Momento Mori by Hinchcliffe and Hodgson
19 October 2007 | Published in Audio, Prose
Momento Mori by Hinchcliffe and Hodgson has been inspired by the painting, “Man with Skull” by an anonymous follower of Jose de Riberra. The picture can be seen in the Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield.
Monk:
I’m the anonymous brother of an austere religious order. I have shaved my head to deprive myself of my once sensuous locks. I could be a Jesuit, Carmelite, Augustinian-Recollect or even a Saint - Ignatius or John - but most importantly I have devoted my life to our Lord Jesus Christ in the belief that the Church of Rome is the one true religion.
The back of your hard, rounded head is held tightly in my hand and I’m searching in the deep hollow recesses where your eyes used to be.
Skull:
I am only a skull held tightly in your hand, Holy brother.
What you see is trickery and deception. Created with chiaroscuro. Light (Chiara) and dark (Scuro). Painterly manipulation of pigment applied sparingly and economically in parts, generous and abundantly in other areas. A clever trick! Our painter… our creator… is a good magician. He gives the flat surface depth. He makes illusions of us and we advance and recede even though we are not here.
I have seduced you, haven’t I? Fleshless, though I am, you search inside my eyeless sockets and your eyes have the appetite to devour me… don’t they!
Monk:
I come from a strictly disciplined order of the church with shared ascetic, self denying ideals; obedience to the church without question, subservience to the Almighty through the example of his son our Lord Jesus Christ and redemption through the grace of God’s gifts in our lives. We believe in poverty, simplicity and the purification of the soul.
Skull:
Your words are not authentic. They are born out of the cultural and social conditions in which you exist. Both of us together are an image of high drama. A theatrical double page advertisement for the Catholic Church, designed to bring back the unfaithful; to strengthen; to re inspire and re direct people to your “true way”, after all the dreadful damage and doubt caused by that Martin Luther Reformation and the competition!
Monk:
This is a Counter Reformation painting about the right way to live and the right way to die.
Skull:
Ah! So you agree! We are but signs and symbols. I with my fleshless stare appear to be death and you with your rude and ruddy form appear to be life, constructed with all your desires and agonies. We’re potent but not the real thing. Not like Real radio or Real Madrid or Coca Cola - It’s the real thing! What the world wants today is the real thing.
Monk:
Don’t talk to me in riddles! My light and your darkness reveal that salvation is fraught with endless difficulties and dangers. I am moving towards my salvation if I am good enough and my damnation if I am not. I am tempted to wish it could all be different. Sometimes I wish for it to be so easy. Easy pleasure… without consequence. No guilt. But then I make soft pornography with denial. I feel its soft absence. Its rouge appetite, which is not for satisfying. Denial is in the here and now. This moment And the ever after.
Skull:
Long long ago everything I was told I believed in. I have rejected all of that now and believe in my flesh. I am a diamond-encrusted skull. Young girls wearing diamante skulls as belt buckles. Glittering jaws resting on their pubic bones. I am come to life on their t-shirts, hanging from their ear lobes and spread indelibly, tattooed across the taught skin at the base of their spines. You are right holy brother. The indulgence is for the here and the now. This moment And the ever after.