This painting offers us a collection of images, some puzzling and some everyday, mundane: the half-dressed office worker on the cross and a neat washing line of his clothes and belongings, the row of coffins, the women pushing prams with no insides and no babies, the hand-standing child and the groups of onlookers. But is it more than that? Is there a connection between the images? Need we search for meaning, understanding? Are we being asked to conclude something, to make a decision as to meaning or is the intention that we should we be left swirling in a maelstrom of puzzlement? The latter is the preferred option but this should not preclude some analysis.
What can be said with certainty is that this is a carefully crafted composition in which the crucifixion is the focal image. Let us assume that the artist wants us to start our journey there. We start, then, with a travesty of the Crucifixion. What is puzzling is that although this is the focal image in the painting, it does not help us to understand what we are looking at overall. A trick is being played on us; the artist is using his skill to seduce our vision but also, through the juxtaposition of his images, to frustrate understanding.
Artist: AS Craig
Dimensions: 60 x 50 cm
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1974
Analysis: David Craig, artist’s son
AS Craig 