Child embracing the Cross
Author: Unknown
Origin: Unknown
Dating: 18th century
Material: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions (cm): 91,9 x 71,2
Inv. no.: PNA66692 / PD0726dep
This theme is often represented in the Christian iconography depicting both Christ’s childhood as well as His death.
The serene beauty of the Child Jesus – wearing a white garment as symbol of purity – who seems to look us directly into the eyes, contrasts with the cross He embraces and the nails scattered all over the floor – foreseeing His destiny.
This aura also reminds us of the finiteness of life and that Christ came to the world – symbolized by a sphere at the base of the Cross – to redeem our sins. They are represented with the apple – that symbolizes original sin – and with the serpent coiled around the “world” – illustrating temptation and sin.
“Flora in the Palace’s Collections”
«The role played by the oak as the “tree of life” predates the testimonies of written history. Before the development of agriculture in Mesopotamia and in the Middle East, the cultivation and transport of oaks spread across Eurasia, linked to all human activity as the climate warmed. Oaks were a valuable food resource, as suggested by the evidence of consumption of acorns of the species Quercus ithaburensis and Q. calliprinos in caves that were occupied by humans.
The bonds between humans and oaks strengthened steadily, not only due to the supply of acorns, but also due to the totality of the uses for the tree’s parts in medicine, for fuel, in housing and in the symbolic representations. Undoubtedly, oaks favoured the establishment of the first settlements in Europe. During the Bronze Age, most of the lake dwellings, built on stilts at the edge of lakes, were made of oak trunks.
Through this close relationship and the direct observation of its longevity, strength, stability, resistance and fertility, these trees became associated with the noblest values of honor, bravery and justice, identified with the supreme gods of Antiquity both in the Mediterranean as in northern Europe (Zeus, Jupiter, Thor, Jumala) (BROSSE, 1989).
The oldest historical records report the spiritual relevance of oaks in the animistic practices of the Celtic peoples, who had expanded to various regions of Europe. The celebratory rites of the natural world had as their setting oak forests, where the Druids represented the interconnection between men and the underworld through the tree roots – and their interconnection with the firmament mirrored in the myriad of trunks that rose to the sky. Although there is no broad consensus among etymologists, even the word druid seems to come from dru‐wid, formed by the union of deru (oak) and wid (Indo-European root of “to know”).
It is likely that the versions – which multiplied regarding the type of wood that would have been the basis of lignum vitae, identified with the sacred wood of the Passion of Christ – emerged in the context of the prevalent Latin, Greek and Near Eastern cultures where the first patristic texts were established. Thus, cedar, olive and pine – or even cypress, palm and box – emerge as trees from which the wood came for the legend of the composite cross of the Passion where different attributes of the salvific order were attributed to each variety of wood. Another poetic version points to the wood of the poplar – from which the cross was made – for its leaves tremble at the slightest breeze – due to the horrible sadness and deep guilt that the tree feels.
However, oaks – through allusions in Celtic and Norse myths, configuring the ancestral tree of life – reappear in the founding events of the Christian religion, as the conversion of peoples took place, although little of this background has been preserved.
The relics of the Holy Cross were among the most valuable that proliferated in numerous religious locations, most of which would be pine wood, although Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) – a Flemish Catholic humanist, trained in philology and philosophy, with vast empirical wisdom – had come to the conclusion that the fragments he had observed were probably of the oak species common in Palestine (LIPSIUS, 1670).
In this context, the tree depicted on the right in the painting Child Jesus embracing the Cross […] is most likely a pedunculate oak (Quercus robur), symbolizing one of the trees used to make the Cross.»
Sasha Assis Lima
