Shaivism's Nataraja and Picasso's Crucifixion

JON PAUL SYDNOR

SHAIVISM’S NATARAJA AND PICASSO’S CRUCIFIXION

An Essay in Comparative Visual Theology

Introduction This essay is highly experimental in nature. It will explore the possibility of comparative visual theology or the potential enrichment that art criticism across religious boundaries might offer. We often look at works of art from our own tradition and we occasionally look at works of art from other traditions. But what would happen if we were to study purposefully, self-consciously, and reflectively works of art from different traditions together? Is it possible that such study might unlock presence within the compared works which would otherwise remain hidden? Is it possible that contrast might increase the being of each contrasted work?

Often in interreligious dialogue or comparative theology perspectives, convic- tions, dispositions and assumptions which had lain dormant in the home tradition suddenly leap to consciousness when stimulated by their foil within the foreign tradition. Or, to put it more technically, the other tradition’s analogous doctrines, or even the absence thereof, disturb the dogmatic slumber of our own beliefs. In so doing, they bring our religion to life in its fullness, raising into the light aspects of our faith which had previously remained unnoticed, unexamined and unap- preciated. By accident or design, and I believe by design, the road to self-knowledge leads through other-knowledge. Conversely, for the other, the road to self- knowledge leads through us. If we are to know, then for reasons beyond our understanding we are compelled to know in community which is characterized by difference. Consciousness needs plurality. And ultimately plurality needs pluralism. This study will be offer a brief exploration into visual pluralism.

In this particular essay, we will compare, contrast and reflect upon two works: the famous Nataraja of Shaivite devotionalism and Pablo Picasso’s Crucifixion of 1930. They are very different works from very different traditions, composed in different times and places for different purposes using different artistic forms. They are in every aspect different; each is other to the other, artistically, theo- logically and historically. It is hoped that this difference and otherness will prove fruitful and not desultory to our endeavor. If consciousness is in fact reliant on

86 SHAIVISM’S NATARAJA AND PICASSO’S CRUCIFIXION difference and otherness, then by the end of this essay we should know more than we did at the beginning.1

It is important to note that in this experiment, at least for those relatively new to Nataraja and Picasso’s Crucifixion, there will be three moments of hermeneutical consciousness. The first moment will be pre-critical: the two works as interpreted prior to encounter with their critical analyses. The second moment will be dis- cretely post-critical: the two works as interpreted after encounter with their critical analyses. The third moment will be comparatively post-critical: the two works as interpreted after their comparison with one another and their respective analyses. It is the premise of this essay that understanding will increase with each step in the hermeneutical process—that discrete criticism deepens understanding but that comparative criticism more profoundly deepens understanding.

And so the experiment proceeds. Hopefully, this essay will generate some empirical data regarding the promise of comparative visual theology. And more hopefully, it will inform us a little more deeply about both Christianity and Hinduism, in and through and with the other.

At this point in the essay, I would like to invite you to consider Nataraja prior to the encounter of any criticism of that work. Please take your time. This reflection will provide content regarding the pre-critical encounter with this work of art.

Seeing Nataraja: Visual Exegesis by Heinrich Zimmer Heinrich Zimmer was one of the foremost Indologists of the twentieth century. Noted for his lucid prose and sympathetic (perhaps empathetic) commitment to Indian philosophy and religion, Zimmer’s works combine academic mastery with poetic accessibility. Prior to his premature death by pneumonia in 1943, Zimmer taught a lecture course on Indian Art at Columbia University. It is from this lecture course—his writings, his students’ notes, published articles in the field —that the book Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization was collated by Joseph Campbell. In that book Zimmer specifically addresses the famous statue of Na- taraja (Zimmer 1946: 151-75).2

1 It may be objected that Picasso’s Crucifixion is not a work of explicit Christian devotion and therefore is not a legitimate conversation partner for Nataraja. Picasso (see O’ Brian 1994: 286) would disagree: “What do they mean by religious art? It’s an absurdity. How can you make religious art one day and another kind the next?” 2 This section of the paper is fundamentally a precis of Zimmer’s visual exegesis of the Nataraja statue. It is entirely derivative of his own work and intermixes direct quo- tation, paraphrase, and summary of his thought.

