It Is up to Us to Witness to It

Francisco Camilo (1615–1673) is one of the brilliant stars in the ­constellation of artists that lit up the firmament of the Spanish Golden Age (c. 1550–1680). He painted this Ascension in 1651. The composition’s dynamism, the dramatic interplay of ­darkness and light, the expressions on the faces, and the movement of the ­draperies make it one of the masterpieces of the Baroque style, worthy of the works by Velázquez and d’Alonzo Cano, ­painters who were active in Madrid at the same time as Camilo, and ­sometimes on the same worksites.

Saint John in the foreground—wearing the red cloak of ­divine love, with his arms outstretched and his head turned toward ­heaven—draws a diagonal line which his glance continues. Along that diagonal we are invited to enter into the picture so as to ­embrace, like the disciple whom Jesus loved, the whole drama of it: joy over the ­saving mission that has been accomplished, sadness at the ­departure of the Beloved, hope in awaiting the promised Spirit. Let us observe how these emotions are conveyed by the expressions of each of the disciples, among whom we see Mary the Mother of the Lord and Mary Magdalene.

But what is the source of this light that bathes the picture? It might seem that it descends from the heavens toward which the Lord ascends. But it seems just as likely that it emanates from Christ himself. Did the artist perhaps mean to show that the Light from Light, after coming into the world, now returns to the Light that begot him?

And so, surrounded by a storm cloud which has parted in the form of a mandorla [almond-shaped halo], Jesus the Christ ­ascends into heaven. He wears a “gaudete” rose-colored tunic which ­symbolizes his joy over returning to the Father’s bosom, and a sky-blue mantle. In a virtuosic rendering of the draperies, his ­clothing floats as if it were no longer subject to gravity. With open arms, the Lord prepares to fall into the Father’s arms, inasmuch as he is his dearly beloved Son, through whom his benevolent will for the human race has been accomplished. But also, and even more, he prepares to nestle in the Father’s arms, evoking the prodigal son, since from now on he forever embodies saved humanity in God’s bosom. The stigmata displayed by his open hands testify to it.

At the bottom center of the picture, the painter depicted the rock that forms the summit of the central hill of the Mount of Olives, where the Ascension took place. On this rock he depicted, as though sculpted in the stone, the imprints of the Lord’s two feet. In ­reality, at the summit of this hillock, at an altitude of 2,683 feet, tradition has seen in the rock an imprint not of both feet of the Lord but of his right foot only, through which his last contact with earth occurred. Between 388 and 392 a.d., at the ­instigation of Saint Helen, the mother of the emperor Constantine, a ­patrician noblewoman, had a chapel built which was centered on the rock with the imprint. The architecture had the form of a rotunda and kept the roof overhanging the rock open to the sky, so that ­pilgrims could imagine the scene of the Ascension. Eight centuries later, in 1198, the mosque that we see today was built on this site. Part of the chapel was preserved, however, with its rock which can still be venerated there.

This imprint is a sign that, according to his promise, the Lord ­remains present in our lives after his ascension. Certainly, this ­presence is hidden but nonetheless real in its different ­sacramental forms, preeminently in the Blessed Sacrament, but also in the sign of his presence that we are personally called to be for each other, a sign that is up to us to make manifest by loving one another as the Lord loved us.

Pierre-Marie Dumont
The Ascension of Christ (1651), Francisco Camilo (1615–1673), Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. © akg-images.