An interpretation of death and religion in Judith Mason's Inferno (2006) and Purgatory (2007)

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the commissioned artworks entitled Walking with and away from Dante by Judith Mason. It is an interdisciplinary study that depends on a contingency approach that leaves scope not only for the investigation of the works from Mason’s point of view, but also allows for an interpretative reading of the artworks from a personal point of view. Notions of death and religion are explored from a Catholic and Pantheistic perspective. As outlined by Roy Clouser (2005) in The Myth of Religious Neutrality, religious beliefs fall into three categories: the pagan, the pantheistic and the Biblical types. Religion as a construct is a loaded term associated with doctrines, belief systems and the belief in a higher power. Religion may have disconcerting doctrines predicated on the notion that our eternal fate is either heaven or hell. Therefore, conditions and influences pertaining to religion often directs our understanding of death and possibly of afterlife. Mason’s interest in religion as depicted in the chosen paintings tends to depict a duality with regards to the concept of death. This dissertation focuses on Mason’s religious images and personal iconography with reference to what this imagery reveals about herself and her peculiar view of religion, death and eternal life. The chosen artworks represent a contemporary agnostic interpretation by the artist of Dante Alighieri’s La Divina Commedia. In this commission, Mason visually portrays Dante’s poetic writings of heaven, hell and purgatory. Questions arise on the obvious parallels that can be drawn between the symbology embedded in the artworks and the artist’s view of religion. The dissertation thus focuses on how Mason’s beliefs made manifest in the chosen works, Inferno (2006) and Purgatorio (2007). In spite of her views to the contrary, the works express a deep sense of religiosity; furthermore, the tension created in the use of dualistic constructs creates visual complexities that need to be investigated. In my view, Mason uses art as a visual embodiment to make sense of what she finds challenging to interpret – in this case, the concept of religion. In this sense, artmaking could be described as a form of therapy that she visually “verbalises” in order to portray her deepest thoughts and her personal outlook on complex issues. The present study emphasises the idea that this process of creation can lead to a form of spiritual or emotional “healing” for both Mason and the viewer. In this case, art functions as a mediator between her religious curiosity and her intuitive cynical agnosticism where she recognises death, and the result of this meditation is profound – the acceptance of one’s mortality in the face of the inevitability of death. Through the investigation of the chosen artworks and by suggesting that the artist exhibits a leaning towards Pantheism, the viewer could come to the conclusion that Mason comes to terms with death as an accepted reality of being human. In the commission Walking with and away from Dante, I found that Mason succeeds in expressing the incomprehensible; she renders the invisible visible.