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Nataraja is, first and foremost, a statue of a dancer. According to Zimmer, within Indian civilization dancing is a form of magic in which the enchantment one wish- es to grant others is first granted to oneself through dance as well as through pray- er, fasting, and meditation. Pantomimic dance is intended to transmute the dancer into whatever demon, god, or earthly existence he impersonates. In this way, then, the dance is an act of creation beyond creation. Such is depicted in the statue Na- taraja. Shiva, as the Cosmic Dancer, appears before us in his Dancing Mani- festation as Nataraja. The forces gathered and projected in his frantic, ever-endur- ing gyration are the powers of the evolution, maintenance, and dissolution of the world. Nature and all its creatures, and the experience thereof, are the effects of his eternal dance. At this point in the essay we will address aspects of the statue individually.

The upper right hand of Shiva-Nataraja carries a little drum, shaped like an hour- glass, for the beating of a rhythm. The drum symbolizes Sound itself, which is the power of creation as well as the conveyer of revelation, tradition, incantation, magic, and divine truth. Sound is associated with Ether, which is the first of the five elements, and the source of Air, Fire, Water, and Earth. Sound and Ether, and therefore the drum, signify the first, truth-pregnant moment of creation, the pro- ductive energy of the Absolute, in its pristine, cosmogenetic strength.

The upper left hand bears on its palm a tongue of flame. While Ether is the element of creation, Fire is the element of destruction which will consume all of creation at the close of the Kali Yuga. In the balance between the upper right hand and the upper left hand we find a ruthless counterpoise of creation and destruction united in one cosmic dance. The field of this terrible interplay is the Dancing Ground of the Universe Himself, Shiva, brilliant and horrific in his dance as Nataraja.

The second right hand displays the “fear not” gesture, an oasis of peace between the dynamism and kinesis of the Drum of Creation and Fire of Destruction. Even within humanity’s own precarious position after creation and before destruction, we are to find solace in the grace of the Dancer who both creates and destroys.

The lower left hand, drawn across the chest, points downward to the uplifted left foot. It is imitative of the elephant trunk of Ganesh, Shiva’s son, the Remover of Obstacles. The obstacles which Ganesh removes are those blocking Release, sig- nified by the lifted left foot, which lifts gracefully from the ground as the devotee is lifted graciously out of karma.

The right foot rests on the demon Apasmara Purusha: “The Man or Demon called Forgetfulness, or Heedlessness.” It is through conquest of the demon of heedlessness that human ignorance and blindness are overcome and release is received.

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The ring of flames around Nataraja offers several different allegorical inter- pretations. One, it is taken to symbolize the vital processes of the universe, the in- ner energy which animates all of creation. Two, it is said to symbolize the transcendent light of the knowledge of truth emitted by Shiva. Three, it is taken to symbolize the holy syllable AUM which is understood to unify all of creation within its evocation. “A” represents the state of waking consciousness and material existence; “U” represents the state of dreaming consciousness; “M” is the state of dreamless sleep, the natural condition of quiescent, undifferentiated consciousness, wherein every experience is dissolved into a blissful non-experience, a mass of potential consciousness. The Silence following the pronunciation of the three reflects the union of perfected supra-consciousness with the pure essence of Divine Reality, or Atman merging with Brahman. AUM (Silence) is therefore a sound-symbol of the whole of consciousness-existence, and at the same time its willing affirmation.

Amidst the turbulence of creation and destruction, of the defeat of heedlessness, in the midst of a dance which sends his hair flying wildly outward in irresistible centrifugal force, the face of Shiva remains in a state of expressionless serenity, immune to the whirl of activity about him. The duality of creation and destruction, of ignorance and knowledge, of Atman and Brahman, are resolved in his supremely non-dual countenance, manifesting perfect divine bliss. The fury of Il- lusion and the bliss of the Absolute are united in one trans-dual form.

As noted above, Shiva’s hair flies out in the wild centrifugal force of the divine dance. Shiva’s tresses are matted and long, reflecting supra-normal life-energy culminating in the power of magic. A variety of symbolic figures may be found in the hair, including 1) a diminutive figure of the goddess Ganges, whom he received on his head when she descended from heaven to earth, 2) flowers of the da- tura, from which an intoxicating drink is prepared, 3) a skull, symbolic of death, 4) a crescent moon or “quickly growing one,” symbolic of a newborn babe. Again, in the contrast between the moon-babe and skull, we find the tension between the vitality of life and the inevitability of death, both juxtaposed next to Shiva’s serene face, embracing both within his unitary and unitive nature. In his wild and serene dance Shiva unites two opposites within his own being, both Total Tranquility and Total Activity.

