A painter's transcendent vision of human flesh

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18-04-2025

An excited crowd filled the wide square in Siena on June 9 1311. The shops were closed and a procession of clergy preceded the ruling Signori of the Nine and the officials of the city state, followed by men, women and children with candles in their hands, as the bells rang out gloriously. They were accompanying Duccio's great new altarpiece, 16ft high and double-sided, glowing in red, blue and gold in the sunshine, as it was carried to the Cathedral.
But in 1777, the front of the altarpiece was sawn free from the back and displayed separately. Over the next century some of the 40 or 50 panels went missing. In 1883 the National Gallery in London bought for £178 from an English connoisseur two panels, including the Annunciation, which is now on show in the gallery's acclaimed exhibition Siena: the Rise of Painting. One of the panels still preserved in Siena is The Incredulity of St Thomas.
Thomas, one of the Twelve Disciples, was not with the others when they saw Jesus after his Resurrection on the first Easter Day. When they told him, he declared that he would not believe it unless he could put his finger in the holes made by the nails in Jesus's hands. A week later, Jesus came among the Disciples. Speaking to Thomas he said: 'Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side.'
The next moment is depicted by Duccio. Thomas places a finger tentatively on the wound in the side of Jesus, who has pulled aside his tunic. On the hand pulling back the clothing is visible the mark of a nail. Thomas is not looking at the wounds but at the face of Jesus, his own expression conveying a sorry confession of his previous incredulity. Jesus returns his gaze with a calm and open countenance.
It was, though, no invention of the painter to depict Jesus after his Resurrection still with the wounds from his death on the Cross. Just as his sharing with his followers a meal of fish indicated he was no phantom, so his wounds showed he was the same man his friends knew. His body was not a celestial apparition. For Christians this is of importance, for it was by the death and resurrection of the human body of Christ that all humanity was remade – not by a declaration by God in heaven but by the actions of God incarnate.
But the wounded body of Jesus also holds its significance for anyone who does not share Christian beliefs. Then the narrative asserts with mythic power that the creator of the cosmos took on human flesh and shared in our sufferings, which are not forgotten when he rises from the dead. Those who celebrate Easter in church tomorrow believe this is historically true. But the state is right to give the whole country a holiday on either side of the great festival. Perhaps the state hardly thinks about it, and moves by the momentum of custom. That is all the better to those of us who feel that the nation benefits from conserving the best of the past without trying to reinvent everything from scratch.
Sometimes the holiday of Easter has more serious things to convey than the latest flavour of hot cross bun or the attractions of pistachio-filled chocolate. Each year, the world seems to get into a worse mess. In the past 12 months, an element making this harder to face is uncertainty. The world has changed. We can't rely on former allies to meet imponderable threats. There is a new urgency in seeking self-sufficiency in essentials, but then we suddenly find that we are on the edge of being unable even to manufacture our own railway track. Comfortable certainties evaporate.
By an irony, Doubting Thomas is the patron saint of uncertainty. Yet he doesn't demonstrate that it is particularly admirable to refuse to believe friends, and when he is confronted by the seemingly impossible evidence that he demanded, there is nothing to enjoy in his being discountenanced. The redeeming feature of his encounter with Jesus, the man he followed as a disciple, is the lack of recrimination, reciprocated by Thomas's declaration, as recounted in the Gospel according to St John: 'My Lord and my God.'
God's hand in the violent idiocies of the world this year is not easy to discern. That does not stop Easter being celebrated or the works of great painters like Duccio being contemplated for their insight into wounded humanity, its unlooked-for salvation and the transcendent dimension of trust restored.
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