of Jesus' death. This shift in focus to the stark reality of a woman seeing her innocent son killed in front of her makes both the image but the story seem more tangible rather than redundant.