489.finalversion

RELI 489
Supervisor: Dr Anna Gade
Aaron Frater
300002540

Images of Jesus Christ in New Zealand 1800s - Now.

Introduction.

New Zealand is often seen as having no real religious history. Nichol says that

there is a “culturally influenced form of Christianity” in New Zealand, and we can see

where it has come from and how the teaching and ritual practices of the past have led

to the pluralistic Christianity of contemporary times.1 The focus of this essay is

primarily on British, European, and American Christ imagery as it came to New

Zealand and became part of, and was shaped by, New Zealand culture. The short

history of Christianity in New Zealand makes it relatively straight forward to survey,

but the sheer volume and variety of imagery makes it a large field. This is paper is a

selection of imagery, to demonstrate the progression from imported traditional images

to the variety of locally created contemporary imagery which illustrates the processes

of production, teaching, and response. The progression from overseas traditional

imagery to local contemporary imagery shows that the production of, teaching

functions of, and response to, depictions of Christ embody the personal and cultural

beliefs, desires, needs, projections, and learned expectations of the producers, and the

responses of the viewers.2 Production and mass production of images of Christ for

1
Christopher Nichol, James Veitch, (eds) Christopher Nichol “Introduction” Religion in New Zealand
(Wellington: Victoria University, 1988) p 10
2
David Freedberg (in) David Freedberg, Oleg Grabar, Anne Higonnet ,Cecelia F. Klein, Lisa Tickner,
Anthony Vidler “The Object of Art History” The Art Bulletin 76:3 (Sept, 94) pp 394 / 395

1

pedagogical and devotional use began in New Zealand as British, European, and

American imported imagery. Initially the imagery from the old world of British and

European Christianity shaped New Zealand culture, only to be shaped themselves in

contemporary times to reflect a more New Zealanders imagery of Christ in stained

glass, paintings and sculpture.

The churches and art objects, of the mostly Protestant Christianity of the 19th

century in New Zealand, are a primary source of images of Christ. Settler homes and

Maori embodiment and adoption of Christianity are another source. Early

ecclesiastical art was mostly stained glass, a very religious art form, that teaches by

embodying texts and traditional iconography. In the early 20th century William

Holman Hunt’s Light of the World came to New Zealand with a message of the

culture and piety of the Britain, arriving at a time when New Zealand was beginning

to form its own identity. It is a work that left its legacy in stained glass windows, mass

produced copies, and as a feature in Christian education of its time. Warner Sallman’s

1940 Head of Christ shows how an American image of Christ translated into mass

produced versions that became Christian pedagogical and ritual icons in its own right.

Artists of the later 20th century took images of Christ from primary in the

ecclesiastical world, into their own expressive outputs and personal quests. This

modern work shifted the pedagogical, commemorative and ritual functions from

church based to individuals, galleries and the commercial world of the wider culture.

The artist Colin McCahon and Tony Fomison were painters who put Christ in the

2

New Zealand landscape, and broke from the traditional images of their times. In the

early 21st century some contemporary artists such as: Richard Lewer, Jeffery Harris,

and Brett A’Court, continued the legacy of the artists who combined New Zealand

imagery with traditional Christ imagery. They draw on the post – modern secular art

world as much as the traditions and forms of the ecclesiastical world. As O’Grady

says, mages of Christ have:

“(t)hrough the centuries … inspired … (Christians) … ,and … (have) continued to invite new

responses in artistic form. (They are a) reminder that Christian believers from every generation and all

cultures are being led to express their own confession of Christ.”3

He also points out, most people think of an image, of an embodiment, rather than

words from a sacred text when thinking of Christ.4

An art work has a power to bring the intangible within or realm of

understanding in our highly visual culture.5 Images of Christ, artistic theology, are

constructed to encode teachings and modes of worship.6 They interact with the

beholder and are reinterpreted in light of the beliefs, desires, needs, and projections of

the viewers.7 This is a “Visual Culture” way of looking at both sides of an artwork, its

production and reception.8 The “interaction between audience, image, and often

3
Ron O’Grady (ed) “Introduction” Christ for All People, Celebrating a World of Christian Art.
(Auckland: Pace, 2001) p 7
4
Ibid p 27
5
Aidan Nichols O.P. “Preface” The Art of God Incarnate, Theology and Image in Christian Tradition
(London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1980) p 1
6
John A. Walker, Sarah Chaplin “The Concept of ‘the Visual’ “ (chpt 2) Visual Culture, An
Introduction (New York, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997 ) pp 27 – 28
7
David Freedberg (in) David Freedberg, Oleg Grabar, Anne Higonnet ,Cecelia F. Klein, Lisa Tickner,
Anthony Vidler “The Object of Art History” The Art Bulletin 76:3 (Sept, 94) pp 394 / 395
8
S. Brent Plate (ed) “Section Two Icon: The Image of Jesus Christ and Christian Theology” (in)
Religion, Art, And Visual Culture, a cross cultural reader (New York: Palgrave, 2002) pp 54 – 55

3

setting”,9 is where the sacred and the profane meet.10 It is a space where the spiritual

and the material world are perceived to come together.11 This sacred space where

“layers of meaning”12 are made between physical image and viewer is a key factor in

the power of images of Christ. As the American Christian Painter Daniel Bonnell

says, “My work is only completed by the viewer”.13 He sees his paintings as, “tools to

a deeper devotion with the Christ.”14 Art is a language that can “help us to make sense

of the faith … (in) Christ, who is central to Christianity.”15

Early New Zealand, settler communities and stained glass.

Most colonists were adherents of Christianity to one degree or another.16 They

sought to replicate the ritual and imagery of the faith of the homeland, without

replicating the political connections and control over daily life and faith of England

and Europe.17 The need for a spiritual centre for settlers and a connection to the

9
Leslie Brubaker “Conclusion, Image, Audience, and Place: Interaction and Reproduction” (in) (Eds)
Robert Ousterhout, Leslie Brubaker, The Sacred Image East and West (Urbana, Chicago: University of
Illinois Press, 1995) p205
10
Religion, Art, And Visual Culture, a cross cultural reader (New York: Palgrave, 2002) p 60
11
Alan Morinis (ed) Sacred Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage (Connecticut, London:
Greenwood press, 1992) p 4
12
Leslie Brubaker “Conclusion, Image, Audience, and Place: Interaction and Reproduction” (in) (Eds)
Robert Ousterhout, Leslie Brubaker, The Sacred Image East and West (Urbana, Chicago: University of
Illinois Press, 1995) p205
13
Daniel Bonnell, Returning Art to the Church, Images on Christ Project :
http://iconproject.com/artist.php accessed 08 Feb 2009
14
Ibid
15
Aidan Nichols O.P. “Preface” The Art of God Incarnate, Theology and Image in Christian Tradition
(London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1980) pp 1 – 2
16
Ian Breward “Conclusion” Oxford History of the Christian Church, A History of the Church in
Australasia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) p 424
17
Geoffrey Thornton, Worship in the Wilderness, Early Country Churches of New Zealand (Auckland:
Reed, 2003) p 10

4

religion of the English and European Christianity they had come from is attested to by

the number of churches, and the imagery they house, built in the then harsh rural

country areas of New Zealand. That the reception of these images and teachings

within “sacredly charged space, (which) provide(s) a complex symbolic arena within

which social identities and forms of knowledge were displayed, negotiated and

reproduced”,18 is important is shown by the large number of churches. In the

Christianity that came to New Zealand with missionaries, settlers, and pioneers,

images of Christ were primarily in stained glass, alongside some sculptural and

painted imagery. Stained glass windows were produced, and reproduced, primarily to

teach the faithful.19 It was the religious art that showed gospel stories in times of few

or no books, and limited literacy. Churches were “the ‘books of the layman’”.20 Eade

and Sallnow’s idea of looking at a sacred site through the concepts of: person (Jesus

Christ), text (the New Testament) and place (church), is a way to look at these

devotional practices.21 The production and importation of this imagery would have

been primarily under church control. The selection would have been used to support

their agenda of bringing Christ and Christianity to the new land to teach the

indigenous population and replicate the Euro-centric Christianity of the early

pioneers. Thornton says the early settlers were such a mixed and diverse group that

missionary work did not find initial acceptance, but this did not stop Christianity

spread to all sectors of 1800s New Zealand.22 Maori had had contact with all the

18
Simon Coleman and John Elsner, “The Pilgrims Progress: Art, Architecture and Ritual Movement at
Sinai” World Archeology 26:1 (June 94) p 75
19
Hilary Brand, Adrienne Chaplin “Art and the Quest for the Spiritual” (chpt 2) Art and Soul,
Signposts for Christians in the Arts, ( Carlisle, Illinois: Piquant Editions, and Intervarsity Press, 2007)
p 16
20
Hilary Brand, Adrienne Chaplin “Art and a Suspicious Church” (chpt 3) Art and Soul, Signposts for
Christians in the Arts, ( Carlisle, Illinois: Piquant Editions, and Intervarsity Press, 2007) p 27
21
John Eade, Michael Sallnow (eds) Contesting the Sacred, The Anthropology of Christian Pilgrimage
(London, New York : Routledge, 1991) p 9
22
Reed, 2003) p 9

5

denominations of Christian missionary. It was largely the power of learning the

English language, and what it could do for them in terms of trade, that attracted Maori

to the missionaries. This focus of the power of language rather than Christian belief

did not alter the fact that, as Johnston writes:

