‘The High Command’

Eva M.V. Hewitt

(2023)

Oil on Canvas

240cm x 230cm

Eva Hewitt is an emerging Scottish Artist based in Glasgow, whose artistic practice comprises the relationship between the earthly and the ethereal. Hewitt’s artworks stem from her ongoing search for celestial beauty within this terrestrial realm. With a focus on the circus tent as the background, she has chosen to depict the heavenly figure of Christ at the very centre of this unconventional environment by placing Him in the position of the flying trapeze swinger. Hewitt has paralleled the literal act of looking up towards the trapeze swinger whose body is suspended from the trapeze bar, with the metaphorical act of gazing upwards towards the transcendental, and indeed the Crucified Christ who hung from the great height of the cross. By doing so, the artist asks her audience to consider how Christ can be found in all things – even in a world which tries at every opportunity to convince you otherwise. In fact, in a contemporary world where it is very fashionable to partake in the mockery of Christ, Hewitt employs imagery one would associate with clowns and jokers to ultimately elevate the risen Christ even higher. “The High Command” acts as a crescendo of narrative and a unique interpretation of the Ascension of Christ Jesus. Borrowing from artistic masters such as Michelangelo and Alexandre Cabanel, one can notice similarities in Hewitt’s narrative, as the busy composition of this visually rich painting is peppered with pictorial references to the Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension and the Last Judgement. A sense of hierarchy is reflected as we are greeted with the uplifted forms of the cherubic trapeze swingers, contrary to the bodies which are cast down or engulfed in flames. In addition, the angst-ridden forms which make up the lower portion of Hewitt’s painting were directly inspired by Cabanel’s painting, “The Fallen Angel” (1847). The artist has illustrated how Lucifer’s fall from grace could, in this instance, be emphasised by the descending trapeze swinger who is expelled from the heavenly realm. There is a sense of youthfulness which pervades this piece, not only in the faces and physiques of the thirty-three figures portrayed, but in the outstretched arms of the children who willingly reach out to adore The Almighty. These particular visuals are intended to communicate the ability of infants to speak to God in a way which adults cannot. Additionally, Hewitt admired the idea that in Heaven, everyone is young. In fact, the Bible indicates that we will know each other more fully than we do now. To expand on this, the heavenly body is transformed so that it will become as glorious as Christ’s resurrected body.  Upon this large-scale canvas, Eva Hewitt has presented an amalgamation of the natural and the supernatural in a way that can be read and understood by a large audience. Christ’s commanding presence is not only recognised thorough His physical body which occupies the central portion of the canvas, but in the significance of His underlying muscular strength and intense eye contact, as the only figure whose eyes gaze directly back at the viewer. He remains unphased and unscathed by the border of chaos around Him.