This third and final article devoted to paintings of Easter covers the events after the entombment, from Christ’s body in the sepulchre and the harrowing of Hell, to the Resurrection. Although less frequently painted than the Crucifixion, the Resurrection is the whole purpose of Easter.

William Blake’s The Angels hovering over the body of Christ in the Sepulchre; Christ in the sepulchre, guarded by angels from about 1805 elaborates the gospel accounts of Christ’s body in the sepulchre with reference to the description of the tabernacle in Exodus, chapter 25 verse 20:
And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be.
This may have been in the light of Hebrews, chapter 9 verse 5:
And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercyseat; of which we cannot now speak particularly.

Just before the end of the sixteenth century, Jan Brueghel the Elder collaborated with Hans Rottenhammer in Christ’s Descent into Limbo (1597). This is set in a grand vision of a dungeon at the edge of a fiery underworld that could have been painted by Hieronymus Bosch.

William Blake’s Christ Appearing to His Disciples/Apostles After the Resurrection is one of his large colour print series from 1795, referring to the gospel of Luke, chapter 24 verses 36-40:
And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, “Peace be unto you.” But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them, “Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet.

William Holman Hunt’s Christ and the Two Marys is an early Pre-Raphaelite painting from 1847, the year before the formation of the Brethren, and a time when religious themes were popular among them. The two Marys are Mary Magdalene and “the other” Mary, while Christ, his stigmata plainly visible, has cast off the bandages his body was wrapped in for burial.

Nikolai Ge’s Heralds of the Resurrection, from 1867, probably shows Mary Magdalene rushing to tell the disciples of the news that Christ’s body was missing, and that he was resurrected. At the right are the guards who were placed at the tomb, perhaps.

Several impossible legends grew about Mary Magdalene; here Albert Edelfelt’s Christ and Mary Magdalene, a Finnish Legend (1890) dresses her in contemporary clothing, and transports the two to the lakes and forests of Finland, where the first pale leaves of Spring are on the trees.

Fritz von Uhde has a similarly modern approach in Touch me not. John 20:17 from 1894, this time outside a small town in Germany.

John Roddam Spencer Stanhope’s Why seek ye the living among the dead? (St Luke, Chapter 14, verse 5) (1896) refers to the version in which Mary Magdalene and companion(s) return to Christ’s tomb, only to find its door open and the tomb empty. They are then greeted by two men who inform them that Christ has risen from the dead. Stanhope depicts this in the style of a frieze, the four figures arranged across the painting in a single parallel plane. Although part of a complex narrative, he depicts only a limited window from the story, and in doing so makes his painting simpler and more direct.

Late in the nineteenth century, Eugène Burnand’s most successful painting was The Disciples Peter and John Running to the Tomb on the Morning of the Resurrection from 1898, now in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Their faces and hands tell so much, surprisingly for an artist who had concentrated for his whole career on landscapes.

Albin Egger-Lienz painted a thoroughly modern account in 1923-24. He developed the study above, known simply as Resurrection, into the finished painting of Resurrection of Christ below.

I close with a wonderful painting of a more recent Easter Sunday, by the Ukrainian artist Mykola Pymonenko.

Waiting for the Blessing (1891) shows the scene at a country church at dawn on Easter Sunday. The local population is crowding inside, while the women gather with their Paska, traditional ornamental bread that must be blessed before it can be eaten as a brunch. Note how defocussed the crowd in the background appears relative to the women and children in the foreground.

May all our Easters be peaceful, wherever we are!

In this second of my three articles devoted to paintings of Easter, I cover the Crucifixion, from Christ’s ascent to calvary bearing his cross, to the entombment of his body.

Way of the cross

Jacopo Tintoretto’s Ascent to Calvary (E&I 128) is unusual among paintings of this phase of the Passion for its inclusion of all three of those to be crucified bearing their crosses. Christ is naturally prominent in the upper half of a composition dominated by diagonals, formed by the winding path and the crosses themselves. He and the two thieves are each given assistants who help them with the burden of the crosses.

In the upper distance are banners declaring the oversight of the Roman authorities, in their inscriptions of SPQR. Tintoretto links this with the Crucifixion with the inclusion of the tradesmen and their tools who were shortly to be responsible for the mechanics of the executions. Here the thick ropes bind the figures together, as they are used to attach the crosses to their bearers, and to draw the three along to their deaths.

Lovis Corinth’s Christ Carrying the Cross (1909) explores Christ’s Passion in real terms. Although this contains most of the usual elements seen in traditional depictions, his language is contemporary, almost secular. Two men, one of them apparently African, are helping Christ bear his exhausting load, while a couple of soldiers are whipping him on, and threatening him with their spears. A third soldier is controlling the crowd at the upper left, and behind is a mounted soldier and one of the disciples.

