Painters love martyrs and prophets
Saint Sebastian's death – arrows puncturing skin – is straight out of Shia 
martyrology
By Robert Fisk

Nothing annoys me more than a magnificent Renaissance painting which carries 
the deadly label "school of". Why any of the great masters would let some 
junior copy or finish off his martyrdoms and crucifixions perplexes me, 
although – in an age when paintings were commissioned by popes and dukes – 
speed and commercial success were probably more important than artistic pride.
Indeed, it was only when I began to examine the provenance of Hizbollah 
"martyr" portraits in Lebanon that I discovered the same principle applied. The 
top painter of Hizbollah's dead – those young men invariably shot, blown up or 
bombed to death by Israel – is a man called Shelala.
But when I tracked his studio down in the Jnah suburb of south Beirut, I found 
that he would instruct a team of enthusiasts how to paint the "martyr''s face – 
how big his beard should be, whether the tulips should be on the right or left 
of his head – and let them get on with the work. He would drop by later to 
touch up an eye or a pair of spectacles on the dead man's face before the 
finished product was carted off to be strung on an electric pylon or a cemetery 
wall in southern Lebanon. "School of Shelala".
I have to say that Pinturicchio of Perugia – Bernardino di Betto di Biagio for 
Renaissance scholars – is a cut above Shelala. His 15th-century virgins and 
saints have that luminescent quality and perspective that most Renaissance 
painting exults, and the Umbrian city's exhibition of his work – along with the 
confusingly named Perugino of Castel della Pieve (Pietro di Cristoforo 
Vannucci) – is a claustrophobic but dutiful collection of religious pretension 
and obedience.
Yet I had forgotten the degree to which these two men – along with their 
"schools" and countless other minor artists across Italy – focused their 
attention on martyrs and anchorites, lonely old hermits who live out their days 
in grim contemplation of God's goodness and cruelty.
The martyrs are familiar enough. Christ's body and blood are set pieces, the 
red fountains always pouring from identical wounds, the feet bleeding into 
little piles of gore where miniature but obsessive monks can be seen staring at 
the stuff with unbecoming enthusiasm.
The violence of the age marries perfectly into the Shia martyrology of the 
imams Ali and Hussein, whose blood-boltered features dominate the posters 
beside the great mosques of Najaf and Kufa and Kerbala. Indeed, St Sebastian's 
death – all arrows puncturing white skin – is straight out of Shia martyrology.
One altarpiece I came across in Perugia this week showed a remarkably pristine 
version of the crucifixion, with scarcely a sign of holy wounds, until, at the 
bottom right-hand corner, I espied the head of St Peter with what looked like a 
meat cleaver in the top of his skull, from which rained the inevitable blood. 
His face, eyes squinting in pain, bore the expression of a man who, well, who 
has just been bashed over the head with a meat cleaver. A violent time, the 
Renaissance.
But a time of contemplation. Repeatedly, old St Jerome turns up in 
Pinturicchio's work. Over and over again, the ancient hermit can be seen 
kneeling or stooping in front of a cave amid barren mountains, shaggy-bearded – 
sometimes ginger, sometimes pepper and salt – staring at some distant vision.
That this was painted at a time when Ferdinand and Isabella's Spanish 
cartoonists were obscenely portraying another holy man – Mohamed by name – who 
received another message from God, only marks the thin line between devotion 
and hatred. Yes, late 15th-century Spanish artists far outdid the puerile 
cartoons of 21st-century Denmark.
But it was not just the Prophet whom St Jerome reminded me of. Who else comes 
to mind? Well, I can think of another man, his long beard growing whiter with 
age, who lives in caves and believes in visions and messages. I've even met him 
beside just such a cave. A night on the bare mountain must be just as bleak in 
Pushtunistan as it was in Umbria although the effects, as we know, can be 
catastrophically different.
In an age when we are still supposed to believe in the "clash of civilisations" 
– how anyone was taken in by Huntingdon's preposterous book is still a mystery 
to me – and in "faith" foundations created by equally preposterous former prime 
ministers, it does no harm to look at the work of my old Palestinian friend 
Tarif Khalidi who lives just round the corner from me in Beirut.
When he first turned up to teach at Cambridge, I pointed out of the window of 
his apartment and asked him if he didn't feel a bit far from home with the 
towers of King's College opposite his home. "But what do they remind you of, 
Fisky?" he asked. I thought for a moment before the obvious dawned on me. 
Minarets, I asked? "Exactly, Fisky!" he roared.
And so I turn to his seminal book, The Muslim Jesus, a collection of Islamic 
sayings and stories about one of Islam's prophets who just happens to be the 
subject of veneration for all Pinturicchios and for the waning number of 
Christians in the West. Some are clearly cribs. Muslim scholars have Jesus 
repeatedly raising the dead – and in one extraordinary tale, "de-resurrecting" 
the risen and packing them off back into the grave.
The man who tells Jesus that he has plucked out his eye after looking at a 
woman before being drenched in a downpour is both a Muslim prayer for rain and 
a reference to Matthew 18:9.
Christ's encounter with Satan in Abu Hamid al-Ghazali's story – the Devil tries 
to persuade Jesus to repeat "There is no god but God" but his attempt is denied 
on the grounds that "deceptions can lurk even beneath good" – must be a ghostly 
parallel of the temptation in the wilderness.
There's a story or two to take the breath away. In one, Jesus observes: "How 
many there are of sound body, beautiful face, and eloquent tongue who end up 
screaming in the tiers of hell!" And if you want a bit of good, old-fashioned 
misogyny, try this: Jesus said, "The greatest sin is love of the world. Women 
are the ropes of Satan. Wine is the key to every evil."
Now there's a Muslim prophet for you. O for the wine of Umbria!
Robert Fisk's new book, 'The Age of the Warrior: Selected Writings', is 
published by Fourth Estate
Published: The Independent, Saturday, 19 April 2008
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/fisk/robert-fisk-painters-love-martyrs-and-prophets-811803.html


      __________________________________________________________
Sent from Yahoo! Mail.
A Smarter Email http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html

Reply via email to