HitchcockBlonde

I’m strewn across the towel rail, starkers. Arms outstretched, one knee arched and tummy sucked in for maximum ribbage. Sodden hair turned from Blonde to dark and suitably rattailed. Eyes closed, head lolled onto chest, profoundly piteous expression of transcendent pain.

Footsteps. Door. Laden pause. Faintest of sighs. Electric toothbrush whirr.

One eye opens. One hand creeps sideways and lobs damp hand towel.

Tootbrush stops.

‘OK, OK. Yes, very good. Juan Martínez Montañés, I presume?’

Juan Martinez Montañés: Christ on the Cross (“Cristo de los Desamparados”), 1617; polychromed wood; 185 x 160 cm x 46 cm (72 13/16 x 63 x 18 1/8 in.); Iglesia Conventual del Santo Ángel Carmelitas Descalzos, Sevilla

Are semi-erotic auto-crucifixion tableaux really that wrong? Why do the iconic poses of suffering so dramatically brought to life in The Sacred Made Real, the National Gallery’s new exhibition of Spanish religious painting and sculpture from 1600-1700, just demand to be emulated? As I paced the eerily lit, lifesize lineup of Biblical A-listers (Jesus, Mary, Francis, St John the Baptist, Loyola and co) so meticulously crafted from wood, glass, ivory, hair, cloth rope and bone, so precisely painted in sweaty matt tones, my fingers itched to stretch into pinioned position, and my back longed to bow in a simalcrum of delirious agony.

What is it, deep in our cosseted twenty-first century bones, that recognises these gestures and yearns to participate in the pantomime of cruelty, guilt, grief and overwhelming love?

It is remarkable how genuinely moving these works from another race, another time, an utterly other mindset are. In a culture where a hyperreal crucified monkey in a Marylebone church barely warrants a raised eyebrow, these four hundred-year-old religious sculptures are surprisingly powerful. Their every ivory tooth, hair eyelash and wooden welt glows with an irony-free sincerity which feels bracingly fresh in our post-meaning world.

They’re simply beautiful; many of the glowing, glistening, contorted bodies may have been modelled on classical kouroi. And, my attention-seeking one-woman passion play aside, the graphic violence done by these sculptors to saints and martyrs resists any pat accusations of titillating masochism. The ardency of the craftsmanship, the careful symbolism of each detail, silences any sensational snigger. Pedro de Mena’s Christ as the Man of Sorrows, his slender torso and sensitive face streaming with blood, with each droplet individually described and differentiated and felt, made me feel genuine pity and shock. Bear in mind this is a Blonde who can happily snack on a Pepperami in front of von Trier’s Antichrist. Who sees church as a place to get free oranges and sweets at Christingle. Who didn’t even cry at UP.

Pedro de Mena: Christ as the Man of Sorrows (Ecce Homo), 1673; polychromed wood, human hair, ivory, and glass; 98 x 50 x 41 cm (38 9/16 x 19 11/16 x 16 1/8 in.); Real Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, Patrimonio Nacional, Madrid; © 2009 Photo Gonzalo de la Serna

The only contemporary artist who comes close is Ron Mueck; his distrubingly real yet otherworldly human figures such as Dead Dad give a comparable glimpse of our human potential and limitation, and prompt a similar squeeze of recognition that tightens the spine. But part of the power of the Spanish figures lies in their collectivity, the fact that they are characters in a cohesive and inter-influential canon of earnest intent and belief; the exhibition is curated with serious flair.

Ron Mueck: Dead Dad (1996-1997)

It is however inexplicable that the shop doesn’t sell Stephen Hough’s haunting string sextet based on Tomas Luis de Victoria’s Requiem (1605), specially commissioned to accompany the works. But I suppose that provides even more excuse to linger longer, letting Hough’s lush soundscapes of grief and hope and worship stream through the scratchy, communally grubby headphones of the audioguide as you tour these chambers of torture and tenderness.

Go.