Crucifixion

Tintoretto’s Crucifixion (E&I 123) (1565) is over 5 metres (17 feet) high, and 12 metres (40 feet) across. The artist makes use of space with a narrative technique based on the traditional ‘multiplex’ form popular during the Renaissance: its single image shows events at more than a single point in time, in an ingenious and modern manner.

Naturally, the painting centres on Christ crucified, but the two thieves executed beside him are not shown, as would be traditional, already hanging from their crosses. Instead, to the right of Christ, the ‘bad’ thief is still being attached to his cross, which rests on the ground. To the left of Christ, the ‘good’ thief is just being raised to the upright position.

Spaced out around the canvas are relevant sub-stories from that whole. At the foot of Christ’s cross is his group of mourners, including the Marys. Each of the crosses has attendant workers, busy with the task of conducting the crucifixion, climbing ladders, hauling on lines, and fastening each victim to his cross. This mechanical and human detail brings the scene to life, adding to its credibility and grim process.

James Tissot’s What Our Lord Saw from the Cross is a uniquely innovative and narrative depiction of the crucifixion.

Descent from the Cross

Peter Paul Rubens painted a huge panel showing the Crucifixion, although in this case it’s strictly speaking a Deposition: this centre panel, Descent from the Cross (1612-14), is from his triptych commissioned by the Confraternity of the Arquebusiers of Antwerp for the Cathedral of Our Lady in that city. This remains one of Rubens’ greatest religious paintings.

The Deposition (Descent from the Cross) (1895) was one of Lovis Corinth’s major paintings from his time in Munich, and won a gold medal when it was exhibited in the Glaspalast in Munich, in 1895. It shows the traditional station of the cross commemorating the lowering of the dead body of Christ from the cross, attended by Joseph of Arimathea and Mary Magdalene.

This work is a thoroughly modern approach to this classical theme, in its framing, composition, and the faces. Its close-in cropped view suggests the influence of photography, and the faces shown appear contemporary and not in the least historic. These combine to give it the immediacy of a current event, rather than something that happened almost two millennia ago. Corinth returned to the subject of the Deposition, and the theme of the Crucifixion, in many of his paintings.

Pietà

Gustave Moreau painted several versions of the Pietà (c 1876), this one on a tiny panel. It incorporates some of the more radical imagery which was appearing in his mythological paintings, with a blue wing in the centre.

Entombment

William Blake’s The Entombment (c 1805) refers to the gospel of Luke, chapter 23 verses 53 and 55:
And he took it [the body of Jesus] down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid.
And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid.

Easter is one of the two landmarks in the Christian calendar. This weekend I devote three articles to paintings of the Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Although these don’t sync perfectly with the calendar, they should provide better coverage of events that are the most painted in European art. Today, on Good Friday, these cover the Passion prior to the Crucifixion; tomorrow, paintings show the Crucifixion itself, and on Easter Sunday I end with the Resurrection.

Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem

Now known almost exclusively for his fine engravings for books, Gustave Doré was in his time as well known for his paintings. This is a preparatory sketch for one of his several versions of Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem. This shows the conventional Christian account in the Gospels, of Christ entering Jerusalem in triumph, on the back of a donkey, as the start (‘Palm Sunday’ because of the palm fronds usually involved) of the series of processes leading to his Crucifixion. A popular biblical narrative in European painting, few finished works can match Doré’s at 6 by 10 metres size.

Cleansing of the Temple

Gaetano Previati’s undated and sketchy painting of Christ Driving the Money-Changers from the Temple appears to predate his Divisionism. It shows the Cleansing of the Temple, in which Jesus expelled merchants and money-changers from the Temple of Jerusalem, as described in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 21, verses 12-17.

Anointing of Jesus by a woman

William Blake’s Mary Magdalene Washing Christ’s Feet is one of the biblical series he painted for his patron Thomas Butts in about 1803-05. It shows the scene during the supper at the house of Martha and Mary, which prefigured the Last Supper in several ways. This is told in the gospel of John, chapter 12 verses 1-8:

Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.

Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, which should betray him, “Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?” This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. Then said Jesus, “Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.”

Presumably the man sat in the centre, wearing blue, is intended to be Lazarus; Mary and Jesus look awkward together: it has been proposed that this results from meanings that Blake attached to left and right, but here it’s almost inevitable given the composition. This does, though, provide a full view of the curved and compacted figure of Mary, and her wiping of Jesus’ feet using her luxuriant hair.

