Luke for Lent - Part 5 of 7

Title: Christ before Herod Antipas

Artist: Nicolaus Knüpfer

Medium: Oil on Panel

Size: 46 x 61 cm

Date: tbd

Location: Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, Budapest

Luke 23:8-12: When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform a sign of some sort. He plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer. The chief priests and the teachers of the law were standing there, vehemently accusing him. Then Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him. Dressing him in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate. That day Herod and Pilate became friends—before this they had been enemies.

Christ being sent to Herod Antipas for judgement is an episode that occurs only in the Gospel of Luke. Herod would have had heard many things of Jesus in Galilee, where his miracles had for a great while been all the talk of the country; and he longed to see him, not for any affection he had for him or his doctrine like Zacchaeus, but purely out of curiosity. He hoped to see some miracle done by him, but Jesus would not gratify him with the performance of even a single miracle. The poorest beggar that asked a miracle for the relief of his necessity was never denied; but this proud prince, that asked a miracle merely for his own amusement, is denied. Herod thought, now that he had him in bonds, he might command a miracle, but to Jesus miracles must not be made cheap, nor Omnipotence be at the beck of any earthly potentate.

Nicolaus Knüpfer (ca. 1603 - 1655) was a Dutch painter of German origin. After initial training in Leipzig and elsewhere, in 1630 Knüpfer moved to Utrecht, where he studied with Mannerist painter Abraham Bloemaert. Knüpfer specialised in history paintings, producing works based on stories from the Bible, from Greek and Roman history and from mythology. In his own day, Knüpfer enjoyed considerable fame and was frequently commissioned by patrons. Typical of his style is the loose brushwork, the liveliness of the depictions and the rich palette, all of which can be seen in this painting of Christ before Herod Antipas. The wall with the low door, closing off the space, looks like a stage set. The curtains and the stage raised by three steps on the right and extending to the plane of the painting are theatrical. The king, leaning back on his throne, is shrieking with laughter and the soldier on one knee, dressing Jesus in a white mantle, has his back to us. His hulking comrade, leaning on his stave, calls through the door to recruit more spectators for Jesus' derision.

The Magi enter Jerusalem

Title: The Magi enter Jerusalem
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.

Matthew 2:1-8: Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea. This happened while Herod was king of Judea. After Jesus' birth, Wise Men from the east came to Jerusalem. They asked, "Where is the child who has been born to be king of the Jews? When we were in the east, we saw his star. Now we have come to worship him." When King Herod heard about it, he was very upset. Everyone in Jerusalem was troubled too. So Herod called together all the chief priests of the people. He also called the teachers of the law. He asked them where the Christ was going to be born. "In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied. "This is what the prophet has written. He said, 'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are certainly not the least important among the towns of Judah. A ruler will come out of you. He will be the shepherd of my people Israel.' " Then Herod called for the Wise Men secretly. He found out from them exactly when the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem. He said, "Go! Make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, bring me a report. Then I can go and worship him too."

The first story after Jesus' birth opens with Magi who have traveled a long distance to offer homage to a new king born in Judea. They enter Jerusalem with a large enough caravan to attract the city's attention; they must have assumed that they would find the newborn king in Herod's palace in Jerusalem. This passage reminds us that we must preach the gospel to all people because we cannot always predict who will hear the message and who will not. Those we least expect to honor Jesus may worship him, and those we least expect to oppose him may seek his death. This passage confronts Matthew's readers with a summons to personal decision by contrasting the main characters. The Magi worship Jesus; Herod seeks his death; Jerusalem's religious elite - forerunners of the opponents of Matthew's audience - take Jesus for granted. The reader must identify with the pagan Magi rather than with Herod or Jerusalem's religious elite.

William Hole (1846 – 1917) was the only child of Richard and Anne Hole, born in Salisbury in 1846. His father was a doctor, and the family soon relocated to Edinburgh where William 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. Anyone who has visited the Holy Land, on seeing Hole's paintings, always comment that he has managed to capture the very atmosphere of the land. Both his use of light, and the colors used in his landscapes make Hole's Bible pictures truly memorable. It was no doubt his method of painting 'on the spot' that helped him to capture these essential ingredients in his pictures.