“the missionaries’ message held logical contradictions, for example, proclaiming one God but

promoting a variety of competing denominations. Such intellectual doubts, combined with the inability

of the missions to prevent widespread confiscation of land, led to a rejection of Pakeha Christianity and

the establishment of new Maori versions of it”23

In a book on one of the architects responsible for many of the churches we have

both in cities and the country of New Zealand, there is an image of a seemingly

freshly built church surrounded by recently felled trees. This house of God appearing

to have been built alongside the first clearing of the land by settlers suggests the

importance to, and the determination of, the settlers and missionaries to create theses

vessels of their own faith to allow the teaching and ritual practices, that often centred

around an image of Christ, to continue in the new land.(fig1)24 The, mostly British,

early settlers still wanted “to establish a familiar Church in their new homeland, but

without the English connection to the state.”25 Despite this desire to keep faith

separate from politics, the political and ecclesiastical elites that developed in early

New Zealand exercised power through shaping much of daily and most of ritual life

of the colonists.26 Part of these elite was Samuel Marsden’s Anglican Church
23
Alexa M Johnston,. “Christianity in New Zealand Art” (in) Headlands, Thinking Through New
Zealand Art (ed) Marry Barr (Sydney: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1992) p 100
24
Susan Maclean, Architect of the Angels, The Churches of Frederick De Jersey Clere (Wellington:
Steele Roberts, 2003) p 54
25
Brian James Thomas, Christchurch Cathedral New Zealand (1946) p 31
26
Ian Breward “Conclusion” Oxford History of the Christian Church, A History of the Church in

6

Missionary Society (CSM), first arriving in New Zealand in 1814.27 This Evangelical

Protestant form of Christianity was fairly iconoclastic, which was one reason for the

paucity of imagery in early New Zealand Christianity. The CSM did establish a link

between church and political control as that was an accepted part of the Anglican

way.28 Anglicanism and politics were close in the old country, and continued to be as

much as possible so in the new country. Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Catholic,

and other forms of Christian missionary movements and church groups followed over

the next 20 or so years. All added to the diversity of imagery, teaching and ritual

practice in the “denominational and sectarian” Christian landscape of early New

Zealand.29

British and European forms of Christianity made a huge impact on the early

development of New Zealand; missionary contact with Maori also left a legacy. This

legacy of a form of Christianity that was seen as fully Christian, but fully Maori was

aided by Roman Catholic Christianity, which arrived some 20 years after Protestant

Christianity. Davidson says that Catholicism was more icon and image centred,

allowing a more “syncretic Maori Christianity” to form from elements of church

controlled imported doctrine and imagery as well as indigenous Maori belief and

imagery.30 These Maori Christianities produced their own systems and images.

Johnston shows examples of Maori Christian imagery dating from 1890 and 1840

respectively. The first is a woven tukutuku image of a cross, the second is a Madonna

27
Allan Davidson Christianity in Aotearoa, A History of Church and Society in New Zealand (3rd ed)
(Anglican Theological Education by Extension Unit) pp 1 - 5
28
Ibid pp 2 - 6
29
Ibid pp 7, 16, 50
30
Allan Davidson Christianity in Aoteroa, A History of Church and Society in New Zealand (3rd ed)
(Anglican Theological Education by Extension Unit) pp 15 -16

7

and Christ Child in the style of a traditional tekoteko (carved figure). (fig2)31 The

Maori Madonna and Christ Child can be seen as a unification of spiritualities and a

way for Maori to make Christian imagery there own in the tumultuous time of contact

with Christian missionaries and settlers. This is an early example of the production of

an image of Christ which is fused with indigenous New Zealand art. The fact it was

rejected as pagan by the church it was originally gifted to shows the time was not

right for the reception of such a radical thing a Maori Christ image.32This

appropriation of Christianity and its images and texts, and using them as a way of

defining Maori spirituality as opposed to Pakeha Christianity is somewhat akin to The

Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico. The situation was different in early New Zealand; the

wars over land were not to come until the 1860s, some 45 years after missionary

contact, whereas in Mexico the missionaries came with the soldiers. For the

indigenous population of Mexico, Harrington says Guadalupe was a way for them to

wrest back some control of their world taken from them by Spain.33 Spanish decedents

and peoples of mixed blood born in the New World aspired to create a new nation

(Mexico) out of the colony of New Spain used Guadalupe as a symbol. Guadalupe, as

a syncretic deity, was like them part Spanish and part Indian, and became a national

symbol to unite people to the cause of nation building.34

31
Alexa Johnston, M. “Christianity in New Zealand Art” (in) Headlands, Thinking Through New
Zealand Art (ed) Marry Barr (Sydney: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1992) p 100
32
Ibid p 100
33
Patricia Harrington “Mother of Death, Mother of Rebirth: The Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe”
Journal of the American Academy of Religion 56:1 (Spring,88) 26
34
Jeanette Favrot Peterson “The Virgin of Guadalupe: Symbol of Conquest or Liberation?” Art Journal
51:4 (Winter 92) 40

8

The 1830s and 1840s were a time of settler influx to New Zealand, and an

unparalleled population movement from the old to the new world in general.35 This

population change, the 1840 treaty of Waitangi, followed by the land wars of the

1860s; meant Maori and Pakeha continued to have divergent agendas for some long

time to come, so too Maori and Pakeha Christianities.36 There was, however, always

some cross over of ideas and imagery. Many years on from early contact between

indigenous and colonial peoples, there has been a more explicit recognition of Maori

Christian imagery. An example was the 1999 Maori Christian Art exhibition at the

cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Wellington,37 which includes reference to the Maori

Madonna and child carving. This exhibition also contained paintings by Julia B.

Lynch (1896 – 1975), also known also as Sister Mary Lawrence. The paintings in the

catalogue are of The Young Christ and The Risen Christ. In both works Christ is

depicted as Maori,38 although they more resemble traditional stained glass window

iconography and images of her time rather than anything as radical or un-Eurocentric

as the carved Madonna and Child. These are some of the few depictions of a Maori

Christ by a known artist in a catalogue, let alone in an ecclesiastical space like a

cathedral. Another Maori Christ is a stained glass window, the Sacred Heart of Jesus,

in a Catholic Church in Waihi Village, Lake Taupo.39 Like Lynch’s paintings this

image also conforms to standard stained glass iconography, a haloed Christ looking

full frontally out at the viewer, but with Maori features and colouring.

35
Paul Hudson, “English Emigration to New Zealand, 1839 – 1850: Information Diffusion and
Marketing a New World” The Economic History Review, 54:4 (Nov, 01) pp
36
37
38
Catalogue “Maori Christian Art” March 28 – April 4 1999, Sacred Heart cathedral Wellington
39
Marist Messenger (Aug: 07), inside cover

9

Stained glass windows were produced mostly as a way to teach the faithful.40

They are an art form that portrays the approved story of the life of Christ to church

goers.41 The earliest British and European representations of Christ in New Zealand

are primarily stained glass and some sculpture in churches, mostly dating from after

the 1840s immigration surge. Many of the churches housing these images were rebuilt

several times on the same site. Some of them retained original stained glass through

phases of reconstruction; others have numerous artistic and architectural additions.

The earliest windows were imports, presenting only values and images of the old

world. One example is in the church of The Holy Passion in Amberley is Canterbury,
42
New Zealand, that replicates imagery found in windows in Canterbury Cathedral,

Kent, England.43 Much of this information comes from Fiona Ciaran’s extensive

catalogue of the stained glass of Canterbury churches.44 According to Ciaran, the

earliest stained glass windows installed in this part of New Zealand is a Guardian

Angel, one of a series of windows put into the Barbados Street Cemetery Chapel in

1863.45 A later window in this series, The Risen Christ (fig3) was installed in

1868.46This Risen Christ image is one of the earliest dateable images of Christ still in

existence in New Zealand. It is of a haloed, beared white man in three quarter profile.

This is somewhat unusual as a full frontal representation with halo predominated at

that time. The facing forward looking out style of Christ image common in that time

was a way of depicting Christ that can be traced back to early Christianity. Temple
40
p 16
41
42
Fiona Ciaran, Stained Glass Windows of Canterbury, New Zealand (Dunedin: University of Otago
Press, 1998) p 30
43
Press, 1998) p 33
44
Press, 1998)
45
Ibid p 29
46
Ibid p 89

10

writes of The Sinai Christ, an icon painted in around AD 600.47 This icon is one of

the earliest of its kind, and it influenced both Eastern icons and Western Christ images

across many media, including stained glass. The Sinai Christ has the halo with cross

that was one of the markers of Christ’s special holiness. This too dates from early in

the Christian era, originating around AD 400 and persisting into Gothic art in the 18th

and 19th centuries.48 It is only natural then that The Risen Christ in Canterbury should

have this, as much early New Zealand imagery was Gothic Revival, a style popular in

the mid 1800s. Another feature originating around 500 years after Christ, that has

remained fairly consistent, was the depicting of Christ as bearded and long haired.

Porter links this to the influence the bearded images of Christ in the acheiropoietic, or

not man made images, of the Veil that Veronica used to wipe Christs face, the

Mandylion, and the Shroud of Turin had on artists in early Christianity supplanting

very early clean shaven Christ imagery.49 The Sinai image is not too dissimilar to

many haloed Christ’s looking out at the viewer, a style which persists down the ages.

In a similar style to The Risen Christ, the Holy Trinity Church in Littleton has a

large three panel window, The Risen Christ with St Peter, St Paul and St John the

Baptist, c.1865.(fig4)50 These two windows and The Pieta in the church of The Holy

Passion in Amberley, 1864 – 65 (fig5), 51 are in the Gothic Revival style. They draw

from English and French influences and having essentially no New Zealand input.

