Luke for Lent - Part 6 of 7

Title: The Three Crosses

Artist: Peter Paul Rubens

Medium: Oil on panel

Size: 60.5 x 96 cm

Date: ca. 1620

Location: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Luke 23:39-43 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

The faith of the thief on the cross is often dismissed, for he has the equivalent of a deathbed conversion. But the testimony he gives in his last moments is a most eloquent evidence of faith. He addresses his colleague first, expresses the injustice of the entire crucifixion by exclaiming, "We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong." Then, anticipating the restoration and resurrection, the thief turns to Jesus with words full of faith, and asks to be included. This man, despite a life full of sin, comes to Jesus, and seeks forgiveness in his last mortal moments. He confesses his guilt and casts himself on Jesus' mercy and saving power. Ironically, though dying amidst mocking, Jesus has saved while on the cross. The request of the taunts has been granted to one who learned to believe. Luke could not have painted a clearer portrait of God's grace…

Peter Paul Rubens (1577 – 1640) was a Flemish/Netherlandish draughtsman and painter, widely considered as the most notable artist of Flemish Baroque art school. A proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasised movement, colour, and sensuality, Rubens is well known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. Art experts have pointed out that Rubens did not intend the three towering crosses in this painting to have such a dramatic impact. It was only later that his original panel was mounted in a larger one. However, the work was reproduced in its present form during his lifetime, so the idea of portraying Christ’s death so bleakly is certainly authentic and came from Rubens’s circle.

The Twelve Days of Christmas - Day 1

Title: Crucifixion

Artist: Franz von Stuck

Medium: Tempera on canvas

Size: 190 x 165 cm

Date: tbd.

Location: Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig.

 

A bit of modern folklore asserts that the lyrics of the Christmas carol “The Twelve days of Christmas” were written as a catechism song to help young Catholics learn their faith at a time when practising Catholicism was criminalized in England (1558 - 1829). As summarized by Wikipedia: “There is no primary evidence supporting this claim, and no evidence that the claim is historical, or anything but a fanciful modern day speculation.” Indeed, the theory seems of relatively recent origin, first suggested by Canadian English teacher and hymnologist Hugh D. McKellar in a short article published in 1979. Regardless, the idea that the lyrics of the carol can represent something more than “merely an irreligious travesty” gives the song a deeper, more resonant meaning. And with that in mind, “The Twelve Days of Christmas”:

 

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

 

The symbolism speaks clearly to the image of Jesus on the Cross. Jesus Christ, symbolized as a mother partridge that feigns injury to decoy predators from helpless nestlings. And the pear tree represented as cross.

Descent from the Cross

Title: Descent from the Cross
Artist: Peter Paul Rubens
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 297 x 200 cm
Date: 1617-18
Location: The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

John 19:38-40 Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs.

John's account of the burial may continue to develop the theme of Jesus' royal identity. The large amount of spice used obviously expresses their love for Jesus, and such excessive amounts of spice were a feature of at least some royal funerals. Plenty of people besides kings had extravagant funerals and were buried in garden tombs, but given all the emphasis in the Passion account on Jesus as king, such details seem to continue this theme here at the burial.

Sir Peter Paul Rubens (June 1577 – May 1640) was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish painter, and a proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. Rubens was one of the most methodically assimilative and most prodigiously productive of Western artists. His abundant energy fired him to study and emulate the masters both of antiquity and of the 16th century in Rome, Venice, and Parma. His warmth of nature made him responsive to the artistic revolutions being worked by living artists, and robust powers of comprehension nourished his limitless resource in invention. He was able to infuse his own astounding vitality equally into religious and mythological paintings, portraits, and landscapes. He organized his complex compositions in vivid, dynamic designs in which limitations of form and contour are discounted in favor of a constant flow of movement. Rubens's major business was altarpieces, particularly suitable for an artist who enjoyed working on a grand scale.

Christ on the Cross

Title: Christ on the Cross
Artist: Eugène Delacroix
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 73.5 x 59.7 cm
Date: 1853
Location: The National Gallery, London.

