An exercise in failure

Station of the Cross, St Alban's Holborn

I don't know how the painter managed this.

It's a cleaned-up image of a crucified man. Nobody who'd been flogged and then nailed up would be this clean, that's for sure.

But the blood is on the heads of those who crucify him - and also poured out on the the ones that mourn him. It's also hanging in the darkling sky, as the horizon turns to blood.

And the angle of the head - the exhaustion on the face - the sheer failedness of the composition - it's a powerful image.

If I were half as much a failure as this guy, the image is saying, I'd be pretty down as well.