A cardinal from Sri Lanka lands a Guido Reni...

During the November consistoryPope Benedict XVI created 24 new cardinals, assigning to each a “titular” church here in Rome. Making them in this way members of the Rome diocesan clergy, just like the Church’s first cardinals .
One cardinal, Malcom Ranjith of Sri Lanka, was allotted a minor basilica in the heart of Rome: “San Lorenzo in Lucina”. Veronica Scarisbrick went there with Professor of Fine Arts, Breda Ennis to gaze up in wonder at the focal point of this sacred space: a masterpiece by no other than Guido Reni in which this 17th century artist depicts the figure of Jesus hanging on the Cross with the backdrop of a menacing landscape : “…it’s like a sort of darkish landscape with what looks like the dome of Saint Peter’s on the horizon...and then floating up from all of that, at least it seems so even though the cross is in the ground ..the cross ...”
Professor Ennis feels that this painting by Reni is very modern : “.. he’s taken the Christ figure out of how we know it generally… with visible wounds, with blood dripping from the sides and from the hands …”
A lack of realistic details, she says , which projects the figure of Christ into a spiritual dimension of its own, suspended between heaven and earth.
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