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Painter Salustiano Garcia with his Jesus: “Through beauty you can see more spirituality”
Photo: Cristina Quicler / AFP
At first they didn't even know they were naked. Adam and Eve spent their lives carefree and uncovered in the Garden of Eden until the serpent persuaded Eve to taste the fruit of the tree of knowledge. She ate - and saw that she was naked. From then on, the two of them wore a makeshift loincloth made of fig leaves to cover themselves. But the damage was there, the shame in the world. And has been causing trouble ever since.
Shame is currently causing problems for some of the youngest descendants of Adam and Eve in Spain: The painter Salustiano Garcia was supposed to create a painting for an official poster for Holy Week in Seville. He painted Jesus, Son of God, based on his own son, Horacio. The young man is 27. He was also inspired by his late brother, says Garcia.
He created a painting depicting God's Son with flowing dark hair, a trimmed beard and a flawless, naked torso. The waist down is covered, innocently shimmering white fabric, poorly secured with a rope. Garcia's Jesus shows no more skin than Adam and Eve or other depictions of God's Son. But, as is likely to be the general consensus, he looks good. Some now think: too good.
Since the poster was presented at the weekend, the young man's portrait has heated up Spanish emotions: some find him "sexualized," the ultra-conservative Institute for Social Policy calls it a "shame" and Jesus is "feminized." More than 13,000 people have already signed a petition online calling for a more chaste portrait. Some critics say the poster belongs at a gay pride parade, not during Holy Week. Others celebrate him as a queer icon for precisely this reason.
The painter Garcia is surprised by the criticism. His Jesus still had a lot on, he said in an interview: The sculptor El Greco once carved Jesus completely naked out of the stone after the resurrection, "with his penis and everything." He didn't sexualize Jesus: "To see sexuality in my Christ, you have to be sick," said Garcia. »It is an idealization because the Church has always used beauty to convince. Through beauty you can see more spirituality.«
Meanwhile, Garcia has the conservative mayor of Seville, José Luis Sanz, on his side. He praised the picture. And, Garcia said in an interview, the conservative entrepreneur Carmen Lomana called him and also praised the painting: she said it invited people to pray.
In a way, Garcia may have seen this coming. When he finished the picture, he said to his friends: “It will be an icon!” he said in an interview. "And it seems that it is on the way to becoming one."
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