Easter Sunday - Mary Magdalene at the Tomb

Title: Mary Magdalene at the Tomb
Artist: Antiveduto Gramatica
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 120 x 157 cm
Date: 1620-22
Location: The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

John 20:11-13 - Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” she said, “They have taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where they have put him.”

Such heavenly messengers appear at many of the significant points in salvation history. Their presence witnesses that the powers of heaven have been at work here. Often in Scripture the person who encounters an angel is struck with terror. But if Mary felt such a reaction, John does not mention it. Indeed, there is no indication that she even recognizes them as angels, presumably due to the depth of her grief. The angels speak to her with great compassion. In the face of this grief the angels do not bombard her with good news but rather ask the question that can lead to the healing word.

Antiveduto Gramatica (c. 1571 – April 1626), was a was a proto-Baroque Italian painter, active near Rome. He was born in either Siena or Rome, and according to Giovanni Baglione the artist was given the name Antiveduto ("foreseen") because his father had a premonition that he would be soon be born during a journey between his native Siena and Rome. It was in Rome that Antiveduto was baptised, raised and based his career.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 18 -The Calvary

Title: The Calvary
Artist: Odilon Redon
Medium: Pastel on cardboard
Size: 69 x 53 cm
Date: c. 1895
Location: Foundation E. G. Bührle Collection, Zurich.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 18

Mark 15:25 And it was the third hour, and they crucified him.

Around the middle of the 1890s a religious mysticism takes the place of the dark visions of Redon’s work. Charcoal gives way to the bright pastel, and Christ figures prominently in his work. In "The Calvary" this new Redon, tense with religious hopes, tense also in the sense that he is subject to restrictive compulsions: the overemphasized "sacral" central axis of the Cross with the small crucified figure on the upper margin of the picture and the rigid, lamenting Mary in her red robe. It is to she whom the viewers eye is drawn, and we are forced to contemplate her plight, under Redon’s shimmering sky.

Bertrand-Jean Redon, better known as Odilon Redon (April 1840 – July 1916) was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist. The young Bertrand-Jean Redon acquired the nickname "Odilon" from his mother, Odile. Redon started drawing as a child, and at the age of ten he was awarded a drawing prize at school. Aged fifteen, he began the formal study of drawing, but on the insistence of his father he changed to architecture. His failure to pass the entrance exams at Paris’ École des Beaux-Arts ended any plans for a career as an architect. In the 1890s, pastel and oils became his favored media, and he produced no more noirs after 1900.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 17 - Mary Magdalene in the house of Simon the Pharisee

Title: Mary Magdalene in the house of Simon the Pharisee
Artist: Jean Beraud
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 101.2 x 131.5 cm
Date: 1891
Location: Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 17

Luke 7:36-47 When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.” Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you. Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.” Jesus said, “You have judged correctly.” Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

This interesting and technically accomplished painting pulls the event recorded in Luke into the artist’s contemporary world. Only the figure of Jesus is timeless. All the others, including the startled maid at far right, are in modern dress. The painting was controversial when it first appeared, because people rightly suspected that Beraud was trying to make them uncomfortable by confronting them with their own failings, their own hypocrisy. Many of the well-heeled men in the painting would have had mistresses. Now they were confronted with reality, with raw human suffering, and they did not particularly like it. Interestingly, each person in this work is evidently illustrated with features of a personality from of the world of political or the arts. Christ is illustrated with the features of the socialist journalist Albert Duke-Quercy and Simon the Pharisee those of the writer Ernest Renan.

Jean Beraud (January 1849 – October 1935) was a French painter and commercial artist noted for his paintings of Parisian life during the Belle Époque. He was born in St. Petersburg, son of a French sculptor. Studied law in Paris, then turned to painting after the Franco-Prussian War and studied for two years at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under Bonnat. While his Impressionist contemporaries were moving out into the country to study the changing effects of the landscape during the late nineteenth century, Beraud remained rooted in Paris, studying the city life and its people. By the 1890s Beraud had interestingly decided to pursue religious themes, although at one point they had become the antithesis of progressive artistic dictum. As noted by Art critic Gabriel P. Weisberg “...by the end of the century there were so many religious compositions – and painters – that the world of art was flooded with religious sentimentality.”