Four of the nine “moods” or “flavors” (rasa) of the Hindu system of rhetoric— four at least—are blended in this representation. They are the heroic (vira), the wild (raudra), the charming (sringara), and the loathsome (bibhatsa), for Shiva contains and enacts all possible aspects of life, and his dance is a marvelous blending of opposites. The dance, like life itself, is a mixture of the terrific and the auspicious, a juxtaposition and unification of destruction, death, and vital triumph, the volcanic bursting forth of the lavas of life. Here is a blending familiar to the

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Hindu mind, documented everywhere in Hindu art. It is understood as expressive of the Divine, who in his totality comprises all the goods and evils, beauties and horrors, joys and agonies, of our phenomenal life.

At this point in the essay, I would like to invite the reader to reflect on the discrete, post-critical experience of Nataraja and then consider Picasso’s Crucifixion prior to the encounter of any criticism of that work. One should do so slowly. This reflection will provide content regarding the pre-critical encounter with this work of art.

Seeing Picasso’s Crucifixion: Visual Exegesis by Ruth Kaufmann Noted art critic Ruth Kaufmann (1992:74-83) has deeply (and controversially) analyzed Picasso’s 1930 Crucifixion and finds in it an expression of primal sen- timents and urges long repressed by domesticated Christianity. The Crucifixion is characterized by a violent distortion of figures, blazing intensity of colors and sprawling juxtaposition of forms, all compressed into a painting only twenty by twenty-six inches.3 Although certain art critics such as Roland Penrose have al- leged that the painting has little to do with traditional religious attitudes (1982: 256-61), several figures are easily recognizable: Christ himself, the figure on the ladder driving a nail into his hand, the mounted soldier stabbing Christ, and the two soldiers casting dice for his cloak. Other figures and perhaps the work itself are less traditionally accessible, perhaps due to Picasso’s association with (but not full membership within) the Surrealist circle in Paris before and during the time of composition. The Surrealists utilized distortions in order to amplify images, distortions which Picasso expressed through Cubism and later supplemented through psychological and emotional hyperbole. Together, these distortions attempted to convey a primal irrationalism which other artists of the period explored through visual themes related to dream analysis, world mythology, primitive religiosity, and preliterate symbolism. In returning to the primal, the Surrealists (and with them Picasso) sought to resurrect those vital energies which humankind had sacrificed to Christian morality and Cartesian rationalism.

Picasso is not generally considered a Surrealist but a Realist due to his preference for real-world objects and events for depiction, rather than dreams, myths, and symbols. In the 1930 Crucifixion we see both the irrationalism and primalism of the Surrealists fused with the objectivity of a historical event portrayed in all the brutality of primitive religious ritual. The primitivism is emphasized through the use of a Cycladic Christ-figure, emphasizing primaeval Greek religiosity over the

3 This section of the essay is entirely derivative of Kaufmann’s work and contains quotations, paraphrases, and summaries of her criticism.

90 SHAIVISM’S NATARAJA AND PICASSO’S CRUCIFIXION reasoned accessibility of Picasso’s earlier, Romanesque Christ-figures.4 Deep- ening the archaism is the sun-moon combination to the right of Christ, the sun adorned with a conical cap. This adornment is suggestive of the Roman martial religion of Mithras, which employed a bull sacrifice as its central religious ritual. As such, we may tentatively infer that Picasso is treating the crucifixion as a primitive sacrifice as well, a sacrifice not entirely unrelated to the ritualistic slaughter of the bullfight in Picasso’s own Spain. The third figure, to the right of the sun- moon, also in hieratic frontal symmetry, completes the archaism with its own resemblance to the most primitive cult figures.

In depictions of the crucifixion by other artists, sympathetic onlookers bask in a pristine, thematized grief which restrains its expression in order to maintain focus on the Christ-figure. In Picasso’s Crucifixion, sympathetic onlookers are demonic- ally possessed by the shattering horror of Jesus’ death. The central female figure (Mary, mother of Jesus?), superimposed on the cross itself, cocks her head backward, mouth open and teeth bared as if grief itself were flowing out of her body and into the dark sky above. Magdalene appears to the right, in blue, arms raised and head distorted into a praying mantis-like apparition. The praying mantis is the animal which, having satisfied herself sexually with her mate, then consumes it for nourishment. Through the injection of this image into the painting, and the demotion of Magdalene to the status of brutal insect existence, the painting is both eroticized and further brutalized.

