art in detail: the passion of the christ (part 2)

Art in Detail

The Passion of Christ

(part 2)

BOSCH, HieronymusEcce Homo1475-80Tempera and oil on oak panel, 71 x 61 cmStädelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt

BOSCH, HieronymusEcce Homo (detail)1475-80Tempera and oil on oak panel, 71 x 61 cmStädelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt

RAFFAELLO SanzioChrist Falls on the Way to Calvary1517Oil on panel transferred to canvas, 318 x 229 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid

RAFFAELLO SanzioChrist Falls on the Way to Calvary (detail)1517Oil on panel transferred to canvas, 318 x 229 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid

MASTER of the Starck TriptychThe Raising of the Cross c. 1480-1490Oil on panel, framed (right panel): 65.4 x 24 x 3 cm, framed (center panel): 65.3 x 48.3 x 3 cm, framed (left panel): 65.6 x 24 x 3 cmNational Gallery of Art, Washington

MASTER of the Starck TriptychThe Raising of the Cross (center panel) (detail)c. 1480-1490Oil on panel, framed (center panel): 65.3 x 48.3 x 3 cmNational Gallery of Art, Washington

MASTER of the Starck TriptychThe Raising of the Cross (right panel) (detail)c. 1480-1490Oil on panel, framed (right panel): 65.4 x 24 x 3 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington

MASTER of the Starck TriptychThe Raising of the Cross (left panel) (detail)c. 1480-1490Oil on panel, framed (left panel): 65.6 x 24 x 3 cmNational Gallery of Art, Washington

CRANACH, Lucas the Elder The Crucifixion of Christ (The Lamentation of Christ)1503Pine panel, 138 x 99 cmAlte Pinakothek, Munich

CRANACH, Lucas the Elder The Crucifixion of Christ (The Lamentation of Christ) (detail)1503Pine panel, 138 x 99 cmAlte Pinakothek, Munich

WEYDEN, Rogier van derDepositionc. 1435Oil on oak panel, 220 x 262 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid

WEYDEN, Rogier van derDeposition (detail)c. 1435Oil on oak panel, 220 x 262 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid

MEMLING, HansCompassion for the Dead Christ with a Donor1475-80Oil on oak panelGalleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome

MEMLING, HansCompassion for the Dead Christ with a Donor (detail)1475-80Oil on oak panelGalleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome

CARAVAGGIOThe Entombment of Christ 1602-03Oil on canvas, 300 x 203 cmPinacoteca, Vatican

CARAVAGGIOThe Entombment of Christ (detail)1602-03Oil on canvas, width of detail 118 cmPinacoteca, Vatican


Maria de Cleófas


Virgin Mary and Maria Madalena

GEERTGEN tot Sint JansMan of Sorrowsc. 1495Oil on panel, 26 x 25 cm Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht

GEERTGEN tot Sint JansMan of Sorrows (detail)c. 1495Oil on panel, 26 x 25 cm Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht

Art in Detail: The Passion of Christ(part 2)

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GEERTGEN tot Sint JansVir Dolorum (Man of Sorrows)

The title Man of Sorrows is derived from Isaiah 53:3-4, a passage that is often seen as predicting the coming of the Messiah. It was a very popular subject in the 15th century.

The painting shows several subjects from the Passion. Christ with the crown of thorns, standing in the grave, with the wound in his chest. The spear and the stick with the spunge are held by an angel, in the background.

In the top right are the instruments that were used to torture Jesus, including the pillar. The angel on the left is holding the nails that were used for the crucifixion.The persons in the foreground are Mary Magdalene (praying), and the mourning Mary and John the Evangelist.

By placing the figures close to each other and not showing them in full, Geertgen made an intimate composition out of the multitude of subjects. Tomb and cross give structure to the image. The golden background creates a warm glow.

BOSCH, HieronymusEcce Homo

“Behold the man!” Pontius Pilate presents Jesus to the raging crowd. Blood streams down his scourged body and drips on the ground. Can this sufferer be the son of God? Why does God not rescue his son? For the people this is proof of his blasphemy and they demand his punishment by death.

Hieronymus Bosch was not the first artist to paint this scene, which is recounted in the Gospel of St John. Yet he has enhanced the traditional way of depicting it with unmistakable elements of his own: the depravity of the people demanding Jesus’s death is conveyed in their grotesque faces.

The artist has also distributed symbols of malevolence; perfidy and squalor among the figures – the toad on the sign, the peculiar filter helmet, the arrow piercing the boot, etc.

Man’s sinfulness and, in the same breath, his need for salvation, were the Dutch master’s chief subjects. The figures of the patrons, for their part – just barely discernible at the lower edge – are depicted as followers of Jesus. This is seen in the words that have literally been put in their mouths: “Save us, Christ Redeemer!” Having been overpainted, the couple were hidden from view for nearly four hundred years and only re-exposed in 1983.

RAFFAELLO SanzioChrist Falls on the Way to Calvary

The painting was executed for the Santa Maria dello Spasimo in Palermo, partly by the school of Raphael. (It is called Lo Spasimo di Sicilia.) The church was dedicated to the grief and agony ('spasimo') of the Virgin when she witnessed the sufferings of Christ, and the true subject of Raphael's altarpiece is indeed the mutual gaze of Christ, stumbling beneath the weight of the Cross, and his distraught mother, who reaches out her arms in vain.

When the painting was being transported by sea to Sicily, it is supposed to have gone down with the ship, and to have drifted into the port of Genoa. Monks found it there and thought its appearance a miracle.