John 19:31-37 Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken,” and, as another scripture says, “They will look on the one they have pierced.”

Although not a practicing Christian, Delacroix painted a number of New Testament subjects. Evidently, he was attracted to the drama of Christ's Passion and was endeavoring to deal with issues of personal faith raised by Christ's human and divine nature. Delacroix painted this subject several times throughout his career. One version showing Christ between the two thieves was exhibited at the Salon of 1835 (Musée Municipal des Beaux-Arts, Vanne). Another version of 1846, closely related to this painting, was shown at the Salon of 1847 and is now in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore.

Eugène Delacroix (April 1798 – August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school. Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of color profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement. Renoir and Manet made copies of his paintings, and Degas purchased the portrait of Baron Schwiter for his private collection. Delacroix was trained by the Neo-classical painter Pierre Guérin, from 1816 to about 1823. In style his work shows the influence of painters he had studied, notably Rubens. He was an admirer of English painting, and visited England in 1825. In 1832 he travelled to Spain, Morocco and Algiers. After the Revolution of 1830 he was favored by Louis-Philippe, and later by Napoleon III, with a long series of official commissions, beginning in 1833 with a series of decorations in the Palais Bourbon.

Christ on the Cross

Title: Christ on the Cross
Artist: Francisco de Zurbarán
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 106 x 110.2 cm
Date: 1627
Location: Art Institute, Chicago.

John 19:28-30 Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

On one level the idea of thirst also has spiritual significance. Earlier Jesus had said, "My food . . . is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work" (4:34). And when he was arrested he told Peter to put his sword away, saying, "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?" (18:11). Hunger and thirst become images for Jesus' desire to fulfill the Father's will to the end. Since the cup represents wrath and suffering, Jesus' taking of this drink may suggest the completion of that experience, as the Lamb of God now takes away the sin of the world. The work he has come to do is now complete. The great significance John attaches to the saying would symbolize both Jesus' commitment to obey God's will and the fulfillment of the suffering of the one who is the righteous sufferer.

Francisco de Zurbarán (November 1598 – August 1664) was a Spanish painter known primarily for his religious paintings depicting monks, nuns, and martyrs. Zurbarán gained the nickname Spanish Caravaggio, owing to the forceful, realistic use of chiaroscuro in which he excelled. His subjects were mostly severe and ascetic religious vigils, the spirit chastising the flesh into subjection, the compositions often reduced to a single figure. In 1627, while still resident in Llerena, Zurbarán painted this spectacular picture, that made him famous, for the Dominicans. It was placed in a small oratory chapel and made a strong impression. The represented drama in the composition is increased by the overpowering light, which heightens then transforms the real into superreal, thus expressing the dual nature of Christ.

Christ Carrying the Cross

Title: Christ Carrying the Cross
Artist: Luis de Morales
Medium: Oil on wood
Size: tbd.
Date: 1566
Location: Museo del Pariarca, Valencia

John 19:17 Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha).

It is not known why the place was called Skull (calvaria in Latin, hence the name Calvary), but the fact that Joseph had a tomb close by suggests this was not a place of public execution. The notion that the landscape had the appearance of a skull is possible, as evidenced by the hill near Gordon's Calvary today, though the shape of this particular hill is more recent than the first century.

Luis de Morales (c. 1520, Badajoz - 1586, Badajoz) was a Spanish painter. He worked for most of his life in Badajoz, a town on the Portuguese border, and his style, formed away from the influence of the court or great religious and artistic centres such as Seville, is highly distinctive. His pictures are usually fairly small and he concentrated on devotional images. He painted numerous versions of the Virgin and Child, and touching visions inspired by the theme of the Pieta, which are among his most popular works. The piety of his work has earned him the nickname 'El Divino'. This painting was inspired by a painting of the same subject by Sebastiano del Piombo.

The Removal from the Cross

Title: The Removal from the Cross

Artist: Vasili Perov

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: tbd.