At the same time, the two soldiers casting lots for Jesus’ clothing are dehumanized through their bird-like heads. The larger figure to the left, who stands and watches with the authority of a Roman officer, has added to his human legs and torso the ravenous, savage head of a monster. Two humanoid figures, the nail-driver and centurion, also serve the painting in its overflowing brutality. The nail-driver is actively pounding the spike deeper into Jesus’ hand on the cross, while the centurion actively pierces Christ’s abdomen. The centurion also resembles a Spanish picador, reminding us again of the Mithraic sacrifice of the bullfight so common in Spain. Finally, at the foot of the cross lie the two thieves, already dead and broken, their disjointed bodies splayed out on the unyielding background of the painting.

Perhaps the most problematic object in the painting is the one three-dimensional object, the blue sphere in the upper left hand corner. Some critics speculate that it is the sponge on which the centurions gave Christ sour wine. Others speculate that it is lifted from the eleventh-century Apocalypse of Saint Sever, which depicts

4 Cycladic art is here defined as primal religious art of the Cycladic Islands, Greece.

91 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 15 (2005) 1 a stone which detaches itself from a mountain, strikes an idol of precious metals, then becomes the mountain itself. Similarly, perhaps, this seemingly inconsequen- tial crucifixion rolled on to become the behemoth which we now call Christianity.

We should now reflect on the discrete post-critical experience of Picasso’s Crucifixion, without making any comparison to Nataraja. At the risk of sounding monotonous, again we should do slowly. Next, we will consider the two works of art in their post-critical, post-comparative manifestation.

Comparative Visual Theology Before we begin, it is important to note that we have just read discourse about the non-discursive, or speech about vision. This obvious and yet sometimes unnoticed fact regarding art criticism must be briefly addressed. Some theorists, such as Lyotard, believe discourse about the non-discursive to be an unnecessary corrup- tion of art into language. Translation from one mode of artistic being into another mode of artistic being is, for Lyotard, heresy. Criticism can, at times, displace the object which generated it, substituting its being-in-language for the being-in- vision of the work. Such substitution perverts the original object into that which it is not and was never intended to be: speech. And it perverts the criticism into that which it is not and was never intended to be: a primary object of contempla- tion (Lyotard 1984).

This essay will proceed with full caution regarding discourse about the non- discursive. This essay will consider criticism to be a secondary product derivative of the first order artistic production. At the same time, this essay sees value in art criticism. Vision can be amplified through speech about that vision; discourse about the non-discursive can reveal the fuller being of the non-discursive. The original sight of, for example, a statue is often thin, dissipated and unmemorable if that statue is poorly understood or unskillfully seen. Discussion about the statue can increase appreciation, deepen understanding, improve apprehension, and bring to consciousness aspects of the work which were previously hidden. The presence of the statue is often better discerned after speech, especially for the no- vitiate of statuary (Gadamer 2000: 383-405).5

Such an understanding does not hegemonize or prioritize speech over vision, although it admits that, at times, vision is improved through speech. Nevertheless, vision can provide the same service to language. All our discussion about the crucifixion is in fact amplified by Picasso’s Crucifixion. If we theologize regarding the crucifixion and then contemplate an artistic product of the crucifixion, then

5 According to Gadamer, language is the universal medium in which understanding occurs, as language is the concretion of historically effected consciousness.

92 SHAIVISM’S NATARAJA AND PICASSO’S CRUCIFIXION we will return to our language-based theologizing with new depth and awareness than were previously experienced. Art can reveal to us the profundity and majesty of those subjects which are often concealed under a patina of discourse. Where accumulated language often occludes, art can cleanse the doors of our perception, allowing us to see at last through a looking glass clearly, perceiving the thing discussed in its true luminescence. Thus, in this essay vision and speech are not hegemonized or prioritized one over the other but instead exist in complementary relation, each reliant on the other for its own fullness of being. Hopefully, such interdependence will characterize our own discussion of Nataraja and the Cruci- fixion.