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 5 - Christus Consolator

Title: Christus Consolator
Artist: Ary Scheffer
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 184 x 248 cm
Date: 1836-37
Location: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 5

Luke 4:18: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, I have come to heal those who are brokenhearted and to announce to the prisoners their deliverance; to liberate those who are crushed by their chains.”

At the center of the composition is the figure of Christ, surrounded by the afflicted and oppressed. A kneeling woman mourns her dead child, while in the background we see an exile with his walking stick, a castaway with a piece of the wreckage in his hand, and a suicide with a dagger. Placed near these groups are Torquato Tasso (crowned with laurel), a brilliant 16th-century poet imprisoned as a madman, and figures representing the three ages of women. To the right of Christ are the oppressed of both the past and present, among them a Polish independence fighter, a Greek Souliote warrior, a Roman slave, and a black slave. With his left hand Christ releases from his shackles a dying man, the personification of Poland with the shattered weapons of its failed insurrection against Russia by his side, his exposed, wounded body draped in the Polish flag. The repentant Mary Magdalene kneels beside Christ. It is an encyclopedic interpretation of human history that transports the viewer from modern-day Poland, Greece, and America to both the ancient and medieval eras. The composition reflects the renewed interest in France during the 1830s for a more liberal activism within the Catholic Church. On a personal level, it also reveals the artist’s appreciation for various European art movements, especially, the markedly religious Nazarene circle in Germany.

The Dutch-born and French-trained artist Ary Scheffer (February 1795 - June 1858) was one of the pre-eminent Romantic painters active in Paris during the first half of the 19th century. Although his earliest works concentrated on illustrating Romantic literature or overtly sentimental genre subjects, after 1830 he became increasingly occupied with Old and New Testament themes. Christus Consolator created a sensation when exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1837, where it was purchased by the French monarch’s son, the Duc d’Orléans, as a wedding present for his Lutheran fiancée, the Princess Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Scheffer’s religious subjects were the source of his international reputation during his lifetime, and, one might argue, the epitome of his genius. Christus Consolator was, after Holman Hunt’s contemporaneous Light of the World, the most popular religious image throughout the Western world during the middle decades of the 19th century.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 2 – ST MARY MAGDALENE

Title: Mary Magdalen Raised by Angels
Artist: Giovanni Lanfranco
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 109 x 78 cm
Date: c. 1616
Location: Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 2 - ST MARY MAGDALENE

Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples. In the New Testament she is mentioned among the women who accompanied and ministered to Christ (Luke 8:2-3), where it is also said that seven devils had been cast out of her (Mark 16:9). She is next named as standing at the foot of the cross (Mark 15:40; Matthew 27:56; John 19:25; Luke 23:49). She saw Christ laid in the tomb, and she was the first recorded witness of the Resurrection. She is referred to in early Christian writings as "the apostle to the apostles", and in apocryphal texts she is portrayed as a visionary and leader of the early movement. Several Gnostic gospels, such as the Gospel of Mary, written in the early 2nd century, see Mary as the special disciple of Jesus who has a deeper understanding of his teachings and is asked to impart this to the other disciples.

Giovanni Lanfranco, as a pupil of Annibale Carracci, was asked to provide decorations for a palazzetto behind Palazzo Farnese. In keeping with the character of the building, a casino in a garden, they represented mythological episodes. A few years later, Cardinal Odoardo Farnese added a small room to the Palazzetto Farnese as a Christian retreat, and Lanfranco was responsible for its entire decoration. This work consisted of four large frescoes, and nine ceiling panels, only two of which survived. One of the surviving works, Mary Magdalen Raised by Angels, takes it’s cue from the French tradition where it is said Magdalene retired to a hill, La Sainte-Baume, and at the time of her death was carried by angels into the oratory of St. Maximinus, where she received the viaticum.

