The Lamentations of Petrus Christus and Ludovico Carracci - Assignment Example

The Lamentations of Petrus Christus and Ludovico Carracci Here we have two renderings of the Lamentation of Christ, a subject done and redone by many artists over the centuries, always compelling and unique to the painter’s style and often reflective of the times they were created in. These two by Petrus Christus and Ludovico Cattacci are no exception. Both pieces attempt to capture the identical moment in time when Jesus was taken down from the cross and while the event is the same for both pieces and there are certainly other similarities, these both represent quite differing aspect of the event, both psychologically and pictorially. Petrus Christus was born Belgium circa 1410/1411 and died circa 1475/76. His mentor, Jan van Eyck certainly inspired his style and many of Christus’ painting have often been confused with van Eyck’s. After the death of Jan van Eyck in 1441, the most important Bruges painter was Petrus Christus, who has usually been considered as a pupil of Jan, despite the fact that he is not certainly recorded in Bruges until 1444. Stylistically, he comes the closest to Jan in his realism and in his rather dispassionate quality, though he never achieves the same virtuosity.1 The predominance of van Eyck’s style is certainly seen in the intimation of depth and in his use of light and shade by Christuss help to give his figures volume and breadth.. However, his work, is much more simple and straight forward emphasizing the fundamental forms and shapes. This in stark contrast to van Eycks refined almost elaborate detailing with rich textures and discriminating modeling.2 This places Christus in the northern European tradition of Gothic Art that was now being influenced by the increasing popularity of the Italian Renaissance, a style that became known as Northern Renaissance. These works were more technique oriented and less concerned about actual anatomic structures. However, the works of this period were extremely detailed in the creation of effect as well as body and garment intricacies. The Florentine humanists thought that geometric principles could unlock mysteries at the heart of the universe and reveal the intentions of a God who was, if one only knew how to go about it, eminently understandable and had created the universe for human enjoyment.3 (Hartt p. 195) So while there can certainly be seen a rather dispassionate quality in his work, Christus’ rendering of the lamentation, which has an almost photographic quality that can often be found in certain styles of folk painting. The dimensionality and scale of it is also similar to folk art in the two dimensional portrayal of the background scenes of distance and landscape. He is also classified and a Netherlandish Artist. This style initially was at odds with current favorites of the period: [There] was little serious interest in early Netherlandish painting at the time. The apparently primitive style and the religious subject matter clashed with the taste of the aristocrats, who preferred the Italian High Renaissance, the Baroque, and the Rococo. Indeed, collectors rarely purchased northern European panels of the 1400s and early 1500s. 4(Ridderbos 176) The Lamentation was painted circa. 1450. The medium is oil on wood and is 10 1/8 x 14 in. overall with a painted surface 10 x 13 3/4 in. The basic museum description is as follows: The Gospel of John (19:33–41) inspired this rendition of the Lamentation, in which both Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus tend to the dead body of Christ. Mary Magdalene and Saint John come to the aid of the swooning Virgin, who collapses in sympathetic response to her son. This is one of Christuss most beautiful and affective paintings and underscores the strengths of his best work: simplicity of design and clarity of depiction. 5 The essential overall color and hue of the work is of dark earth-tones, which adds some solemnity to the setting. Mary is dressed in black and the others in shades of brunt orange to green and brown. Jesus is painted much as one would imagine him from the shroud of Turin or from any crucifix. The classic wounds appear in his hands and feet and the one in is side from the guards spear is readily apparent. The Virgin Mary’s face is that of a fainting person, eyes closed with little expression as Mary Magdalene, whose face is full of worry and concern rushes to her side. St. John is behind the Virgin, his face with an almost unconcerned repose, keeping her from falling. Joseph of Arimetha and Nicodemous hold the ends of the shroud as they lift Jesus up with it. Joseph looks to Nicodemus who has a look of sadness and despair on his face. Joseph appears to be encouraging him to lift the body of Jesus and hurry before the guards come back. Behind Nicodemous to the right thee is the bottom of one of the cross’s going up and out of the frame. Next to if are fragments of bones and a skull on the ground. The background to the left behind the rushing Mary Magdalene is a road with two figures walking on it and towards the wall of either a castle or a town in the distance. The ground around the scene is unremarkable except for its slightly olive color in it hue. The overall effect has an feeling similar when one looks at a Russina Icon, sacred yet passionate. Ludovico Carracci was an Italian Artist born in 1555 and died in 1619. One of the oldest of the Carracci family, Ludovico may have inspired the artists to develop their style that shifted Italian painting away from Mannerism. Mannerism was an artistic style which gained great popularity after High Renaissance. Raphael and Michelangelo Buonarroti are both prime examples of this.6 This was a style of great technical accomplishment but also of rote, often highly theatrical and extremely stylized work. Mannerist art is identified by its complex, almost ornate, composition with muscular and elongated figures in complex