The two works, one a graceful dance of the divine within and beyond time, the other the violent execution by torture of a first-century Jewish prophet, offer material for reflection on beauty, ugliness, and art. Too often, art is assumed to be inextricably associated with beauty (cf. Plato. Phaedo, section 76). If so, then it would be hard to conceptualize Picasso’s Crucifixion as art. It is repulsive: a spike is being hammered into Christ’s hand, a spear is being thrust into his side, monsters look on in grief or disdain, Magdalene is distorted into a cannibalistic praying mantis, and corpses lie piled in heaps at the bottom of the painting. Pi- casso’s work is supremely, superbly ugly. The violence depicted is a subject one should not wish to see and yet one which humans have sought out for millennia: wide-eyed spectators have faithfully flocked to executions, hangings, gladiatorial contests, lynchings, accidents, fires, etc. Were executions televised today, we can assume that many would watch and others would profit from the event.

Humans are attracted to violence. They find it enticing and exotic. They may even find it erotic, as Picasso perhaps asserts through his depiction of Magdalene. Pi- casso emphasizes the human attraction to and repulsion by violence through his choice of subject matter, and he deepens the point by primitivizing the occurrence. It is not only beauty which attracts, he seems to tell us. Barbarity attracts as well, even as it repulses. Or, to state the matter most ironically: repulsiveness attracts. Be it repulsive or attractive or both, Picasso’s Crucifixion is art, and art of the most powerful and disturbing kind.

Nataraja also manifests elements of the repulsive/attractive nature of art. Shiva is beautiful yet unkempt; his graceful figure is adorned by the matted locks of the ascetic yogi. His dance is sublime but he is clothed in writhing cobras, each of which manifests power, grace, and beauty while threatening death. His hand tells us to “fear not” while his head is wrapped in a garland of skulls. Multiple arms grant him an inhuman quality while his face assures us of his benevolence. His right foot rests violently on a defeated opponent while his left foot lifts into the air, promising release to all creation. The fire of destruction burns in his left upper hand while all of being radiates from him. Both the original sculptor of Nataraja

93 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 15 (2005) 1 and Picasso seem to agree that pure beauty is not supreme beauty, that beauty is more beautiful when it is entwined with the repulsive. Both seek to jar perceivers from their desire for that tepid, unthreatening beauty of bourgeois drawing rooms, replacing that narcotic desire with a thirst for a truly vital art, for that incompre- hensible synthesis of attraction and repulsion which renders art supremely powerful.

Each work offers a distinctive understanding of time. In gazing upon Nataraja, all of eternity is revealed hovering over and promising release from the turbulent storm of time. The drum of creation stretches through the eons to the fire of destruction as brackets enclosing the ceaseless motion of human existence. So while all of time is seen from beginning to end, everlasting, concurrently all of eternity is seen in, around, and behind it, hospitably awaiting the devotee’s entry into the bliss of gracious Shiva. Nataraja is characterized by radical simultaneity, encom- passing both time everlasting and eternity within one moment of one unending dance. Time is, but it is small and cocooned within Shiva’s creative power, wait- ing to burst forth into the transcendent peace of nirvana.

Picasso’s Crucifixion is also characterized by simultaneity, but of a very different, temporal sort. In the painting sequential events are depicted simultaneously. Temporally, nails were driven into Christ’s hands, then the soldiers gambled for his clothes, then the centurion pierced his side. But in Picasso’s painting, all three happen at once. This is not, however, the intrusion of eternity into time. It is rather the accumulation of distinct temporal events into one artistic moment in order to heighten the primitive horror of a certain sequence of events. In other words, Pi- casso unites related temporal events into one painting not in order to suggest the elasticity or illusory nature of time but to compound the tragedy of a very temporal and sequential occurrence. Time, in the Crucifixion, can be horrifying, and there is no escape from it into the safety of nirvana. We find here not the reas- suring “fear not” gesture of Shiva’s lower right hand or the transcendent serenity of his calm countenance. Instead, we find the central female with her head cocked backward, teeth bared, shrieking the curse of the grieved against implacable time itself. Shiva’s serenity becomes Mary’s (?) anguish, and Mary’s anguish has nowhere to go but upward, into seeming nothingness.