47
Richard Temple “The Sinai Christ” (chpt 9) Icons and the Mystical Origins of Christianity (Dorset:
Element Books, 1990) pp 92 – 93
48
J. R. Porter, “Jesus in Art” (chpt 5) Jesus Christ, The Jesus of History, The Christ of Faith (London:
Duncan Baird. 1994) pp 208 – 209
49
J. R. Porter, “Jesus in Art” (chpt 5) Jesus Christ, The Jesus of History, The Christ of Faith (London:
Duncan Baird. 1994) p 214
50
Press, 1998) p 93
51
Press, 1998) p 33

11

These kinds of images in churches are traditionally illustrative of gospel stories, or are

images of Christ’s celestial power.52 The Pieta is an image of Christ just taken down

from the cross before he has risen. It is an image that teaches a piety of care for the

suffering Christ, owing its inspiration to a traditional depiction of Christ, the Stations

of the Cross.53 The Pieta in Canterbury, New Zealand, has some imagery in common

with windows in Canterbury Cathedral, Kent, England.54 This demonstrates a link

between the established imagery from the home countries and the imagery the church

selected for churches in New Zealand. These images of Christ from the old countries

would reinforce the link to the Christian traditions of Europe and England,

maintaining a connection to, and spiritual authority from, the old world in the

colonised new world of pioneer New Zealand. Also, all three windows were designed

and made by London firms. There is a progression of different eras of imagery of

Christ in early New Zealand stained glass, and church art, coming with the various

denominations and waves of migration.55 In Canterbury, and New Zealand in general,

these eras are initially Gothic Revival of the early churches, to Art and Crafts

Movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, to the work of contemporary artists

in both ecclesiastical and secular image production and display.56

St John the Evangelist church in the Canterbury area was built by a wealthy

landowner to be “the spiritual focus of the community” he wanted to build for his

52
Heather Child, Dorothy Colles Christian Symbols, Ancient and Modern (London: G. Bell and Sons,
1971) p 64
53
Ibid p 74
54
Press, 1998) p 30
55
56
Press, 1998) pp 23 - 41

12

employees.57 Thornton writes of how John Cathcart Wason planted trees, made a town

centre to create a functional village environment, while deliberately having the church

as a main focus of the settlement, showing again how important a sacred space for

ritual, worship, and, the teaching of Christianity through texts and images was to the

early settlers.58 This small country church was finished in 1877, and consecrated in

1882. The main image of Christ is a stained glass window of Christ The Good

Shepherd. The Good Shepherd is a traditional image with a long history. It is an early

Christian image of caring and salvation. Child and Colles write of it being one of a

number of images found in one of the earliest known Christian churches, the church

“at Dura Europos dating from around AD 230”.59 Early Good shepherd images were

beardless, but became bearded as most Christ imagery did after around the middle of

the first millennium. A church of a similar era to St John the Evangelist is St

Michael’s Anglican church in the Nelson region. It was originally built in 1842 by

local land owners.60 The original was, Wells says one of the first Anglican churches in

Nelson, and possibly the South Island.61 The second version, built in 1866 has a

window of The Ascending Christ, with his upraised arms and attendant angles;62 this is

similar to other “Ascension” images in Ciaran’s survey of windows in Canterbury

churches.63 The St Michael’s window was a later addition that was designed in New

Zealand, but manufactured in England in the 1920s. It has some New Zealand

inspiration in its iconography but is still a design and a physical product of the old

57
Reed, 2003) p 118
58
Reed, 2003) pp 118 – 119
59
1971) p 106
60
Annette Wells, Nelson’s Historic Country Churches (Nikau Press, 2003) p23
61
Annette Wells, Nelson’s Historic Country Churches (Nikau Press, 2003) p23
62
1971) p 81
63
Press, 1998) p 214

13

countries. There was some shift by this time to New Zealand design of images of

Christ to be used in churches in New Zealand.

Wells writes of another church in the Nelson area and its imagery with a lifespan

similar to St John the Evangelist’s and St Michael’s. This is the Lutheran church of St

John. This church contains a centrally placed crucifix that is unusual in having its

head to the left, rather than the more traditional right. 64 Sculptural images like this are

less prominent than stained glass windows in most church imagery. Carvings and

metal work are often seen as a lesser art form, “on the boundaries of craft art and fine

art and as such tend not to be as written about as often as paintings and stained glass.65

Despite this fact, they are often central to altars, which are a main focus of ritual and

teaching in Christian churches. Sculptural works are primarily crucifixes which

generally portray Christ upon the cross, bearded slim and pain wracked. There are

examples where a crucifix stained glass image, rather than a sculpture, is a central

focus. One example is: the church of St John the Evangelist near Marton in the lower

North Island,66 designed by Frederick de Jersey Clere, who was known as a builder of

churches mostly in the North Island from the 1880s till near his death in 1952.67 The

window is placed centrally behind the altar, or sanctuary end of the church, elevated

and within an architectural structure that focuses the gaze upon the crucified Christ.

As with many windows and sculptures, its placement suggests its power as much as

the text it refers to, or the fact that it is an image of the person of Jesus Christ. Old

64
Annette Wells, Nelson’s Historic Country Churches (Nikau Press, 2003) pp 55 - 58
65
Mark, Stocker Angels and Roses, The art of Fredrick George Gurnsey (Christchurch: Canterbury
University Press, 1997) p 12
66
Reed, 2003) pp 93 – 96
67
Susan Maclean, Architect of the Angels, The Churches of Frederick De Jersey Clere (Wellington:
Steele Roberts, 2003) pp 7 - 27

14

Saint Paul’s in Wellington also has a Christ Crucified window as its main focus in its

sanctuary.68 The Crucifixion image of Christ is a traditional image. It dates from a

medieval form of piety reflecting a relationship to Christ that focuses more on his

suffering as his way to redeem humanity, than on the more caring, nurturing

redemption of the Good Shepherd and The Ascending Christ imagery.69 Stained glass

imagery of Christ has always been a central focus of the physical church in or near its

central altar. This applies to the crucifix, whether sculptural or two dimensional, as

well. Both are tangible markers of the sacred. They convey the idea that here is the

place of Christ, the place to commune with the divine.

The crucifix, while present in the Anglican churches of Nelson, does not seem to

be a central focus as it does in the Lutheran churches, and even more so in the

Catholic churches. Troughton says the crucifix was a “principle ornament” in Catholic

churches, and that this devotion to Jesus’ suffering was central to Catholic

understanding of Christ’s message.70 In the Catholic approach to images of Christ an

emphasis on the sacrifice and suffering of Christ, which was how he showed his love

for humanity was taught. Revering depictions of the Crucifixion and similar imagery

was seen as the correct way to engage with images of Christ. Another ubiquitous

Catholic image is the Sacred Heart of Christ. This is an image where he bares the

symbolic heart / cross / fire symbol on his chest, which represents the spirit of Christs

love.71 The Sacred Heart image has been in New Zealand as long as Catholics have.

Bishop Pompallier, celebrated the first Catholic mass in New Zealand in January
68
Inner cover, Heritage New Zealand 102 (Spring 06)
69
1971) pp 74 – 75
70
Geoffrey Troughton, Jesus in New Zealand c. 1900 – 1940, Thesis (Massey University, 2007) pp 44 -
46
71
Geoffrey Troughton, Jesus in New Zealand c. 1900 – 1940, Thesis (Massey University, 2007) p 46

15

1838. One panel of his “travelling alter” was a depiction of the Sacred Heart of

Christ.72 The first Catholic church in Murchison, St Peter Chanel’s,73 has a picture of

Jesus with the flaming Sacred Heart, next to a silver and wood crucifix atop a carved

wooden alter, as its central focus.74 These and other artworks in the church of St Peter

Chanel’s, such as a statue of Mary standing on a serpent, “using her good to stop the

spread of evil”, show the more iconic and complex nature of Catholic imagery. The

reception of Catholic imagery depended to a large extent upon being taught to read

the images, to get the full message in them. This is more so in Catholic than Protestant

imagery.75 The interplay between viewer and physical art work tends to be a more

overt thing in a Catholic setting. Catholicism’s richer iconographic tradition are a

legacy of their long history reaching from the fall of Rome till around the 16th century

and the rise of the more iconoclastic Protestant traditions.76Catholicism’s more user

friendly approach to imagery meant there was always more imagery of Christ in their

early churches. This kataphatic tradition of Catholicism,77 the using of images as

analogies to teach the faithful how to relate to Christ, holds to a large degree up to

contemporary times.

Another church of a similar era to St Michael’s and St John’s in the Nelson area

is the Lutheran church of St Paul’s. St Paul’s has a crucifix centrally placed on its

altar, this one with head to the right; it also contains a celebrated painted image of

72
Michael King, Gods Farthest Outpost, A History of Catholics in New Zealand (Aucklan: Viking,
1997) p 46
73
74
Ibid pp 159 - 160
75
Ibid pp 159 - 160
76
77
Barbara Mujica,” Beyond Image: The Apophatic-Kataphatic Dialectic in Teresa de Avila” Hispania
84: 4 (Dec: 01) p 741

16

Christ.78 The painting is the Crown of Thorns, 1875 by Gottfried Lindauer (1839 –

1926). Lindauer came to New Zealand in 1873 and is best known for his accurate

renderings of Maori life in his time.79 Before coming to New Zealand he was a painter

of religious themes for Catholic churches in Poland and Russia.80 His Crown of

Thorns and his association with things Maori and New Zealand in general are a

precursor of sorts to McCahon and Fomison in their associations of Christ with things

native to New Zealand. The Crown of Thorns painting is akin to the harsher, piety of

the Crucifixion. The Crown of Thorns is a treasured possession of the church, and was

at one time a central image of devotion to parishioners. (fig6)81 The painting of the

person of Christ in his suffering is an illustration of “the telling of … (a) …gospel

story”,82 sited within the vessel of the sacred, a church. It is where worshiper and

image come together. This way of looking at the person of Christ and the text it

depicts to teach the viewer and the place it is shown are factors in the power accorded

to Lindauer’s work,83 and as I will argue so to in The Light of the World’s success as a

religious icon. This work shows the idea that, producers of images often have specific

agendas to promote through images of Christ, but that those messages are received in

a variety ways some intended some not.

