The Fourteen Stations of the Cross

Colin McCahon painted Fourteen Stations of the Cross, 1966 as a sequence which ideally was to be viewed from left to right. The artist paints the 14 events described in the New Testament, beginning with Christ being condemned and ending with his body being laid in the tomb after his crucifixion. Instead of setting this narrative in Jerusalem, the sequence is sited in New Zealand.

McCahon’s views constantly shift from land as seen from the sea, to hills as seen from a plain. While local landscapes are shown they are not specific to a particular place, but instead represent an imaginary journey. In simplifying New Zealand’s landscape McCahon enhances ambiguity and viewers are left questioning whether these are scenes of arrival or departure. Consequently, what started as a gospel narrative becomes a visual metaphor for journeys taken throughout life, in which one’s experiences link the past with the future. A few years after creating the work McCahon described the paintings’ meanings for him: ‘They are all concerned with man’s fall and his resurrection.’

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