I have been fortunate recently to be invited to show my work in a local church.* This arrangement has continued very successfully for several months now. About every month I hang a different picture, and alongside a brief commentary which its intended too help viewers who are not familiar with art to make sense of it. This has worked quite well, and I have had some interested comment. The current display, however, has produced a startling response.
The picture currently on display is my Dottore della peste.** It is based upon William Holman Hunt’s Light of the World, and I consider it to be a serious critical response to his work, which I feel is theologically week and sentimental. It is, I admit, a rather startling image, and my wife was cautious about my decision to hang it in that context. It was surprising this morning, in conversation with the minister, when I told me that at one point during the week, when an event for children had been held in that area, he had decided to remove my picture temporarily. He thought that it might frighten the children.
I was really rather startled by this, and in discussion he did admit that he had relented subsequently, and returned it to its original location for the rest of the week. People do seem often to have a strange view of children and what they will find disturbing. I mentioned to him a range of images to which we might expect children will have been exposed, without concern. What about Cruella de Ville, the thought of Grandma being eaten by a wolf, or the Daleks? We didn’t get round to thinking about the possible significance of crucifixion! As far as my limited acquaintance goes, I reckon that any video game these days is likely to offer more scary images than my picture.
What odd ideas people have about children … and about art!
*This is in the area for general socialising, rather than in the worship area.
**You can see this elsewhere in this website, in one of my “galleries” entitled “Faith in the imagination”.