Time also affects our cognitive response to both works. Nataraja is composed of so many different aspects, symbols, intentions and tensions that it overflows the cognitive capacity of the percipient. We are able to meditate on Shiva at one time, but we are not able to comprehend creation and destruction, heedlessness and release, activity and tranquility in one moment. The import of Nataraja floods our consciousness beyond its ability to comprehend and we are left with a unitary visual impression that stimulates fragmentary intellectual reflection. Nataraja, one in graceful dance, shatters our cognition into the component parts of the statue.

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We are brutally reminded, in one piece of statuary, that God may be apprehended, but never comprehended. We are reminded that while ours might be to see, ours is never to understand. In viewing Nataraja, the best seeing is the most humble seeing.

Theoretically, the crucifixion should be more cognitively comprehensible. It is, after all, a moment in time. Even the combination of several moments into one si- multaneous event, as the driving of the nails, casting of lots, and piercing of the side are in the Crucifixion, can be grasped by the mind in a unitary compre- hension. Still, the Crucifixion floods cognition perhaps as overwhelmingly as Nataraja. The intensity of the colors, the disorienting unrecognizability of several of the figures, the monstrous appearance of others, the distorted sizes and shapes, and the horror of the subject itself all combine to generate an effect which the mind receives but cannot hold, which consciousness perceives but cannot process, which the spirit apprehends but can not comprehend. There is too much occurring in Picasso’s Crucifixion for the work to be experienced in its fullness in one unitary moment of consciousness. It is a moral, religious, and artistic deluge.

Such was the artist’s intention, we can infer. Picasso had studied other Crucifixion scenes, and had done a series of studies of the Isenheim altarpiece by Grunewald, a startlingly dark and horrifying work. But the horror of Grunewald’s Crucifixion is a unitary horror: the painting is not only apprehensible but comprehensible, the unholy misery of the event being conveyed through realism rather than surrealism, through accuracy of depiction (complemented by anachronistic symbolic im- agery), rather than a starkly impressionistic rendering.

In his own Crucifixion Picasso rejects this comprehensibility. Instead, he reaches into the depth of the event itself, attempting to extract from it the fullness of its criminality, despair, and dread through his early-twentieth century innovation called Cubism. Nor did he depict the crucifixion in traditional theological themes, themes which have domesticated the incident and reduced it to one element of a systematic, theological totality. Instead, Picasso seeks to resurrect the lost power of the crucifixion through its merger with primal irrationalism. Christ’s death on the cross is no longer an occurrence to be understood but an occurrence to defy understanding. It is an uncontrollable brutality, not a contributing aspect of a totality. It is to be experienced with primitive horror, not sublimated, theologized wonder and appreciation.

This last comment brings out another contrast between the Crucifixion and Natar- aja. Nataraja is almost a systematic theology in itself, yet expressed synchron- ically rather than diachronically, through one solitary statue. It is the synchronic depiction which grants the statue its supra-cognitive power. Creation and destruction, good and evil, activity and tranquility, matter and spirit, time and eternity,

95 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 15 (2005) 1 threat and assurance are all captured in Dancing Shiva. Any fundamental aspect of life which we contemplate in the work is complemented by its opposite, and all are resolved in the serene, trans-dual expression of the God who unites all opposites. All that humans need to know religiously is captured in Nataraja. The path to salvation is there, as well as the help along that path. And all the statue asks is recognition of our own heedlessness, and the beseeching of Shiva to conquer that demon for us, as Shiva has done through all time. In Nataraja we find both the analysis of the problem and the promise of a solution, and both are found in the supreme, sublime God Shiva.

Traditionally, the crucifixion is also understood as one doctrine among many Christian doctrines. The crucifixion could only occur through the incarnation and it is only understood in conjunction with the resurrection and ascension of Christ, and his promise of eventual return. So even the horror of Grunewald’s Crucifixion is mitigated by its theologization: John the Baptist stands anachronistically to the side, reminding us that Christ is the promised Messiah. And a lamb with a cross stands elegantly pristine amidst the darkness, reminding us that this is no ordinary crucifixion but the sacrifice of the Lamb of God which brings about the re- demption of the cosmos and life everlasting for all believers. Even at Isenheim the horror of Christ’s death on the cross may not be such a bad thing in the end.

