Dark Places: The Movement of the Image (Thoughts on the work of Veronica Brady)

Abstract

Fra Angelico’s painting, Pious Women at the Tomb (1440), depicts four tragically bewildered women looking for the absent body of Christ. One holds her hand at her brow like an explorer, and is peering down into his marble casket as into a vastly deep well. Three others stand by, sadly dumfounded. Behind the women, floating in air, is an image of the risen Christ, autonomous, autotelic, blazing in a mystical disc. But the women all look the wrong way and are left bereft. An angel points to the vision, but still their gaze is misdirected. A Dominican monk kneels in reverence before the empty space; a passage of gospel script instructs as to the correct sign to read; still, the four women stare into darkness

Keywords

• Veronica Brady
• memoriam
• postcolonialism
• Australian Studies