The Last Supper

The most famous painting of The Last Supper, and one of the best-known works in the European canon, is of course Leonardo da Vinci’s. Giampietrino’s copy from about 1520 gives the closest impression today of what the original must have looked like. Even this copy has been horribly mutilated: the upper third was cut off, and its width reduced, but at least what remains gives a better idea of the original’s appearance.

Leonardo’s composition wasn’t entirely revolutionary for the time. Previous paintings of The Last Supper had spread the apostles along the length of a table, with Christ at its centre. However, Judas Iscariot was usually placed alone on the near side, his back to the viewer, and sometimes with his bag of silver visible behind his back.

Leonardo shows the moment of surprise and denial when Christ announces that one of those sat around the table would betray him. In this he was perhaps the first artist to assemble the apostles into small groups, a feature that has been repeated in innumerable images following this. For not only must this be one of the greatest works of European art, it must also have spawned more copies and parodies than any other.

Jacopo Tintoretto’s version from 1563-64 is so radically informal that it still shocked John Ruskin when he saw it three centuries later. Its table is almost square and low-set, with Jesus leaning back and talking quite casually. Twelve apostles sit, lounge, slump and lean around the table, of which one at the right is even eating his meal from his lap. There’s a rough assortment of seating, with a chair resting on its side under the table, as if hurriedly abandoned, which is perhaps a reference to Judas Iscariot.

The Garden of Gethsemane

This has posed the greatest problems for paintings, in that the action in the garden took place in the dark.

William Blake’s The Agony in the Garden is an unusual moment from the popular sequence of the Passion. Although much of it is inevitably dark, Blake’s imagery is as radical as those in his watercolours. The story is a composite from the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and shows the instant just before Christ’s betrayal by Judas and his arrest. An angel appeared from heaven, to strengthen Jesus, and “his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

Christ’s head is tilted in the extreme to face the angel, who grasps him under the armpits. The angel has descended from a brilliant red burst at the top of the painting, while the disciples are seen asleep among the dark tree-trunks.

The Trials of Jesus

James Tissot’s huge series of watercolours showing the life of Christ includes the Passion in great, and sometimes graphic, detail. Jesus Before Pilate, First Interview shows the episode from Luke 23:1-4 and John 18:33-38 in which Pilate, the Roman governor at the time, questions Jesus and concludes that there is no basis for any charge against him. Technically one of the most brilliant paintings of the series, it is easy to mistake this for being painted in oils.

Crowning with Thorns

In Hieronymus Bosch’s The Crowning with Thorns from about 1490-1500, there are four men around the head and body of Jesus Christ. At the top left, a crossbowman dressed in a green cloak and wearing full armour on his right hand holds, in that hand, the crown of thorns, so as to place it on Christ’s head. At the top right, an older man, whose right arm rests on Christ’s right shoulder, has a more concerned expression, his brows knitted, almost as if trying to reassure Christ.

At the lower right, another older man is seen in profile, looking up at Christ, and clutching at his white robe with both hands. At the lower left, a much older man also appears in profile, looking up at Christ, his left hand holding the top of a stick, his right touching Christ’s body. Christ looks directly at the viewer, his face appearing calm and resigned. He wears a thin, white linen robe, from which his right hand protrudes.

Antonello da Messina’s Christ at the Column, painted in about 1478, is one of the masterpieces of European oil painting. The head of Christ here is almost identical to that of the artist’s pieta, to the point where he is thought to have used the same cartoon for both, but here showed the eyes open and looking up to the heavens.

Amazingly, this painting didn’t appear until 1863, when it was bought by the chief curator at the South Kensington Museum in London from a dealer in Granada, Spain. It was originally attributed to Andrea Solario, and wasn’t recognised as Antonello’s until the twentieth century. After display in the National Gallery in London, it was bought by the Louvre in 1992.

Two hundred years ago, on 16 April 1825, the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli, who had lived and worked in Britain for much of his life, died in Putney Hill, London. (There is a disparity in the date of his death between Wikipedia, which claims it occurred the following day, and the Royal Academy.)

Fuseli became a full academician in the Royal Academy in 1790, and nine years later was appointed its Professor of Painting. He continued to hold office in the Academy until his death.

His liberal fantasy of Titania and Bottom from about 1790 is loosely based on the opening of Act 4 Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with Titania’s words:
Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,
While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,
And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.

