The Mother Mary, with the strength of the wounded female, shakes off the hands of the soldiers who would like to throw her back and open her arms wide in an irresistible embrace. But the act remains incomplete. Her arms cut across the shadow of the cross of her Son and spread over it. Perhaps she rushed to free the Son, to untie from him that wood of shameful death. But in the shadow of that wood her eyes have inspected the clear and shining ones of Jesus. Perhaps right then she understood. And she approved. And shared. To each his own cross, extreme sign of love. “We all have our cross!” – he whispered – My cross is this one of shadow”! It is from that day that the shadows of the soul weigh more heavily than the pain for the body. The panel returns to a light blue, the non-color of the north and south, of day and night.

Armando Cattaneo