Many thanks to all - especially to Josef. Message off-line follows!
I did have a copy of Legg on inter-library loan and hung on to it as long
as I could but had to send it back. I checked a friend's copy of Dickinson
and found the Isaiah 53 reading for the Wednesday of Holy Week and Isaiah
50 for the Monday - which really fits my argument rather well. We have in
Wales very few depictions of the incidents surrounding the Crucifixion.
There is a very effective wall painting of Christ being abused and spat on
by two grotesque thugs from Llandeilo Talybont, a Flagellation on the
pulpit at Newton Nottage and a series of depictions of the sessio or Bound
Christ. John Morgan-Guy and I have been working on these in parallel. He
emphasises the links between visual and literary sources and argues that
both are inspired by the Isaiah 53 readings. But in both the spitting and
the Flagellation Christ is calm, sorrowful but not anguished - and far from
being blindfolded (as in the only surviving Welsh mystery play) he gazes
directly at the viewer. This looks to me less like the third-person
description in Isaiah 53 and more like the first-person address in Isaiah
50. Any thoughts?
(This list features largely in the references for the book I'm trying to
finish on Welsh iconography - and I shall have to say something in the
preface as well. It has been a constant source of inspiration and
references - and what is truly remarkable is the way that things so often
crop up the week before I need them! Thank you all very much)
Maddy
Dr Madeleine Gray
Department of Humanities and Science
UWCN
'Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought'
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