Philip IV, King of Spain bought the painting in 1622. In 1813 Napoleon took it as booty to Paris, where it was moved to canvas. In 1822 the painting was given back to Spain.

MASTER of the Starck TriptychThe Raising of the Cross

This rare example of an intact portable triptych from the late fifteenth century is further enhanced by its superb state of preservation.

In the center panel a jeering crowd watches and gestures angrily as the cross is raised. For the contemporary viewer the tattered blue garments and the striped robe and red cowl worn by the men at the right would have identified them as disreputable and marginal members of society. Two very different groups of onlookers are found on the wings.

On the left wing are the holy women: Mary Magdalene kneels in the foreground, Saint Veronica holds the sudarium bearing an imprint of Christ's face, while the weeping Virgin dries her tears with her light blue robe.

On the right wing in the foreground the bad thief, identifiable by his shaved head and ragged clothing, awaits his crucifixion. At the top are dark ominous storm clouds that have begun to move into the center panel.

CRANACH, Lucas the Elder The Crucifixion of Christ (The Lamentation of Christ)

In his period in Vienna, Cranach's style was astonishingly innovative, as seen in the Crucifixion of 1503, with its slanting perspective. The sparkling colour range he used at the time reveals unmistakable parallels with the Danube school, but it is not clear whether he came into contact with Albrecht Altdorfer, Wolf Huber and others.

The Crucifixion is depicted with the composition rotated: Christ's cross is on the right, and the thieves are on the left, the Virgin and St John are in the centre. The Virgin looks up at Christ. On the right beneath Christ's cross there is a broad view of a landscape with mountains and a lake with a moated castle. The sky is filled with dark clouds.

WEYDEN, Rogier van derDeposition

The earliest painting that can be ascribed to Rogier van der Weyden with any certainty is also the artist's greatest and most influential extant work.

At about 2.2 meters high and 2.6 meters wide, the painting is very large by the usual standards of Early Netherlandish pictures; in terms of concept it is truly monumental.

Ten figures in all cover the painted surface almost entirely, with their heads close to the upper edge of the panel. The body of Jesus has already been removed from the Cross, and is received by two elderly men, the bearded Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus. Surrounded by Jesus's mourning friends they are holding His dead body for a moment before setting it down.

Mary is sinking to the ground in a faint beside her son, and is supported by John, the favourite disciple of Jesus, and by one of the holy women. On the extreme right, the despairing Mary Magdalene seems on the brink of collapse.

MEMLING, HansLamentation

The donor is kneeling on the right, some see in it the donor portrayed with child in the Bucharest diptych, from roughly the same period. Memling was a superb portraitist and this painting underlines his probable apprenticeship to Rogier van der Weyden, in Brussels.

Attributed sometimes to the eighth sometimes to the ninth decade of the 15th century, the painting is in excellent condition, and comes from the artist’s mature period. As with most of the panels from this school of painting, the support medium is oak, which is almost completely immune to attack by woodworm.

It is a relatively recent addition to the gallery: it arrived in 1854, bought by Andrea Doria Pamphilj V, from the Roman painter Luigi Cochetti, along with some others, including the polyptych by the Maestro del Borgo alla Collina.

CARAVAGGIOThe Entombment of Christ

Of all Caravaggio's paintings, The Entombment is probably the most monumental. A strictly symmetrical group is built up from the slab of stone that juts diagonally out of the background.The painting is from the altar of the Chiesa Nuova in Rome, which is dedicated to the Pietà. The embalming of the corpse and the entombment are actually secondary to the Mourning of Mary which is the focal point of the lamentation.

Nothing distinguished Caravaggio's history paintings more strongly from the art of the Renaissance than his refusal to portray the human individual as sublime, beautiful and heroic. His figures are bowed, bent, cowering, reclining or stooped. The self confident and the statuesque have been replaced by humility and subjection.

The Passion of Christ is the story of Jesus Christ's arrest, trial and suffering. It ends with his execution by crucifixion. The Passion is an episode in a longer story and cannot be properly understood without the story of the Resurrection.

The word Passion comes from the Latin word for suffering.

The crucifixion of Jesus is accepted by many scholars as an actual historical event. It is recorded in the writings of Paul, the Gospels, Josephus, and the Roman historian Tacitus. Scholars differ about the historical accuracy of the details, the context and the meaning of the event.Most versions of the Passion begin with the events in the Garden of Gethsemane. Some also include the Last Supper, while some writers begin the story as early as Palm Sunday, when Jesus entered Jerusalem to the applause of the crowds.

The Passion is a story about injustice, doubt, fear, pain and, ultimately, degrading death. It tells how God experienced these things in the same way as ordinary human beings.

The most iconic image of the Passion is the crucifix - Christ in his last agony on the cross - found in statues and paintings, in glass, stone and wooden images in churches, and in jewellery.The Passion appears in many forms of art. It is set to music, used as a drama and is the subject of innumerable paintings.

Spiritually, the Passion is the perfect example of suffering, which is one of the pervasive themes of the Christian religion.

Suffering is not the only theme of the Passion, although some Christians believe that Christ's suffering and the wounds that he suffered play a great part in redeeming humanity from sin.

Another theme is incarnation - the death of Jesus shows humanity that God had become truly human and that he was willing to undergo every human suffering, right up to the final agony of death. Another is obedience - despite initial, and very human, reluctance and fear, Jesus demonstrates his total acquiescence to God's wishes.

But the final theme is victory - the victory of Christ over death - and this is why the Passion story is inseparable from the story of the Resurrection.

art in detail: the passion of the christ (part 2)

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