Giovanni Lanfranco (January 1582 - November 1647) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. His talent for drawing allowed him to begin an apprenticeship with the Bolognese artist Agostino Carracci, brother of Annibale Carracci, working alongside fellow Parmese Sisto Badalocchio in the local Farnese palaces. When Agostino died in 1602, both young artists moved to Annibale's large and prominent Roman workshop. Lanfranco painted many religious decorations for churches and palaces in Rome. Lanfranco explored new styles, bridged traditions, painted in both mannerist and baroque styles, using a tenebrist and a vivid colorist palette. He died in Rome in 1647, where his last work was apse of San Carlo ai Catinari.

Saint Mary Magdalene

Title: Saint Mary Magdalene
Artist: Guido Reni
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 79.3 x 68.5 cm
Date: c. 1634
Location: National Gallery, London.

John 20:18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

Mary Magdalene or Mary of Magdala (original Greek Μαρία ἡ Μαγδαληνή, 1st century AD) was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples. Mary Magdalene is the only person named by any of the canonical gospels as a witness to all three: Jesus' crucifixion, his burial, and the discovery of his empty tomb. Mary Magdalene is mentioned, along with various other women, as a witness to the crucifixion in Mark 15:40, Matthew 27:56 and John 19:25; in listing witnesses who saw where Jesus was buried by Joseph of Aramathea, Mark 15:47 and Matthew 27:61; and in Mark, Matthew, and John, Mary Magdalene is first witness to the Resurrection. New Testament scholar Frank Stagg points out that Mary's role as a witness is unusual because women at that time were not considered credible witnesses in legal proceedings. Because of this, and because of extra-biblical traditions about her subsequent missionary activity in spreading the Gospel, she is known by the title, "Equal of the Apostles".

Guido Reni (November 1575 – August 1642) was an Italian painter of high-Baroque style. As a child of nine, he was apprenticed under the Bolognese studio of Denis Calvaert. When Reni was about twenty years old, three Calvaert pupils migrated to the rising rival studio, named Accademia degli Incamminati (Academy of the "newly embarked", or progressives), led by Lodovico Carracci. They went on to form the nucleus of a prolific and successful school of Bolognese painters who followed Annibale Carracci to Rome. Many of his best known works were painted there, including the ceiling fresco, 'Aurora' (Casino Rospigliosi), carried out before 1614 for Cardinale Scipione Borghese. By 1613 Reni had returned to Bologna, and was largely active there until his death.

Noli Me Tangere

Title: Noli Me Tangere
Artist: Correggio
Medium: Oil on panel transferred to canvas
Size: 130 x 103 cm
Date: c. 1525
Location: Museo del Prado, Madrid.

John 20:15-17 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”). Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Jesus calls her by the name he used for her before, and she responds with ‘Rabboni’, the title she used before. She would naturally assume that their relationship could pick up where it left off and continue on as before. Jesus' response, however, lets her know there has been a radical change in him and consequently in his relationship with his followers. This change is indicated when Jesus tells her not to touch him. The use of the present tense (haptou) suggests in this context that he is not forbidding her to touch him but telling her to stop that which she is already doing.

Antonio Allegri da Correggio (August 1489 – March 1534), usually known as Correggio, was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the Italian Renaissance. Untempted by Rome, Florence or Venice, Correggio, working in the North Italian city of Parma, maintained his originality throughout the High Renaissance and became one of the most important influences on seventeenth-century Baroque painting. Little is known about Correggio's life or training. He appears to have emerged out of no major apprenticeship, and to have had little immediate influence in terms of apprenticed successors, but his works are now considered to have been revolutionary and influential on subsequent artists.