poses. The Carracci’s trained most of the later Bolognese painters such as Domenichino and Guernico. They also influenced these younger painters to draw form life and emphasize realistic form. 1582, the date of his version of The Lamentation, is the same year that Carracci established an academy later named Accademia degli Incamminati of “those who have set forth” supposedly on the path to artistic genius. Also known as the Eclectic Academy of Painting is was similar to an artist saloon, starting out as a room where artist of the age and area came to discuss their craft 7 When Agnostino and Annibale left for Rome at the end of the sixteenth century, Ludovico ran the academy single-handedly. Ludovico rejects affectation in a design that marries clarity and drama to a brilliant effect8 He helped to develop the Bolognese School. Carraci’s Lamentation, as has been stated, was painted in 1582 and is composed of oil on canvas measuring 37 1/2 x 68 in. The following is the museum description: The figure of Christ, based on a posed model, has been painted with a directness and lack of idealization that sixteenth-century critics found shocking. Christs right hand is distorted, as though it had been broken as he was taken down from the cross. His left arm, reverently cradled by Mary Magdalene, appears dislocated. The Virgin—shown as a plain, middle-aged woman rather than young and beautiful—has fainted at the sight of her son laid pathetically across her lap.9 In some ways this painting is similar to the Pieta by Michelangelo, Jesus laying dead across the Virgin Mary’s Lap, yet this version has more pain and sorrow, than awe and beauty in it. Perhaps it is all the faces that surround the body are in different stages of anguish. Here the Virgin Mary’s dress is a light red and draws your attention immediately to her. All the other standing figures are in dark clothes so that all that remains of them are almost disembodied heads floating in a dark background. Mary Magdalene is staring with almost a confused and sorrowful look as she stares at the broken wrist of Jesus. Christ’s body, also lying across a white shroud, has a great arch in His back which, to the viewer, seems painful and creates the sense of the damage that had been done to Him while on the cross. There is only a alight hint of the stigmata here as evidence by the spear-mark in His chest and only on hole in his left foot is visible. They are quite downplayed here. The emphasis is more on the passion of the faces and forms and not necessarily the details of the scene, which is a hallmark of the Bolognese style. In his paintings of religious subjects, Lodovico always gave the figures in his works strong gestures surrounded by a glowing play of light and shadow. It is through the interplay of these hues that he was able to create sense of both sacred mystery and passionate spiritual sensations.10 In comparing these two paintings the viewer is first immediately stricken by the impression that one painting is a scene, the other scenery. In Chirstus’ Lamentation we have a painting that is set in scenery. The Cross to the right and the city wall and the road leading there to the left, all are under a full and open sky the shade of light pastel lavender. The creation of an landscape while at once objectifying the rendering also creates a sense of its inclusion in the world as a whole, a more global perspective on the death of Christ. The perspective in Caracci’s version is almost the complete opposite. It is an up close and personal version of the Lamentation as seen through the eyes of the participants. There is virtually no background, no landscape, only the scene of grief and personal human emotions is coloring the canvas. The viewer does not truly know whether the characters in view are outside in the open of inside a cave. Even the way the viewer if guided to look at the painting by the artist is different for both. In Christus’ work the eye is drawn from left to right in a concave arch. It begins with the city in the upper left, leads down the road and then across the shroud that is lifting the body of Jesus, then back up and to the right at the foot of the cross. This U shape is almost inescapable when viewing the painting. In Caracci’s work the attention is drawn by the colors and light in the work, first to the Virgin Mary in Red in the center, then to the white shroud and the body of Jesus, and then the eye is allowed to ramble over the rest. This also gives a sense the viewer the sense of discord that is a part of the scene. Lamentation is the key element between both works. They both give one the sense of awe and mystery surrounding the event, as well as the personal sorrow and lament of the participants. In Christus’ painting this is in the faces of those gather as well as in the scene. By Nicodemus we see the nails that have been pulled out of Jesus arms and legs, along with the tool used to accomplish the task.. In Carracci’s it is again in the faces there, but the action of the painting gives us the feeling of the scene, discord, pain and anguish. Works Cited The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists. Ed. Ian Chilvers. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Harris, Ann Sutherland. Seventeenth-Century Art & Architecture. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005. Ludovico Carracci. Works of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2008. metmuseum.org 30 October 2008 Minor, Vernon Hyde. Baroque & Rococo: Art & Culture. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999. Murray, Peter, and Linda Murray. The Art of the Renaissance. New York: Praeger, 1963. Petrus Christus. Works of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2008. metmuseum.org 30 October 2008 Ridderbos, Bernhard, Anne Van Buren, and Henk Van Veen, eds. Early Netherlandish Paintings: Rediscovery, Reception, and Research. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2005. Read More