​STORY of Iesus Nazarenus Resorts, Inc. is another 1990 painting by de Veyra. First showed at a group show on religious art in 2018, it begs the question: if it’s a religious painting, why does it come with a seemingly satiric title that makes the painting come out as rather irreligious?

    That’s a good question, because the piece is religious in the sense that it tackles Christian philosophy rather than merely echoes another yet again Christian platitude. Let us explain.

    At the top of the canvas is a seascape beyond a resort fence, while in the canvas’ upper middle is an asphalt road intersection. The image of the asphalt roads’ intersecting results in what resembles a black crucifix, and by the painting’s title the viewer may approach this as an attempt by the artist to illustrate the Crucifixion of Jesus aniconically.

    However, as a Symbolist painting, it goes beyond mere aniconism, beyond merely connecting the quasi-abstracted images in the composition to the alluded Crucifixion. What de Veyra meant to present here is both an allegory of a basic tenet in Christian philosophy and then a critique of many Christians’ views that seem to go against that very philosophy Christians tout themselves to be devout followers of.

    Let’s elucidate further. Let us enumerate the details of de Veyra’s Symbolist composition and talk about the visual arguments embedded in those details as we go along, if there are already arguments there.

    First, the intersecting asphalt roads. The intersection depicts a black cross, and at the top of the verticall-appearing road is what looks like a gate-cum-guardhouse with a door. On top of this door is a sign that has the letters “INRI,” commonly understood as an acronym for “Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum,” but here corrupted to stand for “Iesus Nazarenus Resorts, Inc.,” as per the painter’s title. Presumably, with that title, de Veyra is parodying businesses that use Jesus’ or saints’ or angels’ names.

    Now, this guardhouse-cum-gate, though sporting a peaceful white wall, has a blood-red roof for a crown. We’ll go into this peace-war or life-death duality symbolism here later; let’s just note down that image.

    Now, second, there are the rocks foregrounding the canvas’ left side. Okay. If this vertical landscape composition means to depict the Crucifixion of Jesus, then those foreground rocks on the canvas’ left must signify Jesus’s disciples. St. Peter was himself called The Rock, and every Christian church has been referred to as a rock, while Jesus was wont to preach atop a humble rock or mound (according to many artistic depictions). Note, also, that the rocks seem to appear as having eyes, which may expand to either negative contexts involving anthropocentrism or positive ones involving Taoist philosophy and man’s relationship with a living nature.

    Third, there is that large white X harshly interfering with the landscape’s presentation, appearing like a white X on a building’s newly-installed glass wall or window. This X could signify the spears of the centurions at the Crucifixion of Jesus, one of which spears supposedly inflicted a wound on Jesus’ right side. Aesthetically, this X also “wounds,” or interferes with, our comfortable landscape view of the resort front.
    One of this X’s upper points, the one piercing the vertical road’s right side, does seem to touch a red gash on that part of the road. Now, this red gash may be understood as blood on the road, with which you could surmise that it’s perhaps been from a car accident or from an animal roadkill or some blood-looking spilled red paint, although we may also know it would handily signify the spear-piercing incident at the Christ’s Crucifixion.

    That spear-piercing would actually reference, or actually quote, a long-held tradition in Christian art of putting that spear wound on Jesus’ right side. That tradition has been alluding to Jesus’ saving of the soul of the penitent thief Dismas, who was crucified to Jesus’ right.

    Now, here is that fourth detail in the painting that perhaps ought to be discussed: for speaking of Dismas, notice that the vertical road’s curve to its left, which is to Gestas’ side, appears to be the quicker and perhaps most-often-taken turn, while the curve to the road’s right, to Dismas’ side, appears to be the harder and likely less-often-taken turn. Along with that symbolism, a bush grows on the cross’s right side, while the grass to its left seems to be drying or dying. The parking lot to its left also has a parking meter (you pay), while the parking facility at its right has none (you only have to choose it). Furthermore, the gray asphalted or concrete-topped parking lot to the cross’s left seems to sport an island-cum-plant box that looks like a coffin, representative of death.

    What a bundle of symbols, you might complain. But if you would indulge the painting further, there’s still a fifth item, perhaps more.

    So, fifth, . . . the two empty parking lots could reference an oncoming populace who could then be on the crucified Jesus’ shoulders once they come to park here, ready to be saved or not.

    Now, sixth, . . . going back to the large X looking like a newly installed glass window’s traditional/functional X, . . . that could also be hinting at a “wall” between here (the viewer’s position) and there (beyond the glass). This implies a behind-the-glass landscape, then, presumably the land of Christianity, which presumably is not a land that you can just point to and declare as being in/on; it is a land that you have yet to go to and take a steps toward, first by opening or breaking that glass wall separating the here from the there. It could even refer to a community of religious Christian religious here who are observing all the rituals of Christianity but have yet to actually live the Christian philosophy in order to be accepted there.

    Now, seventh: if the sea is a symbol for life, the hazards of life, and then also of death, then it would also be an apt symbol for Christian philosophy, this philosophy being one which merges death with a happy afterlife, a life with Jesus and God. Incidentally, notice the welcoming (albeit a bit fearsome) royal purple sky above this sea? Notice also the cloud/s that seem/s to form a halo above the vertical road?

    Now, the beach is a symbol of fun and living, which could here be the symbol for happy Christian living, Christian life being a kind of living supposedly not fearful of being near seascapes of hardship and death, being faithful towards that Christian sea of life and death and resurrection. This, then, according to the painting’s symbology and argument, is the very crux of Christian philosophy, a philosophy that treats of issues concerning war/peace, life/death, and punishment. Those who campaign for the death penalty, therefore, in the name of Christianity, misunderstand the concept of punishment as well as death in the Christian philosophical context.

    However, and this would be the painting’s eighth point, . . . while true Christian living is not fearful of death (and cannot therefore be deemed as a form of punishment to the devout Christian), . . . neither is it fearful of life. Thus the presence of a lifeguard in the painting’s composition, as symbol of a beautiful human being who could be preaching about the beauty of life, who, while not fearful of death and decay in their athleticism and courage, stays appreciative of their own and others’ life, protective therefore of everyone’s body and mental health and constant safety.

    Finally, for the painting’s ninth point, . . . if there are disciple “rocks” that would be seen in any depiction of Jesus’ Crucifixion, representing the rocks of old (except Peter who was presumably absent at the Crucifixion), the rocks beyond the resort fence in the painting (inside the Christian resort of Christian living looking out to the life-death-afterlife sea and to the royal purple sky above) must be representative of the new “rocks,” the new disciples of our era. These would, then, be the priests and preachers of true Christian philosophy, the true Christian philosophy espoused by the painting.

NOW, why the satiric title, Iesus Nazarenus Resorts, Inc.? Satiric, we say, because it was Che Guevara, quoting Pablo Neruda, who referred to the Church mockingly as “Christ, Inc.” The mockery was reporting the Church’s intermittent (or otherwise constant) involvement in institutional corruption within the capitalist systems of the world.

    However, that sardonic regard, while seemingly quoted or emulated in this painting via its title, is actually contextually reversed by the painting’s statement and arguments; reversed, because the embrace of a happy Christian life as described in it has been deemed similar to going to a fun beach resort. The appreciation of a sardonic tone is thus frustrated, also because the word “incorporated” is here consequently made to possess new Christian-community meanings beyond those connoting deceptive free-market associations or corporate corruption. . . .