Long associated in Western art history, women’s bodies and flowers often share a symbolic connection. This association is explored in a unique religious rendering in “Tears of the Theotokos.” Representing the Virgin Mary, lilies are placed on the cross, symbolising themes central to Christian theology.
In Christian art, the lilies often stand for the Immaculate Conception of Mary, a signification of both her virginity and her purity. Unusually however, the flowers and the implied body of Mary – the untouched body free of profane desire – are combined with the suggested form of Christ, who is usually seen upon the cross.
Deceptively simple, the image is therefore an interesting and complex hybridisation of religious forms and iconography which have been fused together into a remarkably innovative theological structure: a crucifixion scene that has been literally ‘crossed’ – it is a cross after all – with a scene of a Madonna and Child. All under the symbolism of the flowers: an additional crossing and cross-pollination of flower painting. Novel connections and interactions with bodies and their genders are therefore created.
The buds of the lily themselves are just opening up, showing a spirit of receptivity to the gaze of the reverent viewer. Because they stand in for the body of a woman – and the Son of God – which is implied but invisible, we have the creation of a spiritual and idealised gaze of purity which is devoid of bodily distraction and being in the human world. Nature here stands for a more removed realm of abstract and stylised beauty. The gaze is transitional: the full beauty of the flowers has not opened up to us. That is in the future – perhaps with the ‘rebirth’ and resurrection of the combined body of the Mother of God and the Son of God, since Christ was resurrected shortly after the crucifixion.
The red against the blue perhaps suggests the pairing of the feminine with the masculine, or the blood of Christ with the blue of Mary, the colour that the Renaissance artists used to depict the Mother of God.
Noticeably, the plant as human body has a very hierarchical and formalised structure and covers the four directions within the field of the cross as a sort of pure, spiritual network of growth. The fecundity of the Virgin Mary is emphasised as that which gives form to faith and the being of the Son of God himself: form is being created before our eyes, the birth of the Son of God and the way to orientate oneself in the world is being created in this artwork as the living, growing structure of the Christian believers and their bodies, for Christ is regarded, as my friend says, as the Master of Living, the mirror for the self in thought and action, the flower of being which is to flower again in the being of the follower.
The title adds one further dimension. The flowers are charged with the idea of the Mother’s tears. They are the sadness of the death of a child at the hands of the world. The flowers swim in the sea of tears of the Mother in the blue. Blue for mourning contained within the red field of the blood of Christ in the frame.
Taxonomy of lilies
Captivating, diverse, the lily belongs to the Liliaceae family, which encompasses over a hundred species in the genus Lilium. These perennials are characterised by large, trumpet-shaped flowers and grow from bulbs. In Western religious art, the Madonna Lily (Lilium candidum) is the species most frequently depicted, symbolising the Virgin Mary’s purity and the Immaculate Conception.
About the Artist
Elijah began studying Iconography in 2017. He previously studied Pastoral Ministry at The Moody Bible Institute and Sociology at the University of Oklahoma, then received his Master of Arts degree from the King’s Foundation School of Traditional Art in London. He currently lives and works in the Pacific Northwest.