The Light of the World and 20th century stained glass.
78
79
Stewart Bell MacLennan,
http://www.teara.govt.nz/1966/L/LindauerGottfriedOrBohumir/LindauerGottfriedOrBohumir/en
accessed 24 May 09
80
Bernard John Foster,
http://www.teara.govt.nz/1966/L/LindauerGottfriedOrBohumir/LindauerGottfriedOrBohumir/en
accessed 24 May 09
81
82
p 16
83

17

The Light of the World’s message was intended to be both a religious, and a

Durkheimian “social unifier and moral regenerator”84 from the Protestant home lands

to the colonies.85 The Light of the World (fig7), and its subsequent use in stained glass

windows, post cards, newspaper reproductions,86 etc is a good example of a Christ

image of its time that was produced with a specific agenda, was received and

responded to as intended by some, but not all. It shows how the teaching agenda of

the work, and the ritual like viewing of it, helped create the sacredness accorded to it

by many.87 It was an image that engendered social and religious identity negotiation

akin to the process of contestation Eade and Sallnow describe for sacred spaces

(which are often themselves vessels for sacred images). They say: “the sacred powers

of a shrine are constructed as varied and possibly conflicting representations by the

different sectors of the cultic constituency as well as those outside it.”88 The Light of

the World had an effect on its intended constituency, as well as the culture in general,

both as an artwork that toured New Zealand just over 100 years ago as well as

reproductions that permeate the landscape of Christian imagery in New Zealand to the

present day.

84
85
Geoffrey Troughton. ‘The Light of the World’ At the end of the World, 1906 The Journal of New
Zealand Art History 28 (2007) p 5
86
Ibid p 12
87
Zealand Art History 28 (2007) pp 1-2
88

18

The painting was billed as both a masterwork of British, “great art”, and a

“sermon in oils”.89 Holman Hunt was a Pre-Raphaelite painter, and the work had the

idealisation and “commitment to meaningful art” that the Pre-Raphaelites espoused as

being the only “good art”.90 This is akin to Romanticism’s focus on the “holy’, or

meaningful, in humanity and nature.91 Both idealised humanity and nature feature in

the image. Others saw The Light of the World more as an example of “mawkish

piety”,92 being too idealised. The image was legitimated before it arrived in New

Zealand by both Ruskin’s famous letter to the Times lauding the work,93 and the idea

of the time that British art was “inherently superior”.94 Keith writes of the 1906 – 07

Christchurch International Exhibition, where The Light of the World was exhibited for

its longest stretch in New Zealand, as one of the markers of when the buying of

primarily British art was cemented in the early gallery and museum culture of New

Zealand.95 These artistic institutions, as The Light of the World’s showing in halls and

galleries demonstrated, would become places where images of Christ would be seen,

almost as much as churches. Up until the mid to late1900s it was primarily British

imagery like The Light of the World that was seen, until this dominance was

challenged by New Zealand artists.

89
Zealand Art History 28 (2007) pp 4, 10
90
Ibid p 2
91
pp 17 - 20
92
93
Mark Roskill “Hollman Hunt’s Differing versions of the “Light of the World” Victorian Studies 6: 3
(Mar, 63) p235
94
95
Hamish Keith, The Big Picture, A History of New Zealand art from 1642 (Auckland: Random House,
2007) p 96

19

The figure of Christ looks remarkably like the painter himself in the first two

versions of The Light of the World, of 1851 - 53 and 1857.96 Consciously or

unconsciously he seems to be making Christ in his own image. The paintings were

spurred, in the first instance, by Hunt’s “religious awakening or conversion”,97 so it

seems only natural he would place something of himself in his image. The third

version that came to New Zealand seems to resemble the artist less than the first two.

This last version of the work, produced near the end of the artists life, was made more

to be “accessible to the public at large”, rather than as a statement of personal piety.

This is possibly why it resembles the artist less than the first two paintings. Christ was

still depicted as white, bearded, and radiant, a perfect human male, idealised, and

marked as divine in many ways. The Christ in this image is haloed, robed, emanating

divine light and love. The Light of the World was a visual presentation of a human

Christ, but still an idealised Christ, not to dissimilar to the beatific risen Christ’s of

earlier stained glass windows.98 Temple says external sources of light represent the

inner / divine light, a concept so taken for granted that it is more a visual cliché or

convention than an emblem of divinity.99 Light and light sources were often used to

indicate the grace of divinity in Christian artwork.100 This seems to be the case in

Hunt’s work. The lamp and the glow it casts as the Christ figure knocks on the door of

the human is integral to the image.

96
(Mar, 63) fig1 and fig2
97
98
(Mar, 63) p 238
99
Richard Temple “The Sinai Mother of God: an Image of Celestial Light and Spiritual War” (chpt 10)
Icons and the Mystical Origins of Christianity (Dorset: Element Books, 1990) pp 98 - 99
100
Alexa M. Johnston “God talk – McCahon and Theology” (in) Colin McCahon, Gates and Journeys
(Auckland: Academy Press, 1988) pp 64 - 65

20

This image was of a Christ freed somewhat of tradition, but still linked to

scriptural legitimacy.101 The painting drew its imagery from Revelation 3:20, so its

textual link was obvious to the faithful.102 As well as this teaching of scripture, it was

intended to be of a personal Jesus for all individuals. This appealed to the largely

protestant Christianity of New Zealand, with its focus on individual religious

experience, rather than on the communal worship within a vessel like a church.103

Protestant piety was more centred on individual’s relationship to Christ, so this kind

of “human Christ” of The Light of the World appealed more to Protestant

Christians.104 A communal form of worship would have been more the norm in settler

times amongst most believers. Amongst the Catholic form of Christianity in the early

1900s, communal worship would still have been the norm as communal piety was

emphasised in Catholicism. The human Christ or Son of Man fitted the trends of

humanism and Darwinianism at the time, with its focus on individual knowing and

individual relating to the world.105 O’Grady says the changes and loosening of social

bonds in the secularisation and industrialisation of the 19th and 20th centuries led artists

to depict a Christ who the people could identify with, a human Christ.106 This Jesus, as

manifested in Hunt’s image, was no pioneer, nor social reformer, nor Christ on the

cross suffering for humanity, but a “gentle, pleading saviour seeking redemption and

reconciliation” in the domain of the middle class.107 Early 1900s New Zealand was a

101
Stephen Prohero, American Jesus, How the Son of God Became a National Icon, (New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 2003) pp 11 -13
102
Zealand Art History 28 (2007) pp 10 - 11
103
104
Ian Breward “Conclusion”Oxford History of the Christian Church, A History of the Church in
105
Straus and Giroux, 2003) pp 11 -13
106
Ron O’Grady (ed) Christ for All People, Celebrating a World of Christian Art. (Auckland: Pace,
2001) p 25
107

21

time of change, secularisation, urbanisation, industrialisation and more

immigration.108 There was a rise in white collar work, and a reorganising of blue

collar labouring and farming work.109 The rise of a middle class would certainly allow

more people the leisure to go to an art exhibition for their religion, rather than just to

churches. The early settlers would likely have only had time to go to churches, and

even then most likely only on Sundays and special events, given the rigours of the

pioneer life. Going to see The Light of the World, which came to colonial New

Zealand from the mother country like a prophet, was akin to a pilgrimage for many.110

Viewing such an image in galleries and halls was “for most … in some way a

religious experience”. Of the comments recorded from the New Zealand tour, many

are of religious and spiritual uplift, showing its power as a piece of material piety.111

The sentimental piety of this image and the largely positive reception it received

gave it great power and mystique as an icon. Dianna Hollman – Hunt describes her

grandfather’s work as “the ‘Protestant icon’ ... (e)ven during the Second World War.

