Liberation

I can't believe that I didn't say more about Frederick Varley's Liberation which I saw at the AGO. I know I described it but the picture has followed me all this week and I've despreately been trying to find a poster of it or a book with it in. Finally I tracked it down in a book in Abelard second hand bookstore on Queen Street but it was $45 which was a little too much. I resorted to looking on the internet and what do I find? Jonny Baker has blogged about it already! He first saw it at an Ascension Day service which rather surprised me at first as I totally had it in my mind as Easter Sunday and Jesus, risen from the dead, entering the upper room and dazzling the disciples and bringing colour into their dark world of despair. I ca see how maybe you could argue it as representing the Transfiguration and I suppose by that argument of it being Christ transformed you could use it for the Ascension. Johnny thoguht of it for Trinity Sunday - I just can't see that but will take a closer look when I get a copy of the picture. What was amazing for me was the sheer SIZE of it. The figure really is six foot tall and Varley himself described as strange, mystical experience in the creation of the picture in pastels, charcoal and acrylics - an unusual mix of media in some ways. I may of course find myself tempted to buy the expensive book in the end as the colour reproduction online will be pretty inferior but perhaps I simply need to keep searching.