In How to Be Both, by Ali Smith, the teenage girl protagonist, George, goes every day to the National Gallery in London to see their one Francesco del Cossa painting, “St. Vincent Ferrer” (c. 1474).
Detail: Above the saint’s head, Christ sits in what the NG calls an almond-shaped mandorla, as if emerging from a heavenly vulva, arms extended, displaying his wounded hands. “Look what they did! It hurt, but I’m okay now.”
The Angels on either side caress the mandorla’s edges as if showing off a game-show prize. Don’t they look coquettish? “Isn’t this a nice refrigerator?”
That early-Renaissance pink! It’s like Christ is enrobed in Easter almond marzipan.
This painting is not currently on display, as I’d thought it would be since it is prominent in this book (but it’s been published since 2014).
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/francesco-del-cossa-saint-vincent-ferrer
Today is Good Friday, which rather suits our historical moment. Bad leaders, a triumph of cowardice and cruelty, a denial of spirit…
Keep your eyes on the prize!