Date: 1878

Location: The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

Mark 15:46 [Joseph] wrapped the body in the linen,

Mary, Mary Magdalene and Joseph of Arimathea have removed Christ from the cross and have been preparing body for entombment. Christ rests on the ground, his livid body a shocking contrast with the blood-red sky in the background, the crown of thorns and the nail from his feet lying next to him. A mourning Mary looks as if she could barely sit up. Mary Magdalene makes no effort to rise and lies holding his feet and burying her face in grief. Joseph has straightened up after cleaning the body and his ramrod straight back parallels the crosses while offering a contrast with the bowed, almost crushed female figures and denoting the upright man. The basin, full of Christ's blood, may evoke the legend according to which Joseph filled a holy grail with Christ's blood.

Vasili Grigorievich Perov (December 23, 1834 – May 29, 1882) was a Russian painter. He was an illegitimate son of the baron G. K. Kridiner, an Arzamas prosecutor. In 1846, he entered the Art School of Stupin in Arzamas, where he got his nickname of Perov for his good handwriting (from Russian pero, pen). He lived at a time when an artist’s indifference to social problems was considered immoral in Russia. And it was Perov who took up a vital and most complicated task of establishing the principles of critical realism. He became one of the most predominating figures in Russian painting of the 1860s. In 1871, together with Ivan Kramskoi, Nikolai Ge, and Grigory Miasoyedov became a founder of the Itinerants’ Society of Traveling Exhibitions (the Peredvizhniki). Also in 1871, Perov became a professor at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, and he turned out to be an excellent teacher.

Descent from the Cross

Title: Descent from the Cross

Artist: Jean-Baptiste Jouvenet

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 424 x 312 cm

Date: 1697

Location: Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Mark 15:46 So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body,

The Descent from the Cross, or Deposition of Christ, is the scene, as depicted in art, from the Gospels' accounts of Christ being taken down from the cross after his crucifixion. In Byzantine art the topic became popular in the 9th century, and in the West from the 10th century. It was forbidden for Jews to touch a dead body, and even though the men made themselves unclean by burying Jesus, it’s unlikely that any of the women would have actually had any direct contact. In fact, Luke 23:54-56 indicates that they planned to do their part in the burial after the Sabbath, on Sunday morning. Taking Jesus off the cross and placing Him in the tomb was men’s work.

This bold and vigorous painting, with its magnificent harmony of warm colors, foreshadows the most beautiful of the nineteenth-century Romantic Paintings. He details the bodies and the faces with precision. The arms, legs and torsos knotted around the slanting cross convey a power which rivals that of the baroque masters. Executed for the church of the Capuchins in the Place Louis-le-grande, Paris, it was donated to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1756. During the French Revolution, it was acquired by the Louvre, as were all the other paintings which had belonged to the Académie.

Jean-Baptiste Jouvenet (1644 – 5 April 1717) was a French painter, especially well know for his religious subjects. "Theatrical" is a term often used to describe the work of Jouvenet, an artist who was influenced by Poussin and took Charles Le Brun as his model. However, while he maintains the "grand goût" of his masters, he breaks with reflective painting, investigating broad dramatic effects, warm tones, and a certain realism. Due to Jouvenet's work, French painting in the late 17th century attained a pictorial expression which could rival the great foreign baroque masters. He was born into an artistic family in Rouen. His first training in art was from his father, Laurent Jouvenet; a generation earlier, his grandfather, Noel Jouvenet, may have taught Nicolas Poussin.

The Crucifixion with the Converted Centurion

Title: The Crucifixion with the Converted Centurion

Artist: Lucas Cranach the Elder

Medium: Oil on panel

Size: 51 x 35 cm

Date: 1536

Location: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Mark 15: 39-41 And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God!"

Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there.