… (B)ut Van Gogh’s Sunflowers had taken over in the thirties … (from The Light of

the World as) the most popular picture in the world after the Mona Lisa”.112 Not

everyone perceived the work and its message in such a rapturous manner in New

Zealand. Most notably Wellington did not receive the “religious mission” of the tour

108
Lloyd Geering, 2100: A Faith Odyssey. The Changing Face of Religion in New Zealand
(Wellington: St Andrews Trust for the Study of Religion and Society, 1995) pp 15 – 18
109
Errik Olsen, Tom Brooking, Brian Heenan, Hamish James, Bruce McLennan, Clyde Griffen “Urban
Society and the Opportunity Structure in New Zealand, 1902-22: The Caversham Project” Social
History 24:1 (Jan, 99) pp 40 - 43
110
David Freedberg, “Image and Pilgrimage” Chpt 6 (in) The Power of Images, Studies in the History
and Theory of Response (Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press, 1989) p 92
111
Zealand Art History 28 (2007) pp 6 - 11
112
Dianna Hollman – Hunt “Introduction” Anne Clark Amor William Hollman Hunt, The True Pre –
Raphaelite, (London: Constable, 1989) p 8

22

as well as other centres did. Wellington was regarded even in 1906 as a more secular

city than most in New Zealand.113 Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin recorded huge

attendance rates at its showings in halls and galleries.114 This diversity of response

showed the relaxed attitude to religious practice in New Zealand of the 1900s.115 The

veneration accorded the painting, despite the fact that not everybody saw it as an

image of piety, showed that Jesus still had a central place in the culture of the time.116

Jesus was still an important focus for: “popular religious sentiment and a locus of

moral authority. Jesus was upheld as the archetype and symbol of true religion, and

represented society’s yearning for all that was noble and true.”117 This dynamic seems

to have played out in The Light of the World’s time in New Zealand, as Morgan says

images teach and “shape the thinking and feeling of those who use them by giving

visual presence to the institutional structures that configure the public and private

worlds in which they live”.118 Reception theory puts meaning making in the hands of

the audience’s interpretation, rather than the creator’s intention.119 Both the intention

of the maker and reception of an audience still largely culturally Christian, is

important in an image like The Light of the World. Troughton citing Colleen

McDannell in reference to the tour of Light of the World says “Protestant religiosity

utilises material culture, despite its theologically ambivalent attitude toward it.”120 The

work was seen by its owner and the funder of tour, Charles Booth (1840 – 1916), and

113
114
Ibid p 3
115
Ibid p 12
116
117
Ibid p 7
118
David Morgan, Imaging Protestant Piety: The Icons of Warner Sallman Religion and American
Culture 3:1 (Winter, 93) p 30
119
Jack Ayers Reception Theory, Literacy Theory Dr. David Jolliffe
http://jolliffereadingtheory.blogspot.com/2009/05/reception-theory.html Accessed 04 July 09
120

23

in much of the commentary on it its reception in New Zealand, as the exemplar of

British Protestantism that Hunt intended to be.121

The legacy of The Light of the World was seen then, and still to a degree today,

in reproduction. Its popularity both in its homeland and New Zealand meant it was

widely reproduced in England and here in New Zealand.122 It is found within church

culture as stained glass windows. In stained glass, Ciaran’s catalogue lists seventeen

windows based on The Light of the World image.123 A number of these pair The Light

of the World image and The Good Shepherd image as windows, many being

memorials to dead soldiers.124 The Good Shepherd images, she says were based on

various different artists interpretations of this traditional image.125 These were mostly

from catalogues, mass produced images from England, Europe and Australia, and

later from studios in New Zealand. One of these paired Christ images is listed as the

first New Zealand made window installed in Canterbury c.1897-98.126 The Light of the

World of this pair would have been based on one of the two previous versions of the

painting, rather than the image that toured New Zealand.127 Churches in the North

Island, in Auckland and Cambridge had Light of the World windows installed from

the late 1920s onwards.128 After World War One there was a general rise in the use of

this image, alongside a rise in memorial windows.129 Ciaran says that the function of

121
Ibid pp 4 -5
122
Mike Harding, A little Book of Stained Glass (London: Atrum Press, 1998) p 30
123
124
Press, 1998) pp 22, 35
125
Ibid p 22
126
Ibid p35
127
128
Ibid p 12
129
Ibid p 12

24

the windows in Canterbury, and nation wide, were commemorative as much as

devotional and educational.130 Images of Jesus Christ used to commemorate fallen

heroes, founding fathers, wealthy patrons, etc, are a strong statement.131 This

commemorative function adds to the layers of meaning. In the space where such

images are viewed, there is the acknowledgement of the hurts of war as well as the

layers of tradition of the window form, the iconography of Christ, and any text or

moral the image may be teaching.

The Light of the World became one of the most recognisable, widely spread, and

deeply entrenched images in New Zealand religious material culture in its day.132 The

power of reproduction is important in reception of images of Christ in the modern

age, as it allows for mass dissemination of images and their messages. It allows them

a life within ecclesiastical and secular worlds that pure original ecclesiastical art does

not have. Ernest Shea’s postcards were a good example of this. They were widely sold

and allowed the image to enter private houses, shops, etc. Major newspapers Like the

Canterbury Times printed reproductions of the painting for mass consumption.133

Brubaker writes that: “although “the sacred” is culturally defined, the participation of

the audience creates its layers of meaning”.134 The Light of the World had the

Christian symbology and multi layered connotations to its viewers that created a

130
Press, 1998) p 22
131
Michael W Jennings,. Brigid Doherty, Thomas Y Levin,. (eds) Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in
the Age of its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media (Massachusetts, London:
Belknap Press, 2008) p 15
132
133
Ibid p 11
134
Leslie Brubaker, “Conclusion, Image, Audience, and Place: Interaction and Reproduction” (chpt)
11( eds) Robert Ousterhout, Leslie Brubaker, The Sacred Image East and West (Chicago: University of
Illinois Press, 1995) p 205

25

“sacredly charged” image. This image had a large impact on its many of its viewers.135

Colleen McDannell writes of the need to look at the production, distribution, and use

of material religious culture to understand religious practice and meaning making.136

This is the “crush zone” of the tectonic plates of individuals, culture, religion and

images. As well as in stained glass, The Light of the World would have been found in

Sunday school images, postcards, and prints. To this day these reproductions can be

found in churches as framed prints, reredos panels, as well as stained glass

windows.137 It is perhaps less known as a Protestant icon, a “gentle humanist

saviour”, that toured New Zealand in the early 20th century and more like the next

example, Sallman’s Head of Christ, as an overseas made, image with a message,

amongst many found in churches of all denominations in New Zealand.

Head of Christ, Protestant imagery and ideology.

Of American origin, the image of the Head of Christ, 1940 (fig8) by Warner

Sallman is an iconic image of Christ that can be found in churches, religious

institutions, and homes in New Zealand. It is found not quite to the same extent as in

the United States, but nonetheless it is a mass produced image of Christ that has a

presence in many contexts. Like The Light of the World, the Head of Christ is said to

have a quality that gives the beholder an immediate experience of Christ, 138 it is said
135
Simon Coleman and John Elsner, “The Pilgrims Progress: Art, Architecture and Ritual Movement at
Sinai, World Archeology 26:1 (June 94) p 75
136
Robert A.Orsi, George Marsden, David W. Wills, Colleen McDannell “Forum: The Decade Ahead
in Scholarship” Religion and American Culture 3:1 (Winter, 93) pp 24 , 27
137
Zealand Art History 28 (2007) pp 11 – 12
138
David Morgan “Imaging Protestant Piety: The Icons of Warner Sallman”, Religion and American
Culture, 3: 1 (Winter, 93) p 34

26

to “resemble the real Jesus”. It is an image responded to as iconic, both personally and

in its teaching capacity, by many Christians. The Head of Christ, along with images

like The Light of the World, and the Catholic Sacred Heart of Christ are images that

have teaching aspects, inspire reverence, and cross boundaries, to Christians of all

kind, and Western culture in general.139 The plural sectarian nature of Christianity in

New Zealand made this crossing of boundaries easier than it may have been in

cultures where one form of Christianity dominates. 140 Also, modern mass production

made it possible for both believers and the ambient culture to own texts and images of

Christ by this time.141 Images of Christ had become more accessible to all, and not

just in the teaching and ritual spaces of the church. The images teach the faithful, as

much as the beholders project their ideas onto the images. In the general culture, even

the most atheistic person has a reaction of some kind to images of Christ. Freedberg

says an image has power derived from its relations with those who behold (gaze) at

them.142 The power attributed to the Head of Christ has lead to it being: “placed in the

sanctuary of Protestant churches, (as it) is so highly regarded as a compelling portrait

of Jesus”.143 Predominantly Protestant New Zealand has prints of the Head of Christ

in its Christian material culture. One of these being a large framed reproduction of the

Head of Christ is, opposite the sanctuary in the CCCS church, Newtown,

Wellington.144 In this church it is not quite as central as the American example but it

hangs prominently over the entry way, being the last thing seen as worshipers file out

139
Nicholas Lobkowicz, “Christianity and Culture” The Review of Politics 53:2 (Spring, 91) pp 373 -
389
140
(Wellington: St Andrews Trust for the Study of Religion and Society, 1995) p 9
141
Ibid p 9
142
David Freedberg (in) David Freedberg, Oleg Grabar, Anne Higonnet ,Cecelia F. Klein, Lisa
Tickner, Anthony Vidler “The Object of Art History” The Art Bulletin 76:3 (Sept, 94) pp 394 / 395
143
Culture, 3: 1 (Winter, 93) p32
144
Betty Kathleen Duncan, A Hierachy of Symbols: Samoan Religious Symbolism in New Zealand,
thesis (University of Otago, 1994)

27

in a heightened state after a church service. This would guarantee a strong reaction to,

and connection with the image for the congregation of this church.

