Double Coronation

Double Coronation or that Who Can See as He Couldn´t See

The picture carries a clear and eloquent message. The central point is the cross with the crucified Christ. The cross isn´t fixed in the ground, but it is upheaval upwards the hands which are crowning the king of the world by the crown. The Crucified isn´t part of this world. The hands here refer to God the Father who is above the world. The Crucified personates God the Son who is between the world and God as a connecting link. The third form of God´s existence is portrayed in a small dove over the table which symbolizes the Holy Spirit. The dove is located in the lower part of the picture which represents the world and it draws attention of peculiar banqueters to God. God is present simultaneously above the world and in the world. He is simultaneously alive, resurgent as well as dead on the cross. This is the painter´s statement of God.

The picture has two scenes linked by the Crucified: a) the upper heavenly one where as a foreshadowing of a new day (resurrection?) the light shoulders outside from behind the dark clouds of God´s wrath as a promise of a new reality; b) the lower earthly scene which takes place on the edge of abyss of what nobody takes notice but where any banqueter can fall in at any time. Both halves of the painting seem as they don´t communicate and as they take place contemporaneously as two actions independent upon each other: overhead God is crowning the Crucified, thus manifesting whose life is of value. However below, nobody has notion of events which take place above them (they overreach them), they aren´t even concerned. But down there occurs something special of which the banqueters have no idea: from a rotten and totally dead stump a new tree starts to grow. Down there the miracle of dead man´s resurgence starts to take place and nobody pays attention. The painter has emphasized the dead man´s resurgence with the Hebrew script at the corner of the table whose contents is the Old Testament prophecy about the shoot rising from the stump. The prophecy shall be a warning on the votive Messiah´s coming with whom all the man´s hope was connected and whom God´s devotees has lately identified in Jesus Christ. So Jesus is in the picture actually twice: at once as the dead man above being crowned and at once below as the shoot resurgent the dead stump (the stump is marked with the Jewish star at the side and so it stands there for the Jewish nation which is not dead when a new tree grows out of it). And this Christ unites both parts of the picture - through Christ waking the dead ones -, boths halves communicate. This is the painter´s message of the relationship between God and people, and also about the Messiah - Christ.

Below in the picture there is a life seemingly. However, with the single-minded view it can be discovered that it´s rather a play at the life. The lady in a red cap remarks something unusual though (a dove, a reviving stump or a cross) but with a contemptous scoff as though she has just glanced up from dicing which are in front of her and what she lives for. Her neighbour hasn´t got his head - he is a headless scare, i.e. monster. In place of his head there is a balloon fixed to the collar which represents the blown-out empty-headedness (a pompous empty-headedness has been in many heads so far) just before being deflated by a mere stab. A wasp prepared to bite portends the closeness of the judgment upon this way of life in the same way as the edge of abyss does. Two draped persons are people who can´t see (don´t perceive) anything at all much like the clown with dark glasses and dominoes which are ready for the shift of appearance. Last two banqueters have lost their human features, too. The head of one who was probably pounding at everything has changed into a hammer and originally being a man has changed into being a mere instrument. The second one has got only a piece of his body, and besides it is wooden. It means he is not alive. Only the key in his head shows that he has been pre-set - he is a puppet. But he has been medalled for the fact that he is doing exactly what he had been instructed. The seemingly alive ones are in fact dead ones (whether physically, or spiritually), whereas the dead one (the Crucified) above them is, as a matter of fact, alive because he will be animated. A new tree grows up into the world of deads (and for the world of deads the Crucified isn´t being crowned as a ruler of deads indeed), above their heads arbitration of their lifes and deaths proceeds, too, but the world of deads doesn´t perceive what is transcendent and at the same time what is really present. The world of deads, that is to say, lives for other values and that´s why it isn´t worth what it has been given. This way the picture becomes the indictment of dehumanisation of the society and the criticism of the loss of susceptibility of spiritual values. The picture talks through a clear figurative message (expressed among others in sharp features), accuses the peculiar banqueters of ignorance, fruitiness, darkness and it simultaneously shows whose life has got the value and the future: the Crucified is being crowned, not the peculiar banqueters. This is the painter´s message of the world.

The picture could be also named „Banquet above the abyss“ or „The dead ones“.

Jiri Benes