Crucifixion

'Aitchison was especially impressed by Roman Catholicism, expecially Mass in Edinburgh's cathedral. He does not consider himself 'religious' in the dictionary's definition of being 'monastic' or 'pious'; but he is a believer and is especially drawn to Catholicism though, he says, probably for the wrong reasons, the 'glamour and candles'. There is humility in this admission, as there is awe of revelation in his religious pictures. Invariably the crucifixes and other subjects of his religious works are copied from objects in his collection. Sophisticates despise such objects as kitsch, aesthetically bereft and indulging only craven superstition ... Aitchison's Crucifixions may usually be inspired by simple religious ornaments but they end up as Calvaries. His figures of Christ on the Cross have a compassion and soulfulness worthy of a medieval artist ... There are some notably dark crucifixions, with the dark green of the hill blending with the dark blue of the sky. 'It was in Italy that I really discovered that raw umber and dark colours could be just as glamorous as bright ones,' he told Andrew Lambirth in 1989. It makes the white body of Christ, in Helen Lessore's description for his 1981 Serpentine show, 'purified from all accidents of the flesh or material body'; as white as the tree trunks in the Tulliallan landscapes forty years ago, made the more ethereal by a thicker use of surrounding paint' (see J. McEwen, Exhibition catalogue, Craigie Aitchison, London, Timothy Taylor Gallery, 1998, pp. 3, 8).