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The Feminine in the Cross of David Jones
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
Extract
Exclusive language is becoming increasingly problematic. Not only has the Feminist movement demonstrated the alienation and exclusion felt in male dominated language, but our post-Freudian environment forbids us to accept androgyny as convincing. One is female or one is male. That has to be reflected in our language. This scenario leaves us with great paradoxes in regard to our religious language, particularly in view of our ‘talk’ about the Christian sacrifice. I found an equally paradoxical source of inspiration on this issue in the writings and art of David Jones. His work is paradoxical because while hardly being a feminist (far from it!) or Freudian (he was nearer Jung), he can in the liberation of the artistic communicate the female as well as male.
In this limited exploration I am going to focus on his attitude in visual and written form to Mary and her relationship to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, her son and God. Then I will examine the role of the feminine in Jones’ handling of the Eucharist. Finally I will examine the claim that the painting ‘Aphrodite in Aulis’ is a picture of the crucifixion.
In Jones’ use of Mary as a picture of the Temple of the body of Christ he creates a layered effect of separate allusions each resting on the one before. The layering of imagery gives a different effect to a lineal arrangement so the finished picture takes on a perspective that is allowed because of all that has gone before.
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- Copyright © 1995 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 Dai Great–Coat p. 136–137. Particularly ‘Jesus Xi and women. Luther's idea. Not possible for theological reasons. Our Lord only known to us intelligibly in a ’theological and mythological manner'.
2 The Dying Gaul p. 219f.
3 Anathemata p. 180f.
4 ‘Shape of Meaning in the Poetry of David Jones’ p.236.
5 ‘The Lady of the Pool’ p. 124.
6 Anathemata p. 182.
7 From the Vidi Aquam of the Catholic rite.
8 From Coleridge's ‘Ancient Mariner’.
9 Anathemata p.142.
10 ibid p.141.
11 lines 7–8
12 A Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship p.310.
13 In the liturgy of Our Lady in the Catholic rite Luke Ch. l is read: when Jesus jumps in the womb of Mary the typology is that of King David jumping for joy before the Ark of the Covenant.
14 Anathemata p. 235.
15 ibid p.224.
16 An essential sexual statement that shows Christ in a passionate embrace with a woman (Virgin Mary?) on the Cross.
17 A Commentary on the Anathemata p.9.
18 Anathemata p.230.
19 ibid note.
20 Anathemata p.209.
21 Paul Hills ‘The Pierced Hermaphrodite’ in David Jones Man and Poet ed. John Matthias.
22 ‘Iphigeniain Aulis’ p.337
23 A Commentary on the Anathemata p.38.
24 ‘Roman Quarry’ p. 175.
25 Dai Great–Coat p.138. David Jones personally views the picture as achieving something later pictures fail to capture. He even goes as far as suggesting the ‘Aphrodite in Aulis’ in its balance of form and content resolves dilemmas created in “Vexilla Regis”.
26 In the Patristic period for examples of God as female see Clement of Alexandria. Examples of Holy Spirit as female see Latin thinker Marius Victorinus, Greek thinkers Hippolytus and Synesius, Bishop of Cyrene. The Syriac Church had writers who referred to all three members of the Trinity as female – see for example Ephrem, and the Church order The Didascalia. Biblical references of female qualities of God are: Isaiah 46:3–4, 66:13, Psalm 131:2, Numbers 11:12, Deuteronomy 32:18. It is also interesting to note that the word in Hebrew for the Mercy of God – racham – originally meant mother's womb.