In this painting, Lucas Cranach the Elder chose to portray a scene of religious redemption. The crucified Christ, silhouetted against a darkened and troubled sky, is at the point of death; his last words from the cross are inscribed above him in German. At that moment, a Roman centurion, astride a white charger, recognizes Christ's divinity and pronounces: WARLICH DISER MENSCH IST GOTES SVN GEWEST (Truly, this man was the Son of God [Mark 15:39]). The theme of The Crucifixion with the Converted Centurion especially appealed to Protestants because it clearly illustrated the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, the central precept of their creed. The centurion, clothed in contemporary armor, symbolized the "Knight of Christ" who steadfastly defends his new-won belief despite all adversity.

Lucas Cranach the Elder (October 4, 1472 – October 16, 1553) was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving. The largest proportion of Cranach's output is of portraits, and it is chiefly thanks to him that we know what the German Reformers and their princely adherents looked like. From 1505 until his death, Cranach was the court painter to three successive electors of Saxony. He became close friends with Luther - who lived in the Saxon town of Wittenberg - and is considered one of the foremost artists of the Reformation.

The Three Crosses

Title: The Three Crosses

Artist: Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

Medium: Drypoint and burin

Size: 39 x 45 cm

Date: 1653

Location: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Mark 15:25-27 It was the third hour when they crucified him. The written notice of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS. They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left.

Mark tells us that Jesus was crucified between two bandits. The Greek word translated as “bandits” is commonly used for insurrectionists who fought against Rome. Their presence in the Gospel reminds us that crucifixion was use specifically against people who fought against Roman Imperial rule. Ordinary criminals were not crucified. Jesus was executed as a rebel between two other rebels.

Considered one of Rembrandt's greatest and most dramatic prints, “The Three Crosses” is a work which has all the power of a painting. It shows the deepest point of Christ's suffering; massive beams of light slice through the darkness that the Gospels relate descended on the entire country. The light focuses on Christ, the two bandits who were crucified beside him and the crowd round about. Rembrandt made several versions of this print. This is an impression of the third state.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (July 15, 1606 – October 4, 1669) was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history, his work contributing to a period that historians call the Dutch Golden Age. Rembrandt produced etchings for most of his career, from 1626 to 1660, when he was forced to sell his printing-press and virtually abandoned etching. Only the troubled year of 1649 produced no dated work. In the mature works of the 1650s, Rembrandt was more ready to improvise on the plate and large prints typically survive in several states, up to eleven, often radically changed. He used hatching to create his dark areas, which often take up much of the plate.

Nailed to the Cross

Title: Untitled

Artist: William Hole

Medium: Printed book illustration

Size: 29 x 24 cm

Date: c.1905

Location: From “The Life of Jesus of Nazareth Portrayed in Colours.” London: Eyre & Spottiswoode.

Mark 15:23 Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.

Pious women of Jerusalem normally prepared a solution like wine mixed with myrrh and offered it to those being executed to dull their pain, as Myrrh is said to have narcotic effects (Proverbs 31:6). Jesus, however, chose to face the full agony of the crucifixion.

This illustration, one of eighty published in 1905 as “The Life of Jesus of Nazareth Portrayed in Colours”, is an attempt to portray only what was visible to the outward eye of a contemporary observer. In the background chaos swirls, with debating elders, the approaching mob, and legionnaires brandishing whips for crowd control. In the foreground the work of Jesus’ crucifixion begins. To the right of the image, flanked by two disdainful elders, a soldier calmly pours into a bowl the wine and myrrh that Jesus would refuse.

William Hole (b. Salisbury 1846 – d. 1917) relocated to Edinburgh as a youth where he received his education at the Edinburgh Academy. While traveling through Italy he befriended some artists in Rome who convinced him that he should pursue a career in art. On returning to Edinburgh, he began formal training in both painting and etching at the Royal Scottish Academy. In the early 1900's Hole actually travelled to the Holy land and painted his pictures on the spot. Even though some of the architectural features were probably not around 2,000 years earlier, these pictures still retain an air of authenticity.

Christ Carrying the Cross

Title: Christ Carrying the Cross

Artist: Hieronymus Bosch

Medium: Oil on panel

Size: 74 x 81 cm

Date: 1515-16

Location: Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent.

Mark 15:20 And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.

