Maria Bieńkowska-Kopczyńska is a painter, a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. She lives near Kraków, where she has her own studio. She created an extraordinary Way of the Cross, in which only the face of Jesus is visible. We ask her where this idea came from and how the paintings were created.
Małgorzata Bilska: How did it come about that you created the Way of the Cross from paintings in which only the face of Christ is visible?
Maria Bieńkowska-Kopczyńska: It started from the moment when after forty years I went to the sacrament of confession.
After forty years...?
...of atheism. I was a declared atheist. I always introduced myself as such. The Way of the Cross was created seven years after my conversion. During confession, the priest asked what I did, because he wanted to find out who he was dealing with. I said painting. And he asked if I had painted Christ. I was surprised, because if I did not believe, how could I take up such a topic? Although I know atheists who paint Him. It hit me hard in the heart then. However, I had maybe not anxiety, but responsibility for taking up the subject. The face of Christ must express something, it is not an indifferent portrait. I had to mature for this.
The time of seven years was necessary for me to liberate myself from all the wounds, the internal suffering that everyone carries within themselves. It would be unbearable if I painted Christ with some unforgiveness within me. I would then paint my suffering, not His... The moment I felt internal healing, freedom, I was ready.
The face of Jesus. The Way of the Cross
However, painting Christ is not the same as painting the Way of the Cross.
They are connected. The essence of Christ's coming to earth, the essence of incarnation, was the moment of death and redemption. I do not like images of a sweet, Hollywood Christ. He had love in him, not the light sweetness that we would like to see. He knew why he was here and what awaited him.
Did your conversion take place on a pilgrimage to Italy?
I went to confession on Mount Gargano. I didn't want to confess or convert at all. It was probably the result of the prayers of my mother and other people who interceded for me. I went there just to see Giotto's frescoes in the basilica in Assisi - with a tourist guide, not with a prayer book. It was a surprise to me. On Mount Gargano, on the feast of Michael the Archangel, I experienced the presence of God. I heard clearly that this was a time of grace for me and that if I didn't take advantage of it, grace would not come a second time.
When God comes, a person has no doubts. He doesn't have to ask, he knows exactly. The experience of God's presence makes him act on impulse. Under the influence of what he hears - and he gives in to it. Michael the Archangel fought for my soul. It happened to be the day of indulgence of the three Archangels, a clear intervention.
The path of Jesus' life
You have angels as guardians...
Right after my conversion, I painted angels, the Annunciation. And only then Christ.
It's beautiful! It shows the path of Jesus' life: from the Annunciation, so from the moment of conception, to death.
Exactly. My paintings are quite dynamic, expressive. After my conversion, I started painting very gentle, warm ones. I didn't even expect that I could paint like that.
When I came to terms with myself, I was able to paint His suffering, but also love. Jesus' eyes are not terrifying, because they are full of love. Even when I write in my meditations for the Way of the Cross that there is a lot of blood and suffering, in his eyes he has only love. A person turns away from terrifying images of suffering, he is unable to bear the suffering of others. The faces of Christ do not emanate suffering. He suffers, but in Him there is love. Suffering and love are inseparable.
PAINTED WAY OF THE CROSS
This is a common mistake that Christians also make. We forget that the cross makes no sense at all if God did not love us with the crazy love from the Song of Songs. In the name of love, we will do anything to save a loved one. Without love, there is no cross.
Yes.
The Way of the Cross is a meeting place. Jesus meets the Mother, Simon of Cyrene, Veronica, then the women. This struck me today, during your way, celebrated in the Capuchin church in Krakow.
To meet another person, you look them in the face. In the eyes, not at their silhouette or surroundings. There is no other meeting. You have to enter their soul, meet their eyes. Read their mood, their interior. I painted faces, not entire scenes, because they are not a compass, they do not help in contemplation.
I like it. I even have two arguments for showing the Way of the Cross in this way. The first, philosophical – the face of the Other in Emmanuel Levinas's concept is a condition for the existence of a relationship. The face is important, crucial. The second is related to the change in communication and the emergence of cyberspace. There, we do not meet face to face at all, we are left with emoticons.
Only we don't send God a text message. And we can look Him in the face through Jesus or not at all.
What are the reactions to your Way of the Cross?
I often encounter a deep, powerful experience. People often hug me and thank me. I admit that I experience it myself. I can never pass the station when they give the body to the Mother. After so many years, it still moves me greatly.
When I wrote the meditations, they were not invented to put something nicely into words. I arranged photos of the paintings and wrote as if I was talking to Christ. That is why this Way of the Cross does not moralize. It is an encounter with Him.
The thirteenth face (Jesus taken down from the cross) made the greatest impression on me, pale. On others there is full of blood. I had the feeling that I was looking at the face of a man who had died. He is not alive.
This is the only station where Jesus has his eyes closed.
WAY OF THE CROSS AT HOME
The face of Jesus. An extraordinary Way of the Cross
How many years have you been painting the way?
In one Lent.
Painting was a form of prayer?
Of course. Every morning I prayed and asked for grace so that I could paint Christ. It wasn't spectacular, I did it for myself. I wanted to enter into His passion. By painting, I wanted to get closer to Jesus, to share with Him in everything He experienced. Besides, regardless of the subject taken, an artist must open up, enter the depth of the subject. Art is a great commitment of the psyche, spirit and body. If you paint a garden, you can smell the flowers on the canvas.
It is difficult to paint fourteen faces of the same person, one after another. This monotony reminded me of playing a monodrama in the theater: few resources at your disposal. What was the greatest difficulty?
I don't know. I don't remember, I was so absorbed in painting that these images simply created themselves. I would arrive at the studio at five in the morning, and at five in the afternoon I would see that it was already dark and I had not had breakfast yet. Time itself flowed through me. It was contemplation. I sang to the Lord Jesus, I spoke to Him, sometimes I cried. It was a very surprising, intimate encounter with Him in my studio.
How can an average person contemplate the faces of Jesus? Assuming the boundary conditions: time and silence.
Look into your heart. Simply. Move it. Not sight, not hearing or voice. Eyes alone are not enough. This heart must be ready for the meeting. Love means that hearts meet.
Through the face to the heart?
Through the heart to the face.