Balninkų rūpintojėlio skulptūra

ENThe Balninkai Christ in Distress sculpture is kept at the Vytautas the Great Military Museum (inv. No. BM–85). Until recently, it has been unknown from which church and how this item has been brought to the museum. Before World War II it belonged to the Church Art Museum and during the war to the Religious Art Museum. After the war, for some time it was kept at the Kaunas Theological Seminary. In 1958, the sculpture was brought into the then Kaunas Historical Museum. In the paper, the iconography and iconology of the Balninkai Christ in Distress are analysed. The content and meaning of the sculpture are revealed in the religious context of the Baroque epoch. The iconography of the Christ in Distress sitting on a stump is extremely rare. Only single examples are known when Christ in Distress is presented in such a manner. In literature and art, Christ in Distress is most often represented as sitting on a stone. However, in the scenes of Flagelation and Awaiting for Crucifixion, the stone may be replaced by a stump. The meditative literature says that after flagellation Christ was seated on a dirty stump. In the scene of Awaiting Crucifixion, the stump symbolizes a tree from which the cross was constructed. Another significant detail of the Balninkai Christ in Distress sculpture is the nakedness of Christ whose body is covered solely with a perizonium drapery thrown over the legs. On the back side it slipped down so much that Christ’s buttoks are seen. Christ‘s undressing was one of the way of His torturing. The baroque religious literature often emphasises that public denudation caused the moral sufferings which to Christ were more painful than His physical torments. [From the publication]