Picture in Focus: Untitled (Instruments of the Passion) by Maurice Morel

March 29, 2020

Picture in Focus: Untitled (Instruments of the Passion) by Maurice Morel

As we move through the Lenten season, drawing closer to Good Friday, I have selected a new image this week  from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, which is a contemporary variation on a traditional motif of Passion imagery known as Arma Christi (the Weapons of Christ), especially popular in the Middle Ages, depicting the various instruments used to crucify Christ--the "weapons" in his struggle to defeat sin and the Devil by his death on the Cross and Resurrection.  A hammer, nails, and pliers appear as elements in this abstract mixed media painting on the theme by Maurice Morel, a French artist-priest who championed the cause of contemporary art in the Roman Catholic Church as a writer-essayist, a public speaker, and creator of works in a modernist style like this quasi-representational piece on view in the gallery of his biosketch page in the Sacred Artists section. (John Kohan)