artistic license or don’t mess with the jesus

I took an afternoon walk to the neighbouring village and explored the old churchyard to find a creepy and unsettling sculpture just in time for Halloween. This large bronze figure dominated the entrance to the cemetery and featured a detailed skeletal figure that was inverted, like it had fallen from the cross and was hanging, upside down. Click on the images to see the features, which are a little washed out from the darker exposure in miniature.

The tablet to the side reads "Death has no more power." A lot of variations on a theme are out there, displaying craftsmanship and commissions for public art in good faith but there is something a bit disconcerting in such a departure from the traditional, whose symbolism is inscrutable and yet no parody and only piety and memento mori is intended. The image and the wonder haunted me the whole way home.