Picasso eschews this theological sublimation of the crucifixion. For him, the crucifixion is an unmitigated tragedy. It is not one part of a story that begins with incarnation and triumphs with resurrection; Picasso’s Crucifixion begins with the crucifixion and ends with the crucifixion and is bracketed from any thought, vision, or doctrine which might ameliorate the primitive cruelty of the episode. The crucifixion is not a sign or a symbol pointing to something else; it is the bloody and violent staking of a human being to a tree by means of spikes pounded through his flesh. It is nothing more nor less, because it need not be anything more nor less. To reduce it to something safe and useful is to deny its horror and flee from its reality. To sublimate it is to pervert it.

So Nataraja and the Crucifixion derive their power from opposite sources; Natar- aja insists that the work be contemplated in its overflowing, overwhelming totality in order for its grandeur to be apprehended but never comprehended. The Crucifixion denies reference to any surrounding totality in order to resurrect the primitive, brutal power of the original event. Nataraja derives its power from reaching out to comprehend all being and reality; the Crucifixion derives its power from turning inward upon the ferocity to avoid the dilution of its horror achieved by the Christian tradition. And both pieces emerge with their own peculiar power and being, revealing aspects of the divine otherwise hidden from our mundane, domesticated eyes.

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At this point in the essay, the reader should consider the two works of art in their post-critical, post-comparative manifestations. Those manifestations may now be compared with the discrete, pre-critical manifestation, and the discrete, post- critical manifestation. These three stages of our hermeneutical consciousness— discrete and pre-critical, discrete and post-critical, and comparative and post- critical—will provide the grist for the following observations.

Reflection on the Reflection It is hoped that the commentary in this essay, both that of the professional critics and the resulting comparative reflections, will have increased appreciation of the two studied works, Picasso’s Crucifixion and the Shaivite Nataraja. For millennia human beings have discussed works of art in order to perceive them better. Gen- erally, such discussion has been specific to a single work of art. Occasionally, several will be compared, and will serve as foils to one another. Rarely have works of art been compared across religious boundaries.

The question is therefore raised: Is art criticism across religious boundaries helpful? Or, might comparative visual theology be a legitimate academic discipline? At this point in the essay we at least have some rudimentary empirical evidence to begin to make that judgment. We have three possible experiences of the works of art: each as experienced prior to critical reflection; each as experienced after discrete critical reflection; and each as experienced after comparative critical reflection. Perhaps our determinative question then is: Are the Shaivite Nataraja and Picasso’s Crucifixion any better understood after comparative critical reflection than they were after solitary critical reflection? If they are better understood, if some aspect of each was brought out that could not have been as thoroughly elucidated in isolation, then comparative visual theology is a legitimate endeavor. If neither art work is any better understood than it could have been after isolated critical reflection, then comparative visual theology is not a legitimate endeavor.

It is this author’s personal conviction that the two art works are most deeply per- ceived after comparative critical reflection. A critic can elucidate aspects of a work such as the timed timelessness of Nataraja, bring them to the consciousness of the perceiver, and stimulate reflection. But this reflection is further deepened when the timed timelessness of Nataraja is compared and contrasted with the compressed, concentrated temporality of the Crucifixion and vice versa. In pointing out the two understandings of time and reflecting on each, we place each in the light of the other, a light which casts away the dark shadows of obviousness caused by solitary reflection.

To a Shaivite, for example, it might appear obvious that time is cocooned within eternity and that any material moment is accompanied by a divine offer of release. But this understanding, which can be heightened by reflection, is best heightened

97 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 15 (2005) 1 by comparative reflection with a foil. The extreme, inescapable, brutal temporality of the Crucifixion emphasizes that there is no flight from time, no way to squeeze out of its vise, nowhere to hide from its inexorable push into future time and, ultimately, death. While all of this could be pointed out in isolated reflection, it is best understood in relation to Nataraja’s eternity and promise of release. Like whirling double stars, the two perspectives generate energy in the presence of the other.

The practice of comparative visual theology also raises questions about the relationship of religion to language. Too often discussion about religion assumes that the means of discussion, language, is adequate to its subject. However, with Lyo- tard, we noted prior to our analysis of Nataraja and the Crucifixion that language in relation to art is precisely inadequate to its subject. Discourse about the non- discursive must always be seen as ancillary to its subject. As ancillary, such discourse must always deflect attention from itself and back to the object of con- templation. Art critical language becomes, therefore, not self-referential but other- referential. Unlike logic (which operates under its own laws) the language of art criticism operates not autonomously but heteronomously, always paying obei- sance to the artwork itself. It does not rule; it serves.

