A New Crucifix for Oxford
I am delighted to share the completion of my most recent work: a large painted crucifix for the Oxford University Catholic Chaplaincy, created in homage to the great Florentine master Cimabue.
Cimabue’s monumental painted crosses of the late 13th century — especially those at Santa Croce in Florence and San Domenico in Arezzo — have long been a source of inspiration for me. They stand at the threshold between Byzantine formality and the Renaissance’s new humanism, profoundly shaping how Christ’s suffering was depicted in art.
My crucifix is not a replica but a dialogue with this tradition. The wooden support was carefully cut, joined and moulded, then prepared with traditional gesso and red bole before being gilded in 23-carat gold leaf. For the painting, I chose to work in Rublev oil colours with Venetian medium, rather than the egg tempera Cimabue himself would have used. This allows for a richness and depth of tone that reflects the aged beauty of Cimabue’s crucifixes as we see them today, rather than the raw brightness they would have had when new.
The lettering at the top — Hic est Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum (“This is Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”) — is based on Cimabue’s Arezzo crucifix, while the proportions and arrangement recall the Santa Croce crucifix. In this way, the Oxford crucifix unites both of Cimabue’s surviving masterpieces in a single act of homage.
The figures of the Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist stand as witnesses of grief and consolation at Christ’s side, while the gilded halo, borders and inscriptions carry forward the symbolic vocabulary of medieval devotion.
It has been a long and absorbing process — from carpentry and preparation, through bole, gilding, and tooling, to the final layers of paint and glaze. The result, I hope, is a work that honours Cimabue’s genius while also speaking afresh to worshippers and visitors in Oxford today.
The crucifix will soon take its place in the Chaplaincy chapel, continuing a tradition of sacred art that stretches back more than seven centuries.