Morgan says that this image does not offend protestant iconoclastic sensibilities

in that it is a “highly legible” image that conveys an essence of Christ, and what it is

to be a Protestant American, which should inspire all to follow its example.145 It is an

image of what was central to the American Protestant life of its time, a primarily

middle - class private affirmation of the everyday Jesus who ‘should’ be central to

Christian life.146 This is akin to The Light of the World imparting a British ideal of

Protestant piety some half a century previously. America had become as important, if

not more so, on the world stage over the time between the two images. Prothero

writes of the rise of Jesus in the 19th and 20th centuries as the central icon and focus of

veneration in American Protestant Christianity.147 In a way similar to The Light of the

World, Head of Christ showed and taught a Jesus focused, American, Protestantism to

the rest of the world. Despite the Protestant focus on text and suspicion of icons as

artefacts of Catholicism and Eastern Christianity, the Head of Christ was seen as an

acceptable image. An Eastern or Catholic icon traditionally mediated between the

human and sacred worlds; it was seen as “transparent”.148 Miles describes this

transparent translation, using unique religious art works, from mortal to spiritual

worlds, as being primarily a way of “describing humanities relationship to God

145
Culture, 3: 1 (Winter, 93) pp 40 - 41
146
Ibid pp 32 -33
147
Straus and Giroux, 2003) pp 80 – 82
148
Leslie Brubaker, “Introduction, The Sacred Image” (chpt) 1(eds) Robert Ousterhout, Leslie
Brubaker, The Sacred Image East and West (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995) p 4

28

through Christ”. 149 In contemporary times of mass produced images, of which the

Head of Christ is an example, it is as much “the viewer’s knowledge of what came

before and what will come after” as any traditionally taught function of the image that

affects how it is read.150 The fact that this image has a nearly 70 year history of

reception and reproduction, allows it to be both a part of Christian culture and the

general culture with connotations from both. Mass production and dissemination

allow both of these aspects of the image.

Detractors of the Head of Christ had similar objections as there had been to The

Light of the World, that it was too sentimental, sweet, and un-manly.151 In its teaching

function, Head of Christ is an image like Hunt’s that is seen as compassionate,

romantic, somewhat feminie and slightly suspect to some. Despite this it is seen as

manly in by enough Christians (men) to be acceptable to most.152 Morgan writes that,

the majority of male Christians see the Head of Christ as: “a Jesus who is both manly

and accessible”.153 This suspicion of the softer Jesus, Morgan calls a rejection of “the

domestic Christianity of Women.”154 The fact that the image has this connotation of

“intimacy” and inclusion, of the feminine and the domestic, maybe one reason the

image is so widely accepted. As well as gender barriers, the Head of Christ also
149
Margaret R. Miles, from “Image” (in) S. Brent Plate (ed) “Section Two Icon: The Image of Jesus
Christ and Christian Theology” (in) Religion, Art, And Visual Culture, a cross cultural reader (New
York: Palgrave, 2002) pp 64 - 65
150
Ibid pp 64 - 65
151
David Morgan, from “Would Jesus have sat for a Portrait? The Likeness of Christ in the Popular
Reception of Sallman’s Art” (in) S. Brent Plate (ed) “Section Two Icon: The Image of Jesus Christ and
Christian Theology” (in) Religion, Art, And Visual Culture, a cross cultural reader (New York:
Palgrave, 2002) pp 82 - 84
152
Culture, 3: 1 (Winter, 93) pp 34 - 35
153
David Morgan, from “Would Jesus have sat for a Portrait? The Likeness of Christ in the Popular
Reception of Sallman’s Art” (in) S. Brent Plate (ed) “Section Two Icon: The Image of Jesus Christ and
Christian Theology” (in) Religion, Art, And Visual Culture, a cross cultural reader (New York:
Palgrave, 2002) p 86
154
Ibid p 85

29

transcends denominational and Catholic Protestant boundaries to some extent.

Troughton says that the centrality of Jesus Christ to Christianity has been used to

endeavour to unify Protestant sectarianism, and Protestant and Catholic differences.155

An example of this denominational boundary crossing is in the soup kitchen run by

the Catholic order of The Sisters of Mercy in Wellington which has a print of the

Head of Christ on its walls. Sallman’s work in its mass production and dissemination

as a print is as ubiquitous as the Catholic Sacred Heart of Christ image, which is also

to be found in the Catholic institution of the Sisters soup kitchen.

Other boundaries this image transcends are those of the categories of uniqueness

and genius that art history usually relies on.156 Sallman’s work is unknown to the art

elite, but there are over 500 million reproductions of the Head of Christ as objects of

devotion in churches and homes world wide.157 Morgan talks of images creating a

sacred space in the secular world of the home of ordinary everyday believers, and how

this appeals to Protestant individual and family focus.158 He says it is an example of a

low art, mass produced image that has an enduring life and influence due to its

reception and the response of those who use this image for supplication, veneration,

and the other ritual uses it is put to by believers.159 It does not have the aura of the

unique work of art Benjamin wrote of. Benjamin did, however, say that while mass

producing images does dissipate their unique aura; it can also substitute a “mass

existence for a unique existence. And in permitting the reproduction to reach the
155
156
Culture, 3: 1 (Winter, 93) P 31
157
Ibid P 31
158
David Morgan, “Domestic Devotion and Ritual: Visual Piety in the Modern American Home” Art
Journal 57:1 (Spring, 98) pp 45 - 47
159
Culture, 3: 1 (Winter, 93) P 29

30

recipient in his or her own situation, it actualizes that which is reproduced.”160 The

power of a reproduction of popular religious imagery does not lie in its original intent,

according to Morgan; it is the subsequent reception and “patterns of response”.161 It is

the reception of the produced image, as being in effect “the real Jesus Christ”: an

image of Protestant Christianity within the church, but available to all, which is one

reason it stays so potent.

Jason Knapp, writing about the collection of Sallman’s work that Anderson

University and Warner Press maintain, says that in his first year as curator of this

collection, he was astonished by the number of requests from individuals and groups

wanting to view works. He also notes how many requests were “phrased in the

language of a pilgrimage.”162 A Christian pilgrimage site is a place that has a link to

the divine, in the form of a miracle, a relic, or an image. It is a place of mediation,

where the earthly, ordinary realm meets the heavenly, divine realm. 163 Freedberg

writes of the miracles that images believers make pilgrimages to, are said to

perform.164 The images can be copies, as the Schone Maria at Regensburg which he

uses as an example of this aura of power that copies can contain. Not only was this

pilgrimage image a copy of an original, but it spawned many thousands of pilgrimage

badges, small reproductions of the copy that were said to have some of the power of

160
Michael W Jennings,. Brigid Doherty, Thomas Y Levin,. (eds) Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in
the Age of its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media (Massachusetts, London:
Belknap Press, 2008) p 22
161
162
Jason Knapp, MFA “Warner Sallman Collection” http://www.Warnersallman.com/ accessed 24 May
2009
163
Greenwood press, 1992) 5
164
and Theory of Response (Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press, 1989) p100

31

the original. 165 The Head of Christ has a similar life, as the huge number of

reproductions attest to. Morgan records numbers of instances of the images power to

protect and comfort travelling Christians and intercede for believers with Christ. 166

The enduring comforting power of this image is seen in a 1994 National Geographic

image of a flood survivor in America clutching a print of the Head of Christ as a

prized possession saved and as a source of comfort and strength in a time of

disaster.167 Morgan also notes the image was (and still is) used to teach Christian

children how to relate to Christ. As an image of the real, American Protestant, Jesus, it

was seen as an acceptable peadagogical aid in Sunday Schools.168

A ramification of New Zealand’s sectarian Christianity was the 1877 Education

Act that made schooling secular, to avoid conflict over which form of Christianity

was the correct one to teach children.169 Teaching children how to be Christians was

still seen as important in the changing religious and political landscape of the 1930s

and 40s, where there was a fear Christianity was loosing its importance in society.170

Teaching through Sunday school used much American teaching material. The

teaching material contained: “bible lesson pictures” in which reproductions of

Sallman’s work featured strongly. This is another way this protestant Christ imagery

would have been disseminated in New Zealand. Breward says that Protestant

Christianity was highly involved in Sunday school teaching up till the 1960s in New

165
and Theory of Response (Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press, 1989) p103
166
David Morgan, “Domestic Devotion and Ritual:Visual Piety in the Modern American Home” Art
Journal 57: 1 (Spring 98) p 47
167
“ Riding Out the Worst of Times” National Geographic 185: 1 (Jan 94) p 86
168
169
(Wellington: St Andrews Trust for the Study of Religion and Society, 1995) p 10
170

32

Zealand.171 The American bible lessons went to Britain, Canada, Australia, New

Zealand, and other commonwealth countries according to Morgan.172. Morgan also

points out that the Salvation Army; a bastion of conservative Protestantism used

Sallman’s imagery regularly on the cover of their main publication The War Cry, and

doubtless in their teaching material as well.173

The Catholic cathedral of the Sacred Heart, in Wellington, has a set of paintings

depicting the Stations of the Cross. The Stations are a journey through the Passion of

Christ; the representations of it facilitate a close relating to it in the beholders

reception.174 Despite being Catholic, the paintings in the cathedral of the Sacred Heart

seem remarkably similar to Sallman in they way they are painted and their depictions

of the Caucasian Christ.175 They are also similar to the Stations of the Cross painted

by Julia B. Lynch, originally for a church in Wellington, which now reside in the

Good Shepherd Theological College, Auckland.176 Both these depict the bearded,

slim, beatific Caucasian Jesus, both have imagery that could be equally at home in the

Protestant inspired work of Sallman. Another depiction of The Stations, in the

traditional medium of low relief carved panels, 1926 – 27, by Frederick George

Gurnsey (1868 – 1953), shows Christ in a three dimensional form. Despite having

been made 13 or 14 years before Sallman’s painting they bare a remarkable
171
Ian Breward “Conclusion”Oxford History of the Christian Church, A History of the Church in
172
David Morgan, The Lure of Images, A History of Religion and Visual Media in America ( London,
New York: Routledge, 2007) p 94
173
174
George Cyprian Alston, “The Way of the Cross” The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol 15 (New York:
Robert Appelton Company, 1912) http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15569a.htm accessed 24 May
2009
175
Michael King, Gods Farthest Outpost, A History of Catholics in New Zealand (Aucklan: Viking,
1997) pp 152 -153
176
Julia Lynch – Good Shepherd Theological College, http://www.gsc.ac.nz/lynch.htm accessed 25
May 09

33

resemblance to Sallman’s imagery.177 This and the two previous examples show the

commonality of iconography of Christ in the traditional Stations format. All these

images are culturally of Western Christianity. This Christ imagery is definitely of a

white man, not an Eastern icon Christ, nor a Maori or Polynesian Christ. They are

embodiments of how Christ was seen in the time they were made, as well as being

images made to explicitly teach of Christ’s passion. Like the Head of Christ they are

histories of their time as much as a pedagogical tool. The time and context of the

viewer and the maker are embedded in the image. The visual cultural approach that

tries to look at both sides of an image, its production and its reception apply to these

“sallmanesque” stations.178 The preconceptions of the viewer will colour the meaning

taken from the viewing, as much as the image influences the viewers experience itself.

