Gilding Jesus

[akirlu]

I dreamt this morning that Victor Gonzalez and I were working on religious icons together. We were just replacing a larger-than-life Christ figure, cruciform but sans cross, after having refreshed its gold leafing. Victor was bearing Jesus up the nave like a cross. There was some discussion of whether we needed to hang Him up vertically, or if propping Him insouciantly akilter in a corner would do, since tomorrow morning would be Easter and it was important to get things looking just so. The "chapel" where we were putting Him was entirely outdoors, in the middle of grassy dunes above the ocean. The "altar" looked mostly like the back side of a weatherworn fishing shed, and both Jesus and the statue of Mary we had set off to the side earlier were crudely carved driftwood. But gilded, boy. Solid gold leaf over the rough, crumbly wood. The odd thing in all this was the seriousness I brought to "getting it right" for Easter. I've never had a Christian feeling about Easter in my life, not even the time I illicitly took Lutheran banana-bread-and-sherry-wine communion with my friend Alicia. (I believe one is traditionally supposed to be baptized and catechised before one takes communion.) So I'm damned if I know what it all means, but it was pretty unexpected, even for one of my dreams.

Comments

[lproven.livejournal.com]

I read that as "a weatherworn fisting shed" first time - don't know why, it's not a word I come across (oh dear) often - which casts it in a rather different light.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Well, that is one way to move it all from the merely bizarre to the truly frightening. Thanks for that.

[lproven.livejournal.com]

Glad to be of service!

[davidlevine]

Would you believe gilded chocolate Buddhas, Virgin Marys, Celtic crosses, and hamsa hands? (No pictures, alas.)

[maryread.livejournal.com]

Just a technical note: gilding over crumbly wood, bad, it will flake off with the wood and actually last much longer than the surface. Gilding over smooth dry wood, okay, and the gold layer will act as protective seal from dust moth rust & decay.

I like the great outdoors chapel by the sea. Going native? Otherwise I think this calls for much jungianism and Joseph Campbell style symbolic analysis. My take on it, in short, you're rolling your own. Hard to get that right. Best of luck.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yes, well. While I've never tried doing real gold-leafed hand illumination, for instance, I know enough about the theory that I wouldn't try gilding driftwood. That's why it was striking to me. In fact, if I were going to get interpretive, I would take that gilded Jesus as symbolizing too much time and resources spent on a job that was badly done and wouldn't last anyhow. But it was necessary to be done, because of how the thing would look for the sake of pageant. Or possibly it's my subconscious assessment of Christianity: an object which is beautiful and ostentatious outwardly, but is crumbling and unsustainable at the core. Interpreting dreams is like building on a sand foundation. It all runs away out from under you and changes the shape of whatever you try to build onto it. Which is one reason that it's also interesting that the whole dream was built on sand.

In the end, I'm not too fussed about trying to sort out what it "means"; it was just a rather striking and unexpected image.