It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph. So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid. Mark 15:42-47

Now the seed is buried in the soil...(and) a great lump of rock sits there like a great full stop. Timothy Ratcliffe

All his (Graham Sutherland’s) works from the late 1940s are influenced by photographs he saw of the victims of the Nazi concentration camps. Methodist Modern Art collection commentary.

Leadenness and inertness

A broken, limp, discarded body can be one of the most pitiable, disrespectful of sights, as Sutherland observed. It signals an ending and that ending may have been brutal, unfair, painful. It’s over. Sheer inertness and leadenness amplify and echo this state of affairs. A deathly silence descends and practicalities poke reluctant movement. The body is a splendid and profound thing that carries the heart and mind of both the person and of God. Joseph boldly and respectfully acknowledges the remaining presence, and his memories, of Jesus.

Andrew Hook