This dialectical process can feed back into contemporary image making, which

embodies the past in the time of its production, as will be seen in more contemporary

artist’s use of such traditional forms and ideas as the Stations.

Images like the Stations and Head of Christ show interplay of internal personal

and socially culturally valued ideas in the presence of an image.179 The space between

meaning and physical art works is the zone Coleman and Elsner call the “the recursive

relationship between material culture and religious experience”,180 and as a theology

fixed in a space. This relationship between internal, social and textual realities is a big

part of the more traditional imagery of Christ in early New Zealand, and the fairly
177
Mark, Stocker Angels and Roses, The art of Fredrick George Gurnsey (Christchurch: Canterbury
University Press, 1997) pp 33 - 34
178
Religion, Art, And Visual Culture, a cross cultural reader (New York: Palgrave, 2002) pp 54 - 55
179
Greenwood press, 1992) 4 - 6
180
Simon Coleman and John Elsner, The Pilgrims Progress: Art, Architecture and ritual movement at
Sinai, World Archaeology 26:1 Archaeology of Pilgrimage (June 1994) 73

34

explicit teaching functions of them. Artists of the mid to late 20th and early 21st

centuries in New Zealand tended to express private conviction, and take Christ into

their personal space and image use. As images of Christ moved into the fine art world

and fine artist moved into the ecclesiastical world, what was being taught,

commemorated, and the forms of ritual around these images continued to diversify

and multiply, in the artists taking Christ imagery into their personal, internal journeys

and out of the more collective spaces of the church. This is very much the mindscape

idea, the internal sacred space that is visited when relating to, or imagining, a scared

image as an alternative to a physical visit in the material world to see an image.181

Hegel writes that most of what is valuable in Western art and culture comes from

Christianity, but that Christianity is superfluous in any thing other than “expression of

mere private conviction” in the modern world.182 In light of this appraisal of the place

of things Christian, O’Grady says the role of the Christian artist is to challenge,

expand, and refresh the church’s ecclesiastical views.183 This challenge to church

based imagery, within the multi - culturalism, pluralism and secularism of New

Zealand culture, was a fertile ground for images of Jesus Christ to move into the

sphere of fine art.

McCahon and Fomison: the search for a New Zealand Christ in modern art.

181
Greenwood press, 1992) 4 - 6
182
Nicholas Lobkowicz, “Christianity and Culture” The Review of Politics 53:2 (Spring, 91) p 377
183
Ron O’Grady (ed) Christ for All People, Celebrating a World of Christian Art. (Auckland: Pace,
2001) p 26

35

The personal quest using traditional Christian and modern New Zealand

imagery, seem to be the zone where images of Christ in New Zealand were in the mid

to late 20th century. A quest orientation to religion is seen by Bateson as an open

minded searching for meaning.184 Kojetin et al. say it is more an effect of personal

distress over religious questions.185 Both of these apply to a number of artists from

around the 1950s. This seeking, informed by a Modernist perspective of optimism in

human progress,186 was the teritory that Colin McCahon, a pivotal figure in that he is

one of the first fine arts practitioners in New Zealand to put Jesus in a New Zealand

landscape, worked in. McCahon’s work also helped move the production and

reception of images of Jesus Christ from ecclesiastical control to the realm of the

individual artist, and into galleries rather than churches. As fewer churches were

being built in the early 20th century, and new stained glass windows less common,

windows were no longer so pre-eminent in depicting Christ. As complete church

environment making was less, works going into existing churches and works in other

formats like paintings became more common. Fomision even more than McCahon

moved images of Christ in New Zealand into paint and from church to gallery.

Despite McCahon’s personal exploration of his religious and spiritual beliefs in

his daily life through his art, Hunter says the commission for a set of windows for the

Convent Chapel of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions in Auckland was of “great

importance” to him.187 She says that he saw that this art work was for an “audience

184
Brian A. Kojetin, Danny N. McIntosh, Robert A. Bridges, Bernard Spilka, “Quest: Constructive
Search or religious Conflict?” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 26: 1 (Mar, 87) pp 111 - 112
185
Ibid pp 111 - 112
186
Hilary Brand, Adrienne Chaplin “Art in a Post-Modern Age” (chpt 1) Art and Soul, Signposts for
Christians in the Arts, ( Carlisle, Illinois: Piquant Editions, and Intervarsity Press, 2007) p5
187
Alexa M. Johnston “Christianity in New Zealand Art” (in) (ed) Marry Barr Headlands, Thinking
Through New Zealand Art, (Sydney: museum of contemporary art, 1992) p 105

36

with the requisite knowledge to recognise and respond to the religious symbols in his

work.”188 This shows how important the reception of his Christian message was to

McCahon, and awareness on the artist’s part of how an audience’s prior learning

affects the message they receive from an image. This desire for people to understand

his imagery was a constant quest it would seem. The artist’s son William writes that

his father:

“sought to engage his public in a visual dialogue about himself and his relationship with God. … His

paintings reflected a commited Christian perspective and his entire oeuvre is the narrative of his life of

spiritual and emotional discovery.”189

Ian Wedde sounds a note of caution, asking was McCahon wrestling with

religious faith, or is it just that such things as faith are more openly discussed now? 190

Poetry, music, and art are often used in the way faith, religion, and spirituality

traditionally have been by more secular people. This brings up the debate of is an

artist truly a spiritual seeker, or is the art world trying to find something trendy in

their work.191 Both are probably true. In asking “how religious was McCahon?”,192

Johnston, rather than debating the issue says looking at McCahon’s work in light of

theology shows The artists faith in Christs “historical and continuing” example of

what it is to be the best human one can be.193 This humanistic type Christ is central in
188
Ibid p 105
189
Marja Bloem, Martin Browne, Colin McCahon, a Question of Faith (Amsterdam: Stedelijk
Museum, Craig Potton Publishing, 2002) p 29
190
Ian Wedde “McChaon, A Question of Faith” Making Ends meet, Essays and talks 1992 – 2004
(Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2005) pp 295 - 296
191
p 16
192
Alexa M. Johnston “God talk – McCahon and Theology” (in) Colin McCahon, Gates and Journeys
(Auckland: Academy Press, 1988) p 57
193
Ibid p 61

37

much of his imagery. Maybe it follows on from the humanistic Protestant Christ of

The Light of the World and the Head of Christ, merely being updated by McChaon for

the times he found himself in. Maybe images of Christ served to enable him to best

show the thoughts and emotions he sought to express. In an interview in 1980 (7 years

before he died), he said that he was painting “beauty and serenity”, that he was

painting “Christ”.194 Much like Vincent Van Gogh’s desire to be a missionary before

he turned to art,195 McCahon had originally wanted to be an evangelist. This suggests

that no mater how much of his art was pure self expression, McCahon had a

religious / spiritual nature he explored, and sought to expressed.196 Yule writes of

McCahon in terms of a prophetic, evangelistic artist producing a spiritual and artistic

answer to the secularity of New Zealand culture of the mid to late 20th century, whose

message was perhaps not received as the artist intended.197 These again show that a

message may be interpreted by its audience in ways the producer did not necessarily

intend and that we may not necessarily know the artists intention fully. A prophet

creates newness from, and challenges, the established order. Johnston, writing of

Brueggemann’s ideas of a prophet’s role in a modern society says a prophet:

challenges “public certainty” with a personal drive for a deeper, more spiritual,

reality.198 In this way McChaon could be said to be the prophet many have called him.

194
Murry Ball, “I Am” (in) Marja Bloem, Martin Browne, Colin McCahon, a Question of Faith
(Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum, Craig Potton Publishing, 2002) p 50
195
p 20
196
Murry Ball, “I Am” (in) Marja Bloem, Martin Browne, Colin McCahon, a Question of Faith
(Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum, Craig Potton Publishing, 2002) p 46
197
Rob Yule, “How the light gets in, The Christian art of Colin McCahon” Chrysalis Seed Arts 31 (Oct
08) pp 16 – 19
198
Derek Johnston, “Walter Brueggemann and the Biblical Imagination” (chpt 15) (in) A Brief History
of Theology, From the New Testament to Feminist Theology (London. New York: Continuum, 2008) p
258

38

McCahon’s religious paintings were first shown seven years after Sallman’s

work was produced in 1947.199 Three of the works from that time specifically of

Christ in a New Zealand setting are: Crucifixion (for Rodney Kennedy) (fig9), with its

lamp that seems to reference The Light of the World’s lamp, as much as Christ’s

divinity grace, or inner radience. Another is Crucifixion according to St Mark (fig10),

which has Christ in a very New Zealand landscape. Finally Crucifixion with Lamp

(fig11). Keith talks of these works as: both shifting the focus from British Landscape

art which had been the preeminent scenic art in colonial New Zealand to a New

Zealand landscape, and that landscape as providing a backdrop for biblical stories and

a context “to rest the Pakeha imagination (in)”.200 As Panoho says, in reference

primarily to the work Crucifixion – the apple branch (fig12) of 1950 with its depiction

of the family in differing locations looking for guidance and strength, but also

McCahon’s work in general, raises the issue of “our profound (human) need to engage

with Christ’s claim to divine right over our lives.”201 This was a Christ in a New

Zealand setting, designed and created by a New Zealander to fulfil an agenda both

personal and cultural, but received in its time with less understanding than the artist

seemed to have desired. Unlike the familiar structure of church iconography and

imagery, paintings in the art arena were able to be interpreted in various ways by

many different sectors of society. This diversity of interpretation in differing contexts

applies to McCahon’s religious imagery.

