Paula Rego's Map of Memory by Lisboa Maria Manuel

Author:Lisboa, Maria Manuel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

Amélia, the parishioner and spiritual daughter whom in moments of passion he calls filha (literally 'daughter' in Portuguese but translatable into English as a term of endearment such as 'baby'), is therefore the daughter, the mother, the lover and the Virgin. In all these roles, however, his agency upon her is a sullying one: he sullies the spiritual daughter whose weakness he abuses, the mother he incestuously desires, the lover he kills through a lethal pregnancy and the Virgin Mother he deflowers, kisses, makes love to or uses as an aid to masturbation. Thus in the scene in the sacristy, as depicted in The Ambassador of ]esus, a series of religious, social and blood taboos is simultaneously broken. The desecration is emphasised in two ways: in the backdrop to the profane event we discern scenes alluding first to the domesticity (the woman peeling vegetables) into which Amaro was made welcome by S. Joaneira (another mother or motherly woman whom he betrays by seducing her daughter); and second to the innocence which Amélia once possessed but later loses under his influence (as epitomised by the little girl on the chair playing with her doll).

Be that as it may, this picture presents us first and foremost with the negating moment in which Amaro, the representative (ambassador) upon earth of God the Father and God the Son, in polluting the Daughter (child), the Bride (as represented by the white dress worn by Amélia here), and the Mother (symbolised by the Holy Mother's blue cloak), encounters not paradisiacal pleasure but rejection. The sexual bliss that would have been the justifiable prize in exchange for which he gives his soul is replaced by denial, as indicated by the outstretched arm with which Amélia keeps him at a distance. In the novel, the aftermath of Amelia's horror at the outrage they have jointly perpetrated against the Virgin's sanctity is her refusal to make love the same day, thus denying her despotic father–lover his sexual rights, and the little boy his Oedipal wish. In Rego's picture, the reaction to the paternal or priestly hand on her forehead and the libidinous one on her thigh (echoes of the policeman's daughter's raping/ministering hands, figure 32) goes one step beyond sexual rejection. Her posture mirrors that of the angel above her head (which prefigures that in Angel, plate 15, also in this series) and acts as an implied exorcism.

In Paula Rego's vision, the transgression against God the Father implied in the attempted abduction of the Bride and Mother by a priest who has betrayed his vows signals the disintegration of masculine solidarity across secular and divine lines. Amaro breaks ranks, but this betrayal does not even gain the filial/Oedipal/sexual pay-off for which it would have been worthwhile risking damnation. The mirror into which he cannot, or forgets to, look, reflects back at us, if not at him, the regressive image of the motherless and mother-loving child who will never find compensation for that earlier maternal loss: not through narcissism and

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