Exhibitions

Lot 41

: Quick Zoom

F N Souza
Supper at Emmaus

- The story of the Supper of Emmaus is part of the great narrative of Christ’s visitations following his death and resurrection. The actual location of Emmaus is lost in the folds of time, but the road that led to this village in Judah has been immortalized in biblical history. Here is where the story of this painting begins. Like all good drama, the story is already in play before the curtain rises, and after the curtain falls, the story continues. What the spectator sees enacted on stage is a pivotal moment that changes the players’ destinies. Every director follows a script, whether of his own making or one that has been written for him. Souza takes the narrative core of the Supper at Emmaus and imbues it with his personal feeling.

The story of Emmaus goes something like this. Cleopas, a disciple of Christ, was travelling the road to Emmaus with a companion. Along the way they encountered another traveller, whom neither recognized. Nonetheless, they invited the ‘stranger’ to dine with them. When the stranger shared the bread with them, Cleopas and his friend, remembering the same act had taken place at the Last Supper, realized their travelling companion was none other than Christ.

My first encounter with Souza’s art was at his apartment in New York, shortly after his death in 2002. The night before his artwork was moved from the space that had served as his studio for thirty-five years, there was a small party to celebrate his life. The main wall of his living room came alive as painted canvases were unrolled and guests toasted the man who had created them. Souza’s small apartment, usually permeated by the noise of Broadway below, became silent, as four of the men in the room unrolled the Supper at Emmaus canvas and held it against the wall. The size of the painting overpowered the space. The wall became a fresco as the canvas was slowly unrolled, and Souza’s studio was temporarily transformed into a Christian catacomb.

The same subject matter treated by Titian, Caravaggio and Rembrandt, shows Jesus flanked by the two disciples, framing and directing our attention towards Christ as a hierarchical figure. As the disciples react to Christ, usually an additional figure serves to filter and cool the spectator’s emotions. But Souza chooses a medieval style of composition, which aims to balance space and harmonize the energy between a single figure juxtaposed against a group of two or more. Tension in Souza’s Supper at Emmaus is strengthened by the placement of Christ in front of Cleophas and his friend who sit motionless to one side. Christ looks straight ahead, piercing the viewer’s eyes with his unflinching gaze. But though he appears to be looking straight at the viewer, his eyes are empty. It is not the eye that sees it is the mind. We do not see Christ’s eyes; we see his mind, empty of self. The contemplative mood of the disciples is depicted by one figure seated with eyes closed, perhaps signifying intellectual blindness, or perhaps as a sign of an epiphanous moment; while the other, eyes open wide, appears lost in reverie.

The white tablecloth symbolizes purity; the eggs, resurrection; the fish, Christ. In a surreal world objects can exist in space without a solid surface. The miraculous nature of the moment is exemplified by the fact that gravity is unable to cause objects placed on the very edge of the table to fall down. Visible and invisible reality is represented in Souza’s Supper at Emmaus by the absence of bread, traditionally, ‘the body of Christ’. Here, Christ appears as solid flesh and blood to his fellow travellers but soon will be transfigured. A door breaks the seamless terracotta wall in the background, allowing viewers to extend their sight farther into an otherwise flat depiction of space. Painting almost without texture, Souza uses the canvas as pictorial text; instead of as a surface on which to demonstrate his technical mastery of palette knife and other art-making instruments.

The function of sacred imagery when constructed properly is to arouse its beholder to transcend the limitations of the senses and to perceive the Divine which, ordinarily, one cannot conceive. - The story of the Supper of Emmaus is part of the great narrative of Christ’s visitations following his death and resurrection. The actual location of Emmaus is lost in the folds of time, but the road that led to this village in Judah has been immortalized in biblical history. Here is where the story of this painting begins. Like all good drama, the story is already in play before the curtain rises, and after the curtain falls, the story cont

Artist profile

Other works of artist

Back to previous page

Lot 41 of 42

F.N. SOUZA EXHIBITION

ARTWORK DETAILS

F N Souza
Supper at Emmaus
Signed and dated in ENglish (upper left)
1987
Acrylic on canvas
84 x 117 in (213.4 x 297.2 cm)
If you are interested in this work, please contact [email protected] for further details.
Category: Painting
Style: Figurative

Artwork size Artwork size

ART

AUCTIONS

JEWELLERY & COLLECTIBLES

AUCTIONS

EXHIBITIONS

JEWELLERY SUBMISSION FORM

ANTIQUITIES

AUCTIONS

EXHIBITIONS

PRIME PROPERTIES

Lot 41 of 42

ARTWORK DETAILS