If art critical discourse is ancillary to its non-discursive object, then what is the relationship of language to religion? Before we can answer that question we must ask the further question: what is religion? This essay understands religion to be a non-essentialized genus under which the species of history, ritual, ethics, statuary, music, dance, painting, architecture, theology, scripture, poetry, myth, law, story, etc. reside. “Religion” is a category under which these different manifestations are gathered. Without the specific content of the manifestations there is no religion; the genus is empty without the species. Or, in other words, there is no “essence” of religion or of any one religion; there is only the cultural and historical expression. What would Christianity be without Christian texts, Christian rituals, Christian buildings, Christian art, Christian theology, Christian music, etc.? All religions are aggregates of their constituent parts devoid of any inde- pendent substance.

So there is no “religion” in its essence so much as the historical and cultural expression thereof. Thus, the relationship between religion and language will be determined by that aspect of religion which is under discussion. As noted above, language is necessarily ancillary in its relation to religious art, serving to illum- inate, clarify and quicken its subject without translating the subject into itself. The same relationship to language can safely be assumed for the other non-discursive manifestations of religion: ritual, ethics, statuary, music, dance, painting and architecture. In each, language must maintain an other-referential discipline in order to prevent self-inflation into a mistaken autonomy. In each, language must point

98 SHAIVISM’S NATARAJA AND PICASSO’S CRUCIFIXION away from itself and toward its subject in order to avoid accidental and distorting dominance.

But what is the relationship of language to the discursive aspects of religion: scripture, poetry, story, myth, law and theology? Here the linguistic nature of the subject may allow for more self-confidence on the part of language, especially in regard to those particularly rational manifestations of religion: law and theology. In those less rationalistic and more aesthetic aspects of scripture, story, and myth the previous cautions are still warranted, since poetry (for instance) cannot be assumed into the critical reflection upon it. Therefore, it would appear that there is no absolute relation between language and religion but only specific relationships between language and the particular aspect of religion being discussed. And that particular relationship will determine the operation and function of discourse with regard to its subject, in that particular instance.

This returns us to the subjects of our discussion, Picasso’s Crucifixion and Shaiv- ism’s Nataraja and the potential and promise of comparative visual theology. In this essay we have passed through three moments of artistic perception: the pre- critical, the post-critical, and the post-comparative. In each successive moment, in the opinion of this author, the depth and power of the two art works discussed has increased. If these preliminary observations are accurate and generally ac- cepted, if the two works are in fact best understood in relation to the other, then comparative visual theology may prove very helpful to the discipline of construc- tive theology, as well as art criticism and the general human understanding of being. If this conclusion is correct, then those who seek to interpret well must interpret in community with the other. To know deeply we must know broadly, diversely and plurally.

This observation in itself raises challenging questions. This essay has attempted to establish empirically that we know more in community with the other than we can through the most rigorous reflection solely upon the same. Yet this phenom- enological observation begs ontological explanation. Why does heterogeneity produce deeper awareness than homogeneity? Why can we know more through diversity than we can through uniformity? The answers to these questions lie beyond the scope of this investigation which seeks more to provide data for reflection than actual reflection. (Nevertheless, we may suggest that the inter- subjectivity of the Trinity may prove a fruitful avenue of exploration.) In the meantime, however, we are left with a renovated conviction of our need for the other and, humbly, of the other’s need for us. Perhaps in this recognition we will find both our greatest mystery and our greatest blessing.

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LITERATURE Gadamer, Hans-Georg. (2000). Truth and Method. New York: Continuum. Kaufmann. Ruth. (1992). “Picasso’s Crucifixion of 1930.” In: The Body on the Cross. Montreal: The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Pp. 74-83 Lyotard, Jean-Francois. (1984). The Post-Modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press. Plato. Phaedo. (1999). Transl. David Gallop. Oxford: Oxford University Press. O’Brian, Patrick (1994). Picasso: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. Penrose, Roland. (1982). Picasso: His Life and Work. Berkeley: University of California Press. Zimmer, Heinrich.(1946). “The Dance of Shiva.” In: Heinrich Zimmer, Myths and Sym- bols in Indian Art and Civilization. Joseph Campbell, ed. New York: Harper Torchbooks. Pp. 151-75.

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