Craigie Aitchison: Calvary
Title: Calvary
Artist: Craigie Aitchison (1926–2009)
Location: Truro Cathedral (C of E)
Date: 1996–7
Craigie Aitchison’s four Calvary panels, commissioned for Truro Cathedral by the Jerusalem Trust, sit behind the altar in St Margaret’s Chapel. Bands of luminous colour – magenta, purple, emerald green – form the background, a simplified landscape. The first three panels are composed symmetrically. The two thieves slump on their crosses, one arm draped elastically over the cross-piece, each turned towards the central figure of Christ, who is depicted with his head raised and features cautious but peaceful. A ray of yellow light splits the deep pink sky in which a single star shines, while the Holy Spirit descends as two white lines. There are no human witnesses to the scene; instead, a black dog gazes up at Christ and a blue bird perches next to his shortened arm.
The fourth panel shows, in the place of the Cross, a white, stunted tree, its single branch in bud. It is illuminated by a bright white orb – the moon, or perhaps the star from the second panel, grown larger. Aitchison has said of his repeated depictions of the Passion, ‘it is a horrific story, and I think more worth trying to say something about than anything that’s happened since.’ Here the horror is transformed into a strange and tentative hope.
Craigie Aitchison (1926–2009) was born in Edinburgh in 1926, and at first followed his father into the law. He dropped out to pursue art, studying at the Slade between 1952 and 1954 under William Coldstream, then travelling to Italy in a decommissioned London taxi as part of a British Council scholarship, a trip which became an apprenticeship in colour. From 1958 on the Crucifixion was a favoured subject. A Royal Academician from 1988, Aitchison was commissioned to paint Calvaries for both Truro and Liverpool Cathedrals, and in 1999 designed a Christmas stamp for the Royal Mail in which the Christ Child is visited by a Bedlington terrier, the breed of many of Aitchison’s own dogs.
Further Information
Medium: oil on board
Permanent display
Commissioner: The Jerusalem Trust
See Craigie Aitchison’s Calvary on the Ecclesiart map here.
Other artworks in churches by Craigie Aitchison: Calvary, Liverpool Cathedral; window, St Mary’s, The Boltons, Brompton.