Where centuries of artists saw only suffering and death in the Crucified Christ, Paul Conrad saw joy and redemption
Like his political cartoons, the Crucified Christ Paul Conrad sculpted for Saint John Fisher in 1996 is a stark, visceral and controversial play on sight.
Traditional depictions of the Crucifixion invite meditations on Christ suffering for our sins.
Conrad’s Christ leaps free of the cross, inviting meditation on Christ the Redeemer.
Disapproving parishioners nicknamed it “Christ the Marathoner.” Though unintended, the name is fitting, and not only because Palos Verdes is famous for it hilly marathon or because he co-authored a book with Episcopal Priest Malcolm Boyd who wrote the best seller Are You Running With Me Jesus.
According to St. John Fisher Monsignor Emeritus Eugene Gilb, the dismissive name reflects Conrad’s own meditations on Christ’s Crucifixion.
During a visit to Conrad’s Crucifix, a few days after the artist’s death, Monsignor recalled how the Crucifix came about.
“The idea came from an experience Paul had during a mortuary viewing. As he looked in the open coffin he thought, ‘This is not the person I knew. This is a cadaver.’
“He understood that our eyes may tell us this is the person we knew, but our faith tells us something different.
“That led Paul to begin work on a sculpture of Christ – at the moment of his death. The small sculpture depicted Christ’s hands breaking free of the ropes that had bound him to the cross.
“I had seen this sculpture in his home studio and was reminded of it when we remodeled the Church and were looking for a Crucifix to put over the altar. I asked if he could do something similar, but larger.”
The larger size made it necessary to support the body of Christ independently of the cross. This led Conrad to mount Christ on a free standing pole planted like a flag in front of the cross. With a welding torch, he cut a silhouette of Christ out of the cross, symbolizing that Christ left the cross at the moment of his death. Lighting, on either side of the cross, passes through the cutout silhouette, casting shadows representative of the two thieves’ departed spirits.
Monsignor prefers “Christ the Redeemer” to “Christ the Marathoner,” but even the disparaging name acknowledges the celebration the contrarian Conrad saw where centuries of earlier artists saw only suffering and death.
“The Apostles’ Creed teaches us that after his death, Christ descended into hell to bring the good news to Moses, David and all those who had preceded him in death. Then, as the Creed teaches, Christ arose and ascended into heaven,” Monsignor Gilb noted.
“Paul’s crucifix,” Monsignor added, “like the Mass, is a celebration of the Risen Christ opening the gates of heaven.”
Monsignor pointed out that there was a practical as well as symbolic reason for Conrad’s Christ leaping free of the cross. It meant Christ could be paraded through the church.
Mass begins with the priest entering the church from the rear and proceeding down the center aisle to the altar. The priest is preceded by altar servers carrying the Bible and Christ on the Cross.
But there were two problems with Conrad’s Christ.
He was physically too heavy for the young altar servers to carry the length of the church. And He was politically too heavy for many of the conservative parishioners. Conrad’s creed held that a cartoon wasn’t successful if it didn’t outrage at least half of the people who saw it. His Crucified Christ was no exception.
The Monsignor reached a compromise with Conrad’s detractors by consigning Christ the Marathoner to running in place just behind the priest as he celebrates Christ’s resurrection and ascension into heaven. Pen
