19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 10 - Jesus Mocked by the Soldiers

Title: Jesus Mocked by the Soldiers
Artist: Edouard Manet
Medium: Oil on board
Size: 190.82 x 148.27 cm
Date: 1865
Location: The Art Institute of Chicago.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 10

Mark 15:16-18 The soldiers took Jesus into the governor's palace (called the Praetorium) and called all the other soldiers together. They put a purple robe on Jesus and used thorny branches to make a crown for his head. They began to call out to him, "Hail, King of the Jews!"

Manet depicts the moment when Christ’s captors mock the “king of the Jews” by crowning him with thorns and covering him with a purple robe. Unlike more traditional academic religious painting that portrays Jesus as a divine, other-worldly being, the figure here is not idealized. Jesus is depicted as human and vulnerable, awkwardly posed and un-heroic in demeanor. In fact, it is the soldiers themselves who reveal Christ’s divinity to the viewer. Far from being the torturers whose violent gestures populate art history, these are men who seem almost stunned in the presence of Christ. The torturer with the rod kneels in homage more than he readies himself for his cruel task; the fur-clad figure at the right holds Christ's cloak as if it were a royal robe. Because of its decidedly rebellious presentation of the subject, Jesus Mocked by the Soldiers was received at the 1865 Salon with an outburst of negative criticism.

Édouard Manet (January 1832 – April 1883) was a French painter. As one of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. His early masterworks, The Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe) and Olympia, engendered great controversy and served as rallying points for the young painters who would create Impressionism. Today, these are considered watershed paintings that mark the genesis of modern art. Although his own work influenced and anticipated the Impressionist style, he resisted involvement in Impressionist exhibitions, partly because he did not wish to be seen as the representative of a group identity, and partly because he preferred to exhibit at the Salon.

Mockery

Title: Mockery
Artist: Emil Nolde
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 86 x 106 cm
Date: 1909
Location: Brucke Museum, Berlin.

John 19:2-3 The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they slapped him in the face.

Noldes's figures are large scale, crammed together in a constricting space. The result is crowded and claustrophobic. Nolde focuses our attention on the intense emotions of the event. Furthermore, the harsh drawing, agitated brushwork, and distortion of the figures enforce this feeling.

Emil Nolde (August 1867 – April 1956) was a German painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists and a member of Die Brücke, an influential group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905. But for Nolde, the Third Reich brought defamation. His paintings were confiscated from the museums and his work was a special focus of the exhibition "Entartete Kunst" ("Degenerate Art"). From 1941 on he was prohibited from painting at all. Secretly he paint small scale watercolors which he called "unpainted pictures". After the war, between his eightieth and eighty-fifth birthday he gained various honors and awards. He is now considered to be one of the great painters of the 20th century, known for his vigorous brushwork and expressive choice of colors.

The Shadow of the Crucifixion

Title: The Shadow of the Crucifixion

Artist: Daniel Bonnell

Medium: Oil crayons

Size: 28 x 35 cm

Date: c. 2006

Location: Private Collection.

Mark 15:29-32 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, "So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!"

In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe." Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

Some people observing an crucifixion would normally curse those being executed, and they did not spare Jesus from this abuse. Further, many ancient writers would often employ irony, and Mark is no exception, reporting unintended truth in the words of Jesus’ enemies. Mark speaks to the doubts his original readers may have harbored: Indeed, Lord, why did you not save yourself? Bonnell employs startling imagery to portray those who mock Christ from the shadow of the cross.

Daniel Bonnell (b. 1955) is an American painter and graduate of the Atlanta College of Art. He furthered his studies under the French Dominican Monk Pere Couturier, who usher such great painters as Henri Matisse and Fernand Leger into creating sacred art. His work can be found in several church and private collections, and in several notable publications. Most recently, a number of his paintings were selected to be in the Mosaic Holy Bible. The bold nature of his work, his subject matter and use of darks and lights, combine to give a very powerful look at redemption. Daniel’s contributions to the Mosaic Bible can be viewed at http://web.me.com/danielbonnell/Image_On_Christ_Exhibition/Mosaic_Bible.html

The Mocking of Christ

Title: The Mocking of Christ

Artist: Annibale Carracci

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Size: 60 x 79 cm

Date: c. 1596

Location: Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu, Romania.

Mark 15:16-19 The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. And they began to call out to him, "Hail, king of the Jews!" Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him.

The mocking of Jesus contains many ironic elements, such as being crowned with thorns, which we deserved, as opposed to the crown of glory which he merited, and submitting to the contempt of sinners though he did no sin. Carracci’s painting brilliantly shows the love and forgiveness on Jesus’ face, reaching out as though to bless one of his tormentors even as the tormentor seems to relish in the suffering inflicted on Christ.

Annibale Carracci (November 3, 1560 – July 15, 1609) was an Italian Baroque painter who, along with his brother Agostino (1557 - 1602) and their cousin Lodovico (1555 - 1619), were prominent figures at the end of the 16th century in the movement against the prevailing Mannerist artificiality of Italian painting. They continued working in close relationship until 1595, when Annibale, who was by far the greatest artist of the family, was called to Rome by Cardinal Odoardo Farnese to carry out his masterpiece, the decoration of the Farnese Gallery in the cardinal's family palace. In his last years Annibale was overcome by melancholia and gave up painting almost entirely after 1606. When he died he was buried accordingly to his wished near Raphael in the Pantheon.