Titania (left of centre) calls on her fairies to attend to Bottom, who wears the ass’s head to the right of her. Peaseblossom scratches Bottom’s head, with Mustardseed on his hand, and Cobweb kills a bee to bring its honey to him. Fuseli has borrowed liberally from other sources: Titania’s pose is from Leonardo da Vinci’s Leda (c 1506), the elves at the right from a Botticelli illustration for Dante’s Paradiso (c 1469), and the girl with butterfly wings on her head in the left foreground is based on some of Sir Joshua Reynolds’ child portraits.

Fuseli’s version of Falstaff in the Laundry Basket from 1792 makes the hiding of Falstaff in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor appear rushed, as one of the armed men looking for Falstaff is already outside.

Another fine example of Fuseli’s dramatic paintings is The Shepherd’s Dream from 1793, telling a story of fairy elves bewitching a peasant, from John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667). In 1799, Fuseli organised a gallery of paintings of the writings of John Milton, but it proved a commercial failure and closed the following year.

Fuseli continued with Shakespearean scenes in this painting of Titania, Bottom and the Fairies from 1793-94. This shows the queen with her arms around the unfortunate Bottom, while attendant fairies serenade the couple.

His Odysseus in front of Scylla and Charybdis (1794-96) is a vivid depiction of Odysseus passing these twin dangers described in Homer’s Odyssey. He stands on the fo’c’s’le of his ship, holding his shield up in defence as the oarsmen down below him struggle to propel the craft through the Straits of Messina.

Tekemessa and Eurysakes, painted in the period 1800-10, is one of the most obscure classical Greek mythological paintings that I have come across. Tekemessa (or Tecmessa) was a princess, whose father was killed by Telamonian Ajax during the Trojan War, and who was taken captive by Ajax. She was famously beautiful, and had a son by Ajax named Eurysakes (or Eurysaces). Mother and son survived Ajax’s suicide, and later Eurysakes became king of Salamis Island, Ajax’s homeland. Fuseli’s painting shows the mother comforting her son, perhaps after Ajax’s suicide, although its subtitle of Eros reviving Psyche is a different interpretation altogether.

Many of Fuseli’s later paintings were concerned with a world of Satan, devils, and witches, among them his Satan Calling up His Legions from 1802.

In another obscure myth, this time from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Ino was transformed into a sea goddess known as Leucothea, who appeared in the form of a gannet to Odysseus when he was shipwrecked during the Odyssey. Fuseli’s Shipwreck of Odysseus from 1803 is a highly dramatic account.

Fuseli’s Sleep and Death Carrying away Sarpedon of Lycia from 1803 is one of the most faithful accounts of this myth. Thanatos and his twin Hypnos are carrying away this dead hero, a son of Zeus who fought for the Trojans, according to Homer’s Iliad.

In Shakespeare’s Richard III, the king is visited by the ghosts of those he has had murdered: King Henry VI, Prince Edward, Clarence, Elizabeth’s brother and son, the two young princes in the Tower, Lady Anne, Buckingham, and others. They each curse him and wish victory to his rival Richmond. The King wakes with a start in the morning, realising that he is about to die. This engraving after Fuseli’s painting of The Ghosts Vanish from 1805 shows Richard awakening as the ghosts of his nightmare are dispersing.

His dark and heavily stylised painting of Lady Macbeth Receives the Daggers from 1812 shows Shakespeare’s character leaning forward towards her husband, who is holding the two daggers and looking distraught, moments after he has murdered King Duncan.

Fuseli captured the dynamics of Theseus’ fight with the Minotaur in this spirited mixed-media sketch of Ariadne Watching the Struggle of Theseus with the Minotaur from 1815-20. Theseus appears almost skeletal as he tries to bring his dagger down to administer the fatal blow, and Ariadne looks like a wraith or spirit.

Fairy Mab, painted by Henry Fuseli in 1815-20, shows a character referred to by Mercutio in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet Act 1 Scene 4, who is the “fairies’ midwife”, and attributed the portentous dreams that have been troubling Romeo. Here she’s more probably in the guise of her reinvention in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s (1792–1822) first large poetic work, Queen Mab, published in 1813. The name Mab is apparently pronounced as if it were Mave, to rhyme with save.

As a teacher in the Royal Academy Schools, Fuseli taught Wiliam Etty and Edwin Landseer, but his greatest influence was undoubtedly on the younger William Blake. He was also an influence on Caspar David Friedrich and the German Romantic painters.

On 16 (or 17) April 1825, Henry Fuseli died in Putney Hill, London. He was accorded the honour of being buried in the crypt of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, where the Duke of Wellington, Lord Nelson, and other major figures are interred. He is perhaps the greatest and most prolific narrative painter of the British canon.

References

Wikipedia

Myrone, M (2001) Henry Fuseli, British Artists, Tate Publishing. ISBN 978 1 8543 7357 1.