The Morning of the Resurrection

Title: The Morning of the Resurrection
Artist: Edward Coley Burne-Jones
Medium: Oil on wood
Size: 84.5 x 151.1 cm
Date: 1886
Location: Tate Britain, London.

John 20:11-14 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” She said, “They have taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

Burrne-Jones began this painting in 1882, but did not complete it until four years later, when it was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery. After the death of the Hon. Laura Lyttleton (nee Tennant), a young friend of whom the artist was particularly fond, Burne-Jones inscribed a personal memorial or 'oblation' in the lower left-hand corner. He made at least two other versions of the subject. The painting falls at the end of Burne-Jones' Mantegnesque phase, and the regular horizontals and verticals and color strengthen the sad mood. According to de Lisle the angels are making the ancient sign of adoration, of covering the mouth.

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet (August 1833 – June 1898) was an English artist and designer closely associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who worked closely with William Morris on a wide range of decorative arts as a founding partner in Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company. Burne-Jones was closely involved in the rejuvenation of the tradition of stained glass art in England. On 16 June 1933, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, a nephew of Burne-Jones, officially opened a centenary exhibition at the Tate Gallery in London. But in fact, long before 1933, Burne-Jones was hopelessly out-of-fashion in the art world, much of which soon preferred the major trends in Modern art, and the exhibit marking the 100th anniversary of his birth was a sad affair, poorly attended. It was not until the mid-1970s that his work began to be re-assessed and once again acclaimed. A major exhibit in 1989 at the Barbican Art Gallery, London traced Burne-Jones's influence on the next generation of artists, and another at Tate Britain in 1997 explored the links between British Aestheticism and Symbolism.

Resurrection Morning Maria Magdalina

Title: Resurrection Morning Maria Magdalina
Artist: Julia Bekhova
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 80 x 65 cm
Date: 1997
Location: Private collection

John 20:1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.

An interesting divergence between the Synoptic Gospels and that of John, is that in the latter it is Mary Magdalene alone who first attended the tomb. John's Gospel gives Mary Magdalene the greatest prominence in the Resurrection narrative, but why she is singled out, rather than attending with the other women, is a matter of some speculation. John does not tell us why Magdalene went, whereas the other gospels say that the women went to anoint the body. Primarily, it would seem, she went to the tomb to mourn just as we would go to the grave of a loved one.

Julia Bekhova (b. 1964) is a contemporary Russian painter. In 1995 she graduated from the Repin Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in St Petersburg, having studied monumental painting under Professor A. A. Mylnikov. In 1999 she took part in mural works in renovated cathedral of the Christ Rescuer, and between 2001 and 2003 she also assisted with mural works at the city cathedral in Kursk. Since 2000 she has been teaching at the department of painting at the Repin Institute, and participated in various international art shows in such diverse cities as London, Hamburg and Beijing, China. More of her work can be seen here: http://academart.com/bekhova_imaginary_paintings.php

Mary Magdalene Announcing the Resurrection to the Apostles

Title: Mary Magdalene Announcing the Resurrection to the Apostles

Artist: Unknown

Medium: Illumination on parchment

Size: 18 x 14 cm

Date: c. 1123

Location: St. Albans Psalter, St Godehard's Church, Hildesheim.

Mark 16:10-11 She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.

Yet again, the disciples are unable to grasp the magnitude of what has occurred. Despite Jesus having told them on a number of occasions that he would be raised from the dead (e.g. Mark 9:9-10), they refused to believe what Mary Magdalene had to report.

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. The almost unprecedented lavishness of decoration contains a number of iconographic innovations that would endure throughout the Middle Ages.

The main artist decorating the St Albans Psalter is called the ‘Alexis Master’ after a section of the work which contains the biography of a fifth-century Roman saint called Alexis. The Alexis Master is credited with introducing a new figurative and narrative style into English art in the 1120s. This new style was much indebted to eleventh-century German and early twelfth-century Italo-Byzantine style.

The Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene

Title: The Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene

Artist: Alexander Ivanov

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: tdb.

Date: 1835

Location: The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

Mark 16:9 When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons.

Most biblical scholars agree that the original writer of the Gospel of Mark did not write the verses that follow 16:8, and the question arises as to whether that verse was the original ending of the Gospel. That idea has always seemed to make readers uneasy, and in antiquity there were several attempts to graft an ending onto Mark (16:9-20). These spurious endings offer the reader a choice: did the writer mean for the Gospel to end at 16:8, or was there an original ending that was somehow lost? Some scholars have proposed that the Gospel of John, chapter 21, contains most of the elements that were originally found in Mark. There is also evidence that Luke knew the original Mark complete with the material found in John 21, as Luke 5:3-10 merged Mark's story of how Jesus met Peter with a tale of a miraculous catch of fish found in John.

Ivanov’s ‘The Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene’ was warmly welcomed in St Petersburg and won him the title of Academician. The artist himself, however, was not entirely happy with the painting and it’s formal theatricality, reportedly referring to it as merely "corn-cob." Yet in his fascinating preparatory drawings for it, he conveyed the figures in a freer and more natural manner.

Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov (July 28, 1806 – July 15, 1858) was a Russian painter. His father, Andrey Ivanov, was an artist, the professor of the Academy of Arts, and it was his father who first taught Alexander art. Beginning around 1833, and throughout the next twenty years of his life, Ivanov consistently pondered over the theme of his masterpiece ‘The Appearance of Christ to the People’. This huge painting became, with time, synonymous with Ivanov's entire career. In 1858 Ivanov returned to St Petersburg and died two months later. His tremendous influence on Russian art can hardly be assessed in a few words. He undoubtedly ranks among the major Russian artists of the first half of the nineteenth century. His paintings, studies and drawings are a priceless part of the classical heritage.

The Two Marys at the Tomb

Title: The Two Marys at the Tomb

Artist: Bartolomeo Schedoni

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: tbd.

Date: 1613

Location: Galleria Nazionale, Parma.

Mark 16:6-8 "Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.' "

Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

Throughout Mark, people spread news that they were supposed to keep quiet; here, when Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome are finally commanded to spread the word, they keep quiet. Again, the Gospel displays and ironic twist.

This memorable masterpiece, The Two Marys at the Tomb, gives us cause to regret the brevity of Bartolomeo Schedoni's tormented artistic life. It shows that he really would have been able to point Baroque painting in an original and intense direction. The way he blocked out gestures, used violent light and dazzling whites, combined with perfect clarity of detail to produce an almost metaphysical effect.

Bartolomeo Schedoni (1578-1615) was an Italian early Baroque painter and an eccentric exponent of the Emilian school. Schedoni went to Rome at the close of the sixteenth century, but he soon returned to Emilia and settled in Parma. It was there that he painted a small but fascinating group of masterpieces in a severe and noble style. At the same time his works were warmed by a light that softened fabrics and added delicacy to expressions. His untimely death (perhaps suicide owing to gambling debts) brought an abrupt end to the career of one of the most attractive painters of the seventeenth century.

Women the Morning of the Third Day

Title: Femmes au Matin du 3e Jour (Women the morning of the third day)

Artist: Macha Chmakoff

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 81 x 65 cm

Date: c. 2008

Location: Private collection

Mark 16:1-3 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?"

The women return to the tomb to finish the burial preparations for Jesus that had been omitted due to he onset of Sabbath two nights previous. The spices they bought were not part of a traditional burial for everyone, but would have been used only for the bodies of special persons. In other words, their reason for coming was to serve Jesus. In the Gospel of Mark, women occupy a central position in the mission and message of Jesus as examples of model disciples. These women frequently serve as triumphant examples of faith and sacrifice in contrast to unbelieving men.

