The Process of Reinterpretation

A preliminary stage of reimagining. 

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” [6] The timing of this statement in Jesus’s life is poignant. It is only in the next couple of days that Jesus will be transformed from a leader of the people to the raw and worn man found in countless interpretations of the Man of Sorrows. These are the words Jesus speaks in the twilight of his life on Earth, mournfully cursing the actions of the Jews as he prepares for his inevitable betrayal and death, but also likening himself to an instantly recognizable form of a mother: the hen gathering her chicks. This is not the first time in the Bible that a shifting between the identities of men and women has been demonstrated by either Jesus or God. The same image of a mother bird and her chicks is cited in the Psalms, when God is described: “He will cover you with his feathers, under his wings you with find refuge, his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.” [7] In the very first chapter of the Bible, the creation of man is recounted: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” [8] Man is created in the likeness of God, but woman is also created in His likeness. Because man is mentioned first, it is easy to forget that according to the Bible, God must have a duality of identities, or escape such categories entirely, because He was able to draw from a multi-gendered self to create humankind. I wanted to draw directly from biblical sources for representations of God and his representative on Earth because I knew that the Bible would be one of the primary roots of medieval artists' and patrons' descriptions. The mother hen imagery used frequently throughout the Bible (in more passages than the ones I list) speaks truly to the all-encompassing nature of the Divine, as interpreted by medieval scholars and artists.

I chose to highlight only a few of the objects within the original image in my reinterpretation for a variety of reasons. I wanted to highlight the rooster crowing because the symbolism of Peter’s denial of Jesus is so powerful in terms of the highly-masculinized character of the animal in conjunction with my female Jesus. I included one of the urns within my painting because the anointing of the body of a deceased individual was often a woman’s job [9], so I was interested in tying that into my representation of Jesus’s role. I included only one of the instruments of the Passion within my reinterpretation as a conscious choice. For me, it wasn't about the gruesome details of the tongs and spears that were used to pierce the body of Christ, but about Christ's resurrection. Bleeding from wounds and ashen, my Christ represents the triumph of life over death not as a man, but as a powerful woman.