“Christ Carrying the Cross” is an exceptionally dramatic painting, with a bold composition made up of closely packed heads for which no parallel exists in the art of the period around 1500. It is generally considered to be a late work and one of Bosch's greatest creations. The antithesis between good and evil, which was so crucial to Christian belief in Bosch's time, is raised to a climax. The painting is a peerless study of human facial expressions and demonic visages. Yet the chaotic and caricatured elements are never overwhelming and the painting seems to observe a complex balance of parallels and contrasts that emphasizes the serenity of Christ's gently modeled face in the centre. Amid all the tumult, we make out the clear profile of St Veronica withdrawing from the mob, the image of Christ's face - the 'vera icon' on her cloth.

Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450 – buried August 9, 1516) was an early Netherlandish painter, named after the town of 's-Hertogenbosch (Bois-le-Duc) in northern Brabant, where he seems to have lived throughout his life. His real name was Jerome van Aken (perhaps indicating family origins in Aachen, Germany). Bosch married well and was successful in his career (although his town was fairly isolated, it was prosperous and culturally stimulating). He was an orthodox Catholic and a prominent member of a local religious brotherhood, but his most characteristic paintings are so bizarre that in the 17th century he was reputed to have been a heretic. Over the years, scholars have attributed to him fewer and fewer of the works once thought to be his, and today only 25 are definitively ascribed to him, but none is dated and no accurate chronology can be made.

Crucifixion

Title: Crucifixion
Artist: Andrea da Firenze
Medium: Tempera on wood
Size: 33 x 22 cm
Date: 1377
Location: Pinacoteca, Vatican

As Jesus hung near death on the cross he was aware that he had finished his work. He exclaimed “Everything is done!” then bowed his head and died. In order to ensure he was truly dead, as described in John 19:30: “One of the soldiers with a spear did pierce his side, and immediately there came forth blood and water.”

In the centre of the small panel Christ hangs on the cross, his head slumped onto his right shoulder showing the marks from the crown of thorns. Blood oozes from his wounds, and spurts from the gash caused by the spear. Mary stands to the left, her hands joined in a mournful gesture, gazing at her son. Saint John the Evangelist is at the right, his hands joined in front of his chest, looking toward Christ with sorrow and disbelief. A Dominican friar kneels at the foot of the cross, embracing it, while two angels at either side of the cross also mourn.

Andrea da Firenze was a Florentine painter about who little is known. The earliest paintings that can be attributed to him suggest that he must have formed a close association with the workshop of Andrea di Cione. Da Firenze is remembered mainly for his frescoes in the Spanish Chapel of Sta Maria Novella, Florence. He last recorded in 1377 working on frescoes of the Life of St Raynerius in the Campo Santo at Pisa.

Christ Carrying the Cross

Title: Christ Carrying the Cross
Artist: Martin Schongauer
Medium: Engraving
Size: 28.9 x 42.9 cm
Date: c.1480
Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Depicting events presented in John 19:17, Schongauer's masterpiece Christ Carrying the Cross is the largest and most painterly of his prints. As described in the Gospel: “Jesus was taken away, and he carried his cross to a place known as ‘The Skull’. In Hebrew this place is called ‘Golgotha’.”

This engraving depicting Christ's procession to Golgotha is the artist's most visually complex. He created a spectrum of tones from white to gray to black by altering the density of the hatching. Throughout the print, he masterfully offset light and dark areas: for example, he placed the fully shaded figures on the right against a landscape delineated only by outlines and did almost the reverse with the boy in the lower left, situated in front of an area of shadowed ground. As in devotional icons, he turned Christ's head to confront the viewer, emphasizing man's identification with Christ's suffering.

Martin Schongauer (c. 1448 – 2 February 1491) was a German engraver and painter. His prints were circulated widely and Schongauer was known in Italy by the names, Bel Martino and Martino d'Anversa. He established the system of depicting volume by means of cross-hatching (lines in two directions) which was further developed by Dürer, and was the first engraver to curve parallel lines, probably by rotating the plate against a steady burin.