Macha Chmakoff is a French psychologist, author, and painter, who studied theology at the Université Catholique de Paris. Chmakoff’s work reflects her belief that society is marked by the divorce between religion and spirituality, and the Christian religion proposes to guide the believer into the fullness of his humanity. To become fully human takes awareness of an emptiness, and Christianity provides the tools required to penetrate the source of this emptiness. More of her work can be viewed on her website at http://www.chmakoff.com/

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.

The Penitent Magdalen

Title: The Penitent Magdalen

Artist: Georges de La Tour

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 133.4 x 102.2 cm

Date: 1638-43

Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Mary Magdalene is described in the New Testament as the most important woman in the movement of Jesus. As a follower, Mary was one of many women who accompanied Jesus and the twelve apostles during his travels. Mary followed Jesus to the very end, and was the first to witness his resurrection. In The Gospel of Luke 8:1-3, she is described as one of a group of women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases, specifically, as one “from whom seven demons had come out.”

Magdalene was the object of great devotion in France and La Tour painted several pictures representing her. This picture shows Mary Magdalene in a dark room at the dramatic moment of her conversion, her features lit by a candle flame that imparts a hauntingly spiritual quality to the work. The elaborate silver mirror, the pearls on the table, and the jewels on the floor symbolize luxury, which she has cast aside. In their place she clasps a skull, a common symbol of mortality.

Georges de La Tour (March 13, 1593, Vic-sur-Seille – January 30, 1652, Lunéville) was a painter, who spent most of his working life in the Duchy of Lorraine, which became part of France the year before his death. La Tour's work exhibits a high degree of originality in color and composition; the characteristic simplification of forms gives many of his pictures a deceptively modern appearance. Although the chronology of La Tour's output is uncertain, it is clear that he initially painted in a realistic manner and was influenced by the dramatic chiaroscuro of Caravaggio or his followers. The paintings of La Tour's maturity, however, are marked by a startling geometric simplification of the human form and by the depiction of interior scenes lit only by the glare of candles or torches. His religious paintings done in this manner have a monumental simplicity and a stillness that expresses both contemplative quiet and wonder.

Mary Magdalene Approaching the Tomb

Title: Mary Magdalene Approaching the Tomb

Artist: Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 89.1 x 82.4 cm

Date: c. 1535-40

Location: The National Gallery, London.

On the Sunday morning after the Crucifixion, Mary Magdalene visited the tomb of Jesus, but found it empty. The story is recounted in the Gospel of John 20:11-16, and Mary Magdalene is here identified by the pot of ointment with which she anointed Christ's body, and by the glimpse of her traditional red dress beneath a silver-grey cloak. She was the first person to see Christ after the Resurrection.

In Savoldo’s depiction of these events Mary Magdalene looks up, as if disturbed while grieving. At the left edge of the painting, as part of a background that appears to represent Venice and its lagoon, there is the glow of the sunrise on the eastern horizon. And although the sun should rise in the east, the viewer is struck by the incongruity of the flood of bright, white light that strikes Mary’s shimmering robe from the right. The light that shines on Mary more intensely than the sun is meant to announce the presence of the risen, glorified Messiah. The moment shown here may be the moment when He calls her by name, and she recognizes her Lord.

Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo was born in Brescia. In 1508 he was in Florence, but thereafter he was mainly in Venice (except for a visit to Milan, 1532-4). His output was not great. His pictures are mostly of single figures against landscape backgrounds. The draperies of the figures are usually the most striking element, showing the light on the reflective textiles. Some of his pictures, such as 'Mary Magdalene' are known in a number of versions. The three principal Brescian painters—Moretto, Romanino, and Savoldo—would have a profound impact on Italian art thanks to their influence on a young artist born in the region later in the century: Caravaggio, who admired their approach to sacred painting, with its deliberately humble, earthy character.