In Crucifixion, Shoalhaven, Arthur Boyd effects a transposition of traditional Christian iconography by placing his Christ figure in the Australian landscape. His striking and confronting image depicts a woman crucified in the middle of the Shoalhaven River in New South Wales. The painting is a simple and immensely powerful composition focused on three horizontal bands of sky, land, and water.

Water can be a liminal place between the known and the unknown, the physical and the spiritual. It is also a source and sign of life. In the original act of creation, the Spirit of God hovers over the chaotic primeval waters to bring order and engender all life (Genesis 1).

In Crucifixion, Shoalhaven the viewer’s eye is drawn to the figure at the centre with her head hung low. Her wildly outstretched fingers blend into the trees of the ancient landscape. In her face, which is conjured by two dark slashes and no defined features, agony is expressed. She is vulnerable, isolated, abandoned; there is no one at the foot of her cross.

The crucified one is a female figure, yet she embodies a condition that goes beyond the distinctiveness of gender. She represents both the crucified incarnate Christ and all suffering humanity. Boyd said he did not want to represent suffering ‘by allowing just the male to be seen’ (Crumlin 1988: 158).

The location was also shocking. Like Nathanael asking ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ (John 1:46), one with a colonial gaze asks: can anything good come out of this alien wilderness and its ancient peoples? Yet—as he ponders how the Western Christian tradition is both imposed on the Australian context and subverted by it—Boyd sees the complexly-interrelated diversity of a wider humanity. Like the indigenous people, the trees and animals suffer a type of crucifixion in the name of a new civilization.

The imposition of a non-indigenous tradition is displayed, yet through it there is represented here an experience and a hope that cross cultural and historical boundaries—suffering, redemption, and abundant life. This crucifixion may be terrible, but it is a moment in time which will soon be transcended. This is the possibility that Boyd invites the viewer to ‘come and see’ (John 1:46).

References

Crumlin, Rosemary. 1988. Images of Religion in Australian Art (Kensington: Bay Books)