Painting Wickedly in a Noble Sort of Way

 

When the above painting was first exhibited, there was a gigantic uproar. To a twenty-first century audience, John Everett Millais’ painting ‘Christ in the House of His Parents’ would rarely raise an eyebrow in response. More likely it would be glanced over simply as a realistic, but uninteresting biblical scene. If one reads criticism from the time period, however, one realizes two points. First, viewers were genuinely angry and disgusted with Millais’ depiction of the holy family. Secondly, there really was a reason for the dismay-at least to those writing the critiques. "We are presented with that which is merely disgusting," wrote the author of A Glance at the Exhibition of the Royal Academy, 1850, "forced and painful attitudes; elaboration of ugliness; expatiation on sordid or unimportant details; and all this to the contemptuous banishment of the mysteries and beauties of nature."[1] Another critic, Wornum, is quoted: "The dirty corrugated skin of an emaciated frame" should never, …[be selected as ] model for sacred or historic character"; "The physical ideal alone", he went on, "can harmonise with the spiritual ideal: in Art, whatever it may be in Nature in its present condition, the most beautiful soul must have the most beautiful body; lofty sentiment and physical baseness are essentially antagonistic; even in the lowest sinks of poverty in the world, the purest mind will shine transcendent."[2]

This last quotation is particularly interesting and needs to be looked at in greater detail in order to understand what the author is saying. Wornum is following a Victorian belief that one’s physical appearance was indicative of their inner character. A beautiful body displayed an inward spiritual piety. However, if one was deemed unattractive it would be obvious to everyone in society their moral life was to be questioned. Wornum is also claiming that the sacred cannot exist in a world like our own-at least in the dirty and ugly parts of existence. The holy family could never be depicted as poor, common, or unattractive if there was going to be any distinction between God and man. The problem with the painting was the mixing of the pure and impure-the blending of distinctive categories of holiness.

The first obvious problem with this way of interpreting beauty is that, like many other words used to interpret an individual’s value, is highly subjective and varies from culture to culture. Twenty-first century ‘enlightened’ individuals would not point out the knobbly knees, oversized hands and feet, and free flowing hair that would be glaringly obvious to the average Victorian person. The concept of beauty is an unstable value judgement.

 

But, even more importantly, we have a deeply theological teaching that has little biblical merit. Even so, this teaching was taught by the Church during the nineteenth century and was interpreted by society within a biblical framework. Therefore, Millais’ painting was literally viewed as anti-biblical. Biblical interpretation focused on the full divinity of Christ. A painting showing Christ living within the dirty parts of life-sawdust, veins, misshapen features-not only contradicted contemporary understandings of Christ, but went so far as to question his divinity. A modern interpreter of the painting does not see anything that appears to be anti-biblical-in fact, it most often is interpreted to be a ‘realistic’ telling of the biblical story. Rather than being anti-biblical, the picture appears to be seeped in the Bible-emphasising the human element of the Divine God who came to earth in order to redeem humanity. Perhaps a painting of Christ sitting around a banquet table with his family in Caesar’s palaces, would offend modern American Christians because of its depiction of a wealthy, beautiful Christ-figure that ‘obviously’ opposed Christian teaching. Are Christian beliefs regarding the reality of the biblical story really just deeply theological teachings that have little biblical merit?

 

John Everett Millais, the artist of this painting, was part of a group of Victorian artists called the Pre-Raphaelites. On the surface, Pre-Raphaelite art was interpreted by contemporaries as anti-biblical, in most cases for similar reasons that Millais’ painting shown above was seen as offensive. However, their art eventually expanded society’s definitions of words such as beauty, purity, and love. By taking things that were considered ugly, impure, and unloving by their culture and depicting them as beautiful, pure, and loving, the Pre-Raphaelites did not really change society’s conception of these things, but rather stretched the way in which these categories were viewed. For example, beauty could still consist of dainty features and prim hairstyles, but it was expanded to include heavier, sensual features, and wild, wind-strewn hair.

The above discussion on this Victorian painting and the issues surrounding its interpretation serve as an introduction to analyse the relationship between theology and culture, particularly in regards to the meaning the Church applies to words such as love. Saint Paul, in addressing the church in Corinth wrote, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."[3] In this passage, Paul is describing what it means to love and the centrality of love within the Christian faith. His description is very specific. Even so, there is a sense that in what he is saying, words are failing to say what he is meaning. How can someone really define love or pinpoint any real meaning to the concept? When John tells us in his first epistle that "God is love," how can we ever begin to explain what that means?