199
Peter Simson, Answering Hark, McCahon / Caselberg, Painter / Poet (Craig Potton Publishing,
2001) p 12
200
Hamish Keith, The Big Picture, A History of New Zealand art from 1642 (Auckland: Random
House, 2007) pp 156 – 157, 167 - 172
201
Anaru / Andrew Panoho “Two exhibitions – one people” CS Arts 31 (Oct 08) p 29

39

In the process of looking back on artists from the present to try and determine

what they were trying to say there is room for interpretation. As most of the artists

and their commissioners, especially in the 19th and early 20th century are dead, there is

necessarily an element of guess work in figuring out why images were produced as

they were. What the reception was can be ascertained to a greater degree, but is can

still be obscure. The complexity of a local artist, rather than the more anonymous and

traditional stained glass window making firms from America, Britain, or Europe,

creating an art work for a church is illustrated also by Bill Sutton’s Transfiguration of

Christ 1979. This window was designed for the Northern transept in the Anglican

cathedral of Christchurch. There was dispute over, and changes made by the artist to

the depiction of the face of Christ.202 The conflict of donor, church, and artist’s visions

led Sutton to describe the process as “one of the best commissions an artist could get,

but one of his biggest disappointments”.203 This difference between the various

parties’ desires and agendas during a process like this shows the complexity of the

process a seemingly simple request like creating a window depicting Christ’s image,

to commemorate a member of the donors family, can be. The artists and donor had

differing ideas about imagery in this case, showing how important agreed ideas of

what imagery to use is. This is akin to McCahon’s desire for his work to be seen in as

much a theological, as an art world context, typified by his pleasure at creating a work

that went into a church environment where people should be able to relate to the work

from a shared set of ideas.204 Again, it is debatable that this was the outcome, but

shared Christian knowledge which itself would have come from traditional images

202
Colin Brown Vision and Reality, Christchurch’s Cathedral in the Square (Christchurch:
Christchurch cathedral chapter, 2000) pp 125 – 130
203
Ibid p 130
204

40

and writings, should make the secular art of McCahon and Sutton easier to interpret to

Christians viewers.

A secular response to a resurgence of church commissioned art in the 1950s and

60s was the exhibition of religious work, the Christian art show at the New Vision

Gallery, Auckland in 1967.205 This was a group show, which contained work by

McCahon amongst others, which was of religious art and not just images of Christ.

Christian art did show the moving of images of Christ from exclusively sacred

environments of churches to the secular marketplace of gallery walls was continuing

despite the resurgence of art in churches. The upsurge, after a lull in church

commissioning, was due to such things as the Second Vatican Council opening the

Catholic faith to a wider world, and the ecumenical movement within Protestant

churches world wide endeavouring to renew faith in Christ as a unifier amongst the

denominations.206 This was a spur to artistic production, as well as to religious writing

and mission.207 Other factors in post World War Two era New Zealand to this

heightened production of Christian art were that it was both a time of memorial

creation and of economic boom in much of New Zealand. Also trade restrictions in

the 1960s and 70s virtually halted the importing of English and European made

stained glass. 208 This led to local work being designed and produced in all media by

New Zealanders for New Zealand ecclesiastical and secular markets.

205
Ibid pp 105 - 106
206
Ibid p 103
207
208
Press, 1998) p 37

41

An almost Asian looking Christ dates from this period, Christ Seated in

Majesty.209 (fig13) This image shows some of the crossing of English and European to

New Zealand control of images of Christ in the mid to late 1900s. Ciaran writes of

how this image was produced by the Miller Studios, Dunedin. As part of Presbyterian

Otago, Dunedin based artisans met resistance in Anglican Canterbury Even more than

this denominational suspicion, the idea of New Zealanders designing the image of

Christ was still resisted. Miller’s solved this by having the work designed by an

English artist, Kenneth Bunton.210 This meant the image still had the “traditional”

legitimacy of being designed in the “home country”, but was made in New Zealand. A

1958 window, made in England has a similar almost Asian looking Christ as Good

Shepherd with a Pioneer Family. (fig14)211 The striking feature of this window is it is

one of the first church windows to “show New Zealand symbolism overtly.”212 It is

more of an ‘add – on’ than McCahon’s completely New Zealand sited Jesus, but

shows the trend of its times. This window and its imagery come from Canterbury’s

centenary of settlement, and the rise in prosperity at the time.213 Ciaran notes,

illustrated by a 1957 Ascension window, that “(a)fter World War Two, British stained

glass studios either tried or were requested to use more New Zealand symbolism.”,

with mostly accurate depictions resulting of New Zealand flora, fauna appearing in

stained glass windows for the first time.(fig15)214 This shows that images of Christ

began to be linked to things New Zealand in ecclesiastical art around the same time as

McCahon was doing this in the more secular fine arts world.

209
Ibid p 49
210
Ibid pp 49 - 50
211
Ibid pp 8 - 9
212
Press, 1998 p 8
213
Ibid p 8
214
Press, 1998) p 81

42

Bett writes of McCahon, and a group of artists who followed him in expressing

the “spirit … of an era”,215 the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Amongst artists she lists are

Jeffrey Harris, Nigel Brown, Philip Clairmont, and Tony Fomison.216 All of whom

have depicted Jesus Christ in New Zealand contexts, and as Bett puts it: “(all) have a

moralistic, aggressive view of life and seek the spiritual uplifting of society through

their art.”217 This Modernist, humanist type sentiment of the individual seeking the

ultimate can be seen in their work. Fomison and McCahon both had a prophet like

personal appearance and message in their work. Both artists and their near

contemporary the poet James K. Baxter who wrote of a Christ centred in New

Zealand218 shared not only an interest in spiritualty, (Catholicism in the case of

McCahon and Baxter) but lives affected by alcoholism and drug addiction. These all

add to the mystique of the outsider, the lone prophetic artist. Like McCahon it is hard

to say how much of these later artists work is driven by veneration of Christ, a quest

orientation to life, and / or just using a symbol that has power and is common in

Western visual culture, or if it is a mixture of both. After his death, McCahon’s

mantle falls on Fomison Bett says. Bett says that Fomison:

“has followed an uniquely individual and solitary way …in his monochromatic handling of a low-key

palette and depiction of the human figure. ... (he is) speaking a new and prophetic tongue. …Whearas

McCahon offers hope, however, Fomison is existential…. (with an) eschatology (that is) of New

219
Zealand”.

215
Elva Bett, “The expression of an era” chpt 9 New Zealand Art, A Modern Perspective (Auckland:
Reed Methuen, 1986) pp 94 – 102
216
Ibid pp 94 – 102
217
Ibid pp 95 -96
218
James K. Baxter “The Body and Blood of Christ” The Flowering Cross (Dunedin: The New Zealand
Tablet Company Ltd, 1969) pp 175 – 182
219
Reed Methuen, 1986) pp 96 - 97

43

Even though Fomison’s figures are set in New Zealand landscapes, his Christ

figures are mostly renditions of European master works, or quirky self portraits.220

Study of head of Christ by Morales, 1969 (fig16) resembles the Christ of Lindauer’s

Crown of Thorns. Another, (Untitled) Study of Holbein’s ‘Dead Christ” (fig17)is an

image Fomison painted more than once in the early 1970s.221 It is almost a return to

the dead Christ of such earlier images like The Pieta in the church of The Holy

Passion in Amberley, or the traditional, near dead figure of the crucifix image. It harks

back to a worship of the Christ who has died for humanity, a move away from the

sentimental Christ of The Light of the World, and even McCahon’s minimally detailed

Christs, like Crucifixion – the apple branch, where Christ, although central, is

similarly rendered to and less aloof from the human participants. Brunt says McCahon

clearly said Jesus was the answer to the problems of human life, whereas Fomison

sought a wider answer of which Jesus was just part.222

Fomison’s monochromatic Christs in New Zealand do have an eschatological,

end of times feel.223 Brunt says New Zealand of the 1970s was a nation with a

“liminal” kind of culture.224 A nation, like a shrine or image, 225 can be seen as being a

220
Ian Wedde (ed) “Tracing Tony Fomison” What shall we tell them? (Wellington: Wellington City
Gallery, 1994) pp 25, 28
221
Ibid p 28
222
Peter Brunt “Framing Identity” (in) Ian Wedde (ed) “Tracing Tony Fomison” What shall we tell
them? (Wellington: Wellington City Gallery, 1994) p 65
223
Reed Methuen, 1986) pp 96 - 97
224
Peter Brunt “Framing Identity” (in) Ian Wedde (ed) “Tracing Tony Fomison” What shall we tell
them? (Wellington: Wellington City Gallery, 1994) p 65
225

44

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