The Martyrdom of the Holy Innocents

Title: The Martyrdom of the Holy Innocents

Artist: Gustave Doré

Medium: Ink and gouache on paper

Size: 56.5 x 84 cm

Date: c.1868

Location: Private collection.

Matthew 2:16-18 records that when Herod realized that the Magi left and had not reported back to him as requested, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: "A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

The murder of the children of Bethlehem thus fits what is historically know of Herod's character (he was well know to ruthlessly have his own sons murdered); yet it is not surprising that other early writers do not mention this particular atrocity. Herod's reign was an era of many highly placed political assassinations, and our accounts come from well-to-do reporters focused on the royal house and national events. In such circles the execution of perhaps twenty children in a small town would warrant little attention - except from God.

Matthew does not simply report this act of injustice dispassionately; he chooses an ancient lament from one of the most sorrowful times of his people's history. Jeremiah 31:15 speaks of Rachel weeping for her children, poetically describing the favored mother of Benjamin (standing for all Judah) mourning because her descendants were led into exile. Rachel, who wept from her grave in Bethlehem during the captivity, was now weeping at another, nearer crisis significant in salvation history.

Paul Gustave Doré (January 6, 1832 – January 23, 1883) French artist, the son of a civil engineer, was born at Strassburg. In 1848 he came to Paris and secured a three years engagement on the Journal pour rire. His facility as a draughtsman was extraordinary, and among the books he illustrated in rapid succession were Balzac's Contes drolatiques (1855), Dante's "Inferno" (1861), Don Quixote (1863), The Bible (1866), Paradise Lost (1866), and the works of Rabelais (1873). He painted also many large and ambitious compositions of religious or historical character, and made some success as a sculptor, his statue of Alexandre Dumas in Paris being perhaps his best-known work in this line.

The Three Kings before Herod

Title: The Three Kings before Herod

Artist: Unknown

Medium: Watercolor on paper

Size: tbd

Date: c.1120 - 1145.

Location: From the St Albans Psalter, St Godehard Dombibliothek, Hildesheim.

Matthew 2:1-8 reiterates that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, and places the event during the reign of King Herod. About that time some wise men from eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him.”

King Herod was deeply disturbed when he heard this, as was everyone in Jerusalem. He called a meeting of the leading priests and teachers of religious law and asked, “Where is the Messiah supposed to be born?”

“In Bethlehem in Judea,” they said, “for this is what the prophet wrote: ‘And you, O Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are not least among the ruling cities of Judah, for a ruler will come from you who will be the shepherd for my people Israel.’”

Then Herod called for a private meeting with the wise men, and he learned from them the time when the star first appeared. Then he told them, “Go to Bethlehem and search carefully for the child. And when you find him, come back and tell me so that I can go and worship him, too!”

This illustration depicts Herod seated in his distinct space, holding an open book which he discussed with the kings, while a sword bearer stands behind him. Herod consults the prophecy of Micah to locate Bethlehem as the birthplace of the Messiah. Facing him, and gesticulating in animated fashion, the three kings stand in order of seniority, led by the oldest with a white beard. The star shines beyond the margin.

The St Albans Psalter, also known as the Albani Psalter or the Psalter of Christina of Markyate, is an English illuminated manuscript, one of several Psalters known to have been created at or for St Albans Abbey in the 12th century. It is widely considered to be one of the most important examples of English Romanesque book production: it is of almost unprecedented lavishness of decoration and contains a number of iconographic innovations that would endure throughout the Middle Ages. Scholarly opinion differs on many of the details, but there is general agreement that the Psalter was created at St Albans Abbey during the abbacy of Geoffrey de Gorham or Gorron (1119-1146), and that it was probably owned by Christina of Markyate (born circa 1098, died perhaps between 1155 and 1166), anchoress and later prioress of Markyate.

The Massacre of the Innocents

Title: The Massacre of the Innocents

Artist: Guido Reni

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 268 x 170 cm

Date: 1611

Location: Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna

The Massacre of the Innocents is an episode of mass infanticide by the King of Judea, Herod the Great, which appears in the Gospel of Matthew 2:16-18. King Herod ordered the execution of all young male children in the village of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King of the Jews whose birth had been announced to him by the Magi. Like much of Matthew's gospel, the incident is advanced as the fulfillment of passages in the Old Testament read as prophecies. The slaughtered infants, known as the Holy Innocents, have been claimed as the first Christian martyrs.

