I love Golgatha images. Many of my own works have featured some variation on that idea. There are many reasons why it’s an idea I return to, but for me it is neither mandatory nor something I avoid hinting at.
The influence on our own tastes via exposure to catholic art at formative ages is hard to overstate. Plenty of us started there. Personally that wasn’t entirely my route, but for many of y’all, the religious elements are part of the fetish. For some other ones, even the shape of a cross being a t instead of a T is almost taboo; trying to recreate a historical execution and avoiding the religious elements entire. Noble vulcher, Jastrow, and Hornet come to mind as artists who focus on the cross more as the ultimate torture device for the condemned and aren’t really focused on an “imitation of Christ”
But the mood of these images especially in the frantic innings of Noble Vulchur, is one of total degrading despair. There is no room for romanticism in the brutal reality of death on the cross.
By contrast, in a Golgatha scene, the role of the central figure in the trio as a goddess on a pedestal to be worshiped, contrasted with the actual reaction of the crowd to someone stripped nude and suffering a horrible, humiliating, and painful death. It allows horrific torture without excessive denigration. She may be executed like a common criminal but she is a great prophet, queen, or goddess.
But it’s not just the religious elements that make a golgatha style image work. On that center cross, their is a woman with a painful crown. The crown of thorns is a fantastic device narratively and aesthetically. Anyone wearing a crown of thorns is someone condemned to the cross. That visual shorthand can suggest so much. In a crowd of naked slaves, or mocking spectators, or merciless soldiers, the one with the thorny crown wrapped tightly around them is the one that will be executed. It’s one of the elements of the crucifixion of Jesus that has enduring symbolism; plenty of artists put painful crowns on all of their crucified women.
The golgatha set up also allows you to show a “mass” crucifixion of three women, without being too much of a crowd. You can have significant variance in bodies, hair, positioning on the cross, and those contrasts give an image life. Plus, there are plenty of groups of women who feel very naturally despised to sets of three.
There is also a beautiful ritual to it. The stations of the cross, the actual process of crucifixion takes on this almost inevitable vibe, each step being part of some well rehearsed script. The lines to recite, the slow raising of the cross, the disgusting sponge, the spear to the side; all of these are excellent, evocative images to depict.
Of course, golgatha and the Female Jesus are just acquired tastes for me. In truth, I enjoy crucifixion for the pose and the pain primarily, so some anonymous thieving bandit girl with a low cross next to a dusty roadside highway marker works just as well for me. But why not give her a crown and some friends to suffer with her?
The death of Jesus of Nazareth on the cross is just as much fertile soil for inspiration as any number of other crucifixions. Spartacus at the Via Apia. The Persecutions of Nero. Ancient long-forgotten wars. Pirates captured by Caesar. The slaves of Pedanius Secundus. The scandal at the temple of isis. Sabina. But it happens to be the crucifixion most depicted in art, most written about, so our tastes and choices are going to lean into that.
