The washing of the Feet by Ghislaine Howard
John 133-10
We do not wash each other’s feet in our culture, though some will have experienced the tenderness of this action by volunteering to have their feet washed symbolically at a Maundy Thursday service.
Although in general feet take a good beating throughout our lives, they can nevertheless be sensitive parts of the body. I once knew someone whose normal working day involved massaging people’s feet, and having also experienced it myself on one occasion, I understand that this treatment can be both energising and peaceful. We do, however, have equivalent actions that fit more comfortably into our cultural mores. Doing the washing-up can be a menial task – even if there is a dishwasher – and it can represent a willingness to act as a servant rather than a guest.
Peter, always so enthusiastic, so volatile, reacts to Jesus’s humble action with pent-up passion. Emotions were clearly running high that evening, and some of the statements and suggestions that Jesus had made during the meal were far from comforting. How could Peter, the rough and ready fisherman, allow his master to kneel before him to wash his feet?
When Jesus hints at the symbolism of his action, Peter gets the message and responds with the same vehemence. Maybe, as he demanded to be washed in his entirety, the words of Psalm 51 hovered at the back of his mind: Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow..
The beautiful muted colours of the acrylic the artist uses add to the harmony of the painting, as does the consonant relationship of the shapes of the two figures. Jesus and Peter completely fill the frame, a technique that often suggests that the people represented are in some way larger than life.
They are, in their own way, as imposing as Picasso’s sculptural figures of his ‘gentle giants’, painted in the 1920s, and they carry some of the same solid, calm goodness. In this work by Howard, the impact of the action is accentuated by the use of sand mixed into the paint, which gives a slight grittiness. Even the hues Picasso used in his Woman and Child bear some affinity with Howard’s palette.