In December 2023, the Holy See launched an international competition for the creation of a 14-station Way of the Cross to be temporarily exhibited in St. Peter's Basilica during Lent. Manuel Andreas Dürr, a 36-year-old Swiss painter from Biel, was working on a Via Crucis at the time. However, he was working in a very different context: that of the Protestant church of the Reformed community “Jahu,” a small local church to which he belongs, with a strong focus on ecumenism. A sign of Providence?
Informed and encouraged by a friend, this father of three, who considers himself “fairly close” to the Catholic faith from a theological point of view, finally agreed to submit a project — but “without much conviction,” he admits. At the time, he thought he’d be out of his depth. Nonetheless, in December 2024 the Vatican chose him. “It's a great honor, probably the highlight of my career,” he says.
Discovering the “global Church”
To create the 14 planned paintings, Manuel Andreas Dürr first visited St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. His first shock was to discover a “global Church” made up of people “of all ages, all continents, all social classes.”
“My own Church at home seemed very provincial to me!” he admits.
In the immense basilica, the painter explains that he also realized the difficulty of the task ahead of him. “It’s the fruit of a whole history, and therefore one of the most difficult places to add something new.” This is a far cry from what contemporary artists are generally used to, as they are most often called upon to hang their work on a “square of white wall.”
A great admirer of Italian culture, he decided to start from the artistic context imposed by the location and chose to draw inspiration from the great masters of Italian painting. He drew in particular on Michelangelo, but also on Fra Angelico, a painter he has grown to love over the years and whose work moves him particularly today.
A challenging subject
The other major challenge for him was the subject of the commission. “Painting Jesus is really difficult, because he's not someone I'm introducing to people; he's someone thousands of people know, and even have a personal relationship with,” he says.
Moreover, the Way of the Cross is a story that has influenced “all Christian art and all European culture,” the Swiss artist acknowledges. “Where the cross was once conceived as a subject of terror, instilling fear in the citizens of the Roman Empire, it has become something we wear around our necks as a symbol of hope,” he points out. His goal has therefore been to try to offer a new “entry point” to this mystery for pilgrims to the basilica.
After eight months of oil painting, followed by long weeks of waiting for his works to dry, he finally delivered his work, which was inaugurated on the first Friday of Lent. In the basilica, he went for the first time to contemplate the paintings, which are viewed by thousands of faithful walking by.
Of the 14 stations, he confides that his favorite is probably the one depicting Veronica discovering the imprint of Christ's face on the cloth she held out to him. He sees it as a kind of meta-commentary on his painting, as he also works on fabric canvases. “It gives dignity to what the painter is trying to do: offer a small trace of something deeper,” he says.
