Christmas Eve 2013

"Portrait of the Artist as Jesus Christ," © 1966 Norval Morrisseau
/Click on image to Enlarge/-


"I have always been attracted to religious paintings, but only the ones that had that mystical or supernatural quality in them, especially Saint Teresa by Bernini. Just looking at Saint Teresa I get some kind of vibrations from it. I can close my eyes and feel them. That's great art, and it brings on that tingling sexual feeling. Other saints, like Saint Sebastian, do that as well. But the Christ figure was always the one that was dominant for me.That's why I say that Christ to me is still the greatest shaman, and that is why some religious visions are so complex, and so very hard to explain to people. So whenever you are looking at my pictures, you are looking at my visions, whatever they may be."

Norval Morrisseau
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*The painting in this post: "Portrait of the Artist as Jesus Christ", 65"x30", © 1966 Norval Morrisseau. Image of this painting can be found on page 82 in "The Art of Norval Morrisseau" /Sinclair, Lister, Jack Pollock, and Norval Morrisseau/ -Toronto, Ontario: Methuen, 1979./