The black Christ - A journey to freedom (Paperback)

In his celebrated oil painting 'The black Christ', artist Ronald Harrison chose Chief Albert Luthuli as a model for the face of the Christ. He modeled the two centurions on John Vorster and Hendrik Verwoerd, the arch-exponents of apartheid. For this bold act of worship and defiance and his subsequent refusal to divulge the whereabouts of the painting, Ronald Harrison was incarcerated, tortured and harassed. The Black Christ tells the story of these events and, beyond that, the story of man's inhumanity to man.

The painting, which was unveiled in 1962 at St Luke's Anglican Church in Salt River, Cape Town, with the permission of Archbishop Joost De Blank, caused a stir when featured in local newspapers. The Minister of the Interior instructed that it be taken down, and the young artist was ordered to appear before the Censor Board. In the ordinary course of events, the painting would have been destroyed. Instead – in what the author sees as divine intervention – it was not confiscated, but was successfully hidden and smuggled abroad, where it played a key role in raising funds for victims of apartheid, including the Rivonia treason trialists. The miraculous recovery of the painting and its return to South Africa after more than 30 years - it is now held at the South African National Gallery in Cape Town - are part of the dramatic story of 'The Black Christ'.

Harrison's painting is an example of the use of art for political resistance. The use of popular or controversial figures was common in Renaissance art, as Harrison was quick to understand and appreciate. His symbolic representation of Luthuli, Vorster and Verwoerd (with an Asiatic St John in the background and Mary Magdalene modeled on the artist's mother) reflected 'a young man's anger, an older man's belief in divine providence, a nation's painful history and still raises political and theological issues'.