This depiction of events is rendered as bathed in light, but set before a landscape with dark and heavy architecture. A group of eight adults and eight children (including the putti distributing the palm fronds of victory) has been skillfully arranged. The unusual vertical format, rarely used for this theme, and above all the symmetrical structure of figural counterparts indicate that Reni was particularly interested in a specific problem of composition: that of achieving a balance between centripetal and centrifugal movement while combining them in a static pictorial structure. Reni also seeks to achieve this equilibrium in his expression of effects and in the distribution of color accents.

Guido Reni (4 November 1575 – 18 August 1642) was a prominent Italian painter of high-Baroque style. He was constantly seeking an absolute, rarefied perfection which he measured against classical Antiquity and Raphael. Because of this, over the years the Bolognese painter has been in and out of fashion, depending on the tastes of the times. The eighteenth century loved him, the nineteenth century, persuaded by the violent criticism of John Ruskin, hated him. But even his detractors cannot deny the exceptional technical quality of his work or the clarity of his supremely assured and harmonious brushwork.

Rest on the Flight to Egypt

Title: Rest on the Flight to Egypt
Artist: Nicholas Mynheer
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 20 x 50 cm
Date: 2003
Location: The Methodist Church Collection of Modern Christian Art, UK.

Mynheer's painting in the Methodist collection depicts the traditional scene of the Holy family taking rest in the desert on their way to Egypt fleeing from the wrath of Herod (Matthew 2:13-15). After the birth of Jesus, the Magi from the east had inadvertently alerted Herod to the presence of the Christ in their midst. An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and alerted him to Herod’s murderous scheme: "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” Immediately Joseph gathered Mary and Jesus and left for Egypt.

With the threat receding, Mary and Joseph are able to play with the baby Jesus. The Judean Desert blooms with wild flowers for about two weeks every spring so the artist has depicted the desert it flowering in response to the presence of The Lord, echoing the words of The Benedicite "O All ye works of the Lord: praise him, and magnify him forever." Even the tree under which they are seen resting has come into fruit; for Nature itself responds to God, praising in its own way.

Nicholas Mynheer (b.1958) is a native of Oxfordshire, England. He is a contemporary artist whose principal themes are biblical, not only does Mynheer work in oil but also in glass and stone. For twenty years Nicholas has been painting and sculpting chiefly around Biblical themes for churches and religious institutions. His artworks are in many churches of all traditions throughout Britain and beyond. Mynheer's work is highly stylized, rather like medieval images in stained glass, sometimes his figures have an almost comic book cartoon like quality with a strong expressionistic force. His webiste is http://www.methodist.org.uk/static/artcollection/index.htm

Salome

Title: Salome
Artist: Franz Von Stuck
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 115.5 x 62.5 cm
Date: 1906
Location: Stadische Galerie, Munich.

Salome was a Judaean princess (1st Century AD), grand-daughter of Herod the Great and daughter of Herodias by her first husband, Herod Philip, the brother of her second husband, Herod Antipas. She is identified (by the historian Josephus) as the unnamed girl recorded in Mark 6:21-29 who danced before Herod Antipas at the occasion of his birthday. According to Mark's gospel Herodias bore a grudge against John for stating that Herod's marriage to Herodias was unlawful, so she counseled Salome to demand the head of John the Baptist as recompense for her splendid dancing.

This painting highlights the two main aspects of the Salome legend: the girl’s unabashed seductiveness, and the brutality of the decapitation of John the Baptist. Salome dominates the foreground, her skin radiant against the darkened background. Our eye is drawn to her body, plays across her torso, and almost stumbles across the vaguely glowing head of the decapitated Baptist. This stark juxtaposition, sensually set against brutality, jars the viewer, no longer simply eyeing a lascivious young beauty, but rather witnessing the tableau of a tragic murder.

Franz Von Stuck (February 24, 1863 - August 30, 1928) was a German painter, sculptor, engraver and architect. He at first earned his living by illustrating various magazines, and in 1892 was one of the founders of the Munich Sezession. In 1895 he began teaching at the Munich Academy, where his pupils included Kandinsky, Klee and Albers, whose subsequent careers enhanced von Stuck's fame. His many nudes, with their torrid sensuality and a linear style combining decorative and erotic elements, are direct precursors of Jugendstil, the German Art Nouveau movement.