Picture in Focus: The Crucifixion III by Rudolph Valentino Bostic

March 26, 2017

Picture in Focus: The Crucifixion III by Rudolph Valentino Bostic

We make a return visit to the studio of Visionary Outsider Artist Rudolph Valentic Bostic in Savannah, Georgia, for this week's new Lenten image of Christ on the Cross from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. This mixed media painting on recycled cardboard joins two other studies of the Crucifixion in the image gallery of the Bostic profile page in the Sacred Artists section. Like these two earlier paintings, Bostic's new variation in blue has a story to tell that goes beyond the details of the biblical Passion narratives. This is a triumphant Christ on the Cross, surrounded by glowing white dots like a string of lightbulbs, who makes up the Trinity with the dove of the Holy Spirit above the Cross and the red-robed Christ look-alike, standing in for God the Father in the upper right. The Baptist Bostic introduces several Roman Catholic motifs: a Eucharistic chalice dripping blood, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the Virgin Mary, crowned as Queen of Heaven, in the upper left. The cityscape at the bottom might well be Jerusalem as the Kingdom of Heaven come to earth. (John Kohan)