The struggle to define love within the Church and culture is evident in the fluid meanings assigned to love by various cultures. Just as the Victorians had very specific categories of beauty and ugliness, love also existed in narrow confines. This definition of love was wrapped within a theological framework -a construct Christians today would have a difficult time recognizing as Christian love. For example, Christian love within marriage in the Victorian time period would be viewed as oppressive by today’s standards. Women were required to be the ‘angel in the house.’ It was her actions–including good housekeeping skills-that were interpreted as the means of salvation for both herself and her entire family. The majority of today’s Western cultures would be appalled at the relationship which was considered ‘loving’ in nineteenth century Great Britain. Yet, these standards had biblical stakes and operated to define love to that society using both theological language and cultural understandings.

Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the d’Ubervilles, published in 1891, operates to question many of his contemporary Christian assumptions of love. Tess, a poor country woman, is raped by someone who she believes to be her relative, becomes pregnant and gives birth to a baby who then dies. In this time period, however, what happened to her is not interpreted as rape and she is viewed as a fallen woman by her community. Later in the story she meets a young man and falls in love. She is torn between guilt and a desire to be honest with him. However, between both holding back in revealing all and failing in her attempts to tell him about her imperfections, she is unable to unveil her past until after her wedding. On the way to their honeymoon location, they decide to reveal their faults to each other. He apologises to her for what seems to be a one-night stand with an older woman in London. Tess, aware her own faults about to be revealed, quickly and genuinely forgives him. Tess subsequently confesses her own past. Instead of forgiveness, she is offered rage. She responds to her husband, Angel:

"`I have been hoping, longing, praying, to make you happy! I have thought what joy it will be to do it, what an unworthy wife I shall be if I do not! That’s what I have felt, Angel!’

`I know that.’

`I thought, Angel, that you loved me – me, my very self! If it is I you do love, O how can it be that you look and speak so? It frightens me! Having begun to love you, I love you for ever – in all changes, in all disgraces, because you are yourself. I ask no more. Then how can you, O my own husband, stop loving me?’

`I repeat, the woman I have been loving is not you.’

`But who?’

`Another woman in your shape.’"[4]

Angel leaves his wife and travels to Brazil, giving her a small amount of money, with demands not to contact him unless he contacts her first. He returns too late, however. In dire poverty, she becomes the lover of the man who had earlier raped her. When Angel returns, though, she murders her lover and runs away with her husband. A few days later, a search party finds them. The book ends as Angel watches his wife’s execution.

Hardy uses Tess’ story to explain to his culture that purity and love exist in categories much broader than Victorians had set up. Until the point of killing her lover, the fallen woman is depicted by Hardy as pure, even though everyone in the society imprisoned her in categories of sin. Likewise, the boundaries of Tess’ love extend far outside the boundaries that Angel defines as love. However, Tess and Angel’s opposing definitions of love, could be argued by using biblical passages. Neither view of love contradicts Paul’s passage in I Corinthians 13-if given the right context. With Victorian ideals of beauty, purity, morality, etc., love also needed to put in tight confines, in order for the theological teachings of the church to operate within culture. To act as Angel did would be the only way in which to live out Paul’s definition of love. However, Tess’ love, when given broader social and moral categories, also lines up with Paul’s writings.

As long as those within the Church interact with society, the teachings of the Church will intersect with culture. It is within these interactions that the teachings of the Church will either expand or narrow the way in which it interprets theological concepts. Often in those cases in which theology is evolving, the Church is not wavering in its commitment to the Word of God. Yet even so it is quite easy for the Church and the surrounding culture to create theological categories that are not necessarily biblical. While momentous cultural arguments have been fought over theological categories such as love and beauty, it is important for the Church to realize that it is not the Bible or one’s dependence on the sacred text for Christian interpretation that is shifting. The Church is merely responding to culture and shifting its interpretation based on linguistic movements that naturally occur within culture. In the case of Victorian standards, the interchange between theology and culture was important, and arguably to the benefit of the Church in relation to major twentieth century issues, such as gender equality. John Ruskin, a Victorian artist connected to the Pre-Raphaelites, once wrote, "nobody can be a great painter who isn’t rather wicked-in a noble sort of way."[5] In looking at the Pre-Raphaelite painters and authors such as Thomas Hardy that purposefully expanded the way in which society, and ultimately the Church defined things such as love and beauty, the Church is indebted to those who were rather wicked in that noble sort of way.

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[1] Bullen. 6.

[2] Bullen. 10.

[3] I Corinthians 13:1-13

[4] http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/26/56/frameset.html

[5] Bullen. 105.