Easter Bunnies and the Tragic Mind

Those are definitely two bunnies, there in the background of that Bellini painting of a ‘Lamentation on the dead Christ’ (1). In the foreground: an ageless tragic scene with a mother grieving her dead son, sprawled on her lap. A still pieta framed by the broad gestures of mourning friends. A frozen scene of lamentation at the foot of an ominous cross.

Behind it all:  a luminous peaceful landscape with trees and rocky hills, with a blue river and hazy bluish mountains merging into the golden light of a pale blue sky with a few drifting clouds. There’s also a city by the river and buildings higher up on the hills. People are walking on the road. Sheep and other cattle are grazing. And there are two rabbits – two long-eared rabbits popping out from the green thicket, two perky white rabbits, utterly visible & present.

The landscape with its luminous tonal harmonies (2) quite transforms the despondent scene of lamentation ; it is a true Bellini painting, with its unique blend of pathos and poetry, of tragedy and beauty. In its emotional appeal, the painting is representative of what so much art throughout the ages, in the visual arts or in music (3) ,  has sought to convey : a sublimation of tragedy, redemption through beauty, a possibility of resurrection.  

It answers a deeply rooted human need for consolation (4), for art that can ‘universalize’ our concerns (5) and accompany us on a journey going from existential anxiety to hope, from descent into sadness to ascent into beauty, from destruction to restoration, from dissonance to consonance (6).

In our agnostic and hedonistic world, we can undoubtedly still long for and even sincerely immerse ourselves in this emotional and aesthetic process of sublimation (when looking at the light (7) in a Bellini painting, when listening to a Bach aria). But what does it mean for us, and what does it mean for contemporary artists, when such sublimation is no longer sanctioned by an unquestioned belief in transcendence? 

 

loving references

(1)    To be seen in the Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia  Lamentation over the Dead Christ with the Virgin, Saint Joseph of Arimathea, Mary Magdalene, Martha, and Filippo Benizi (?) | Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia (gallerieaccademia.it) , or in the catalogue of the 2023 exhibition ‘Giovanni Bellini, Influences croisées’ (or on the web obviously). 

(2)   Roberto Longhi : « une pacification chorale »

(3)   So many Crucifixions and Pietas, so many Stabat Maters and Passions

(4)   Let’s not deprive ourselves from aesthetic bliss, even though one might wonder why we should be entitled to it while so much man-made suffering is going on  

(5)   Eric Chafe, 'Analyzing Bach Cantatas'

(6)   Gilles Cantagrel, 'Le moulin et la rivière – Air et variations sur Bach' : « La démarche du créateur, son travail acharné, consistera à répondre à cette angoisse fondamentale et à la sublimer »

(7)   Nicolas Joyeux : « Giovanni Bellini semble traduire en image l’ode à la lumière du platonicien Marsile Ficin. »