Christ

1834
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Christ, 1834

Oh. My. Dad. I am done. 

 Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, wildly known for his neo-classical portraits, also considers himself to be a historical painter. In this particular painting, he set Jesus in a totally sassy manor. His holy sassiness lets a high school art history student to apply their own modern Youtube jokes.

 Ingres mainly painted religious figures when he was commissioned to paint for the Neo-Gothic chapel of Neuilly. During this period he painted other religious paintings like Jesus Among the Doctors. He painted a similar portrait of The Virgin Mary, where it is encased in the same oval frame. The difference is that The Virgin Mary has more background within the painting. Compositionally, the painting has a lot of merit. For a rather modest painting (80 x 60 cm) Jesus takes up the majority of the canvas without getting disproportionate.  

 Jesus ain't got time for that. 

  • 7:00 AM

The Sickness Unto Death Pt. VI: Isenheim Altarpiece

Aaron Dupuis
The Sickness Unto Death 
A Musically Guided Exploration of Artist's Struggle with Mortality
Curated by Aaron Dupuis
Matthias Grünewald, Isenheim Altarpiece, 1512

"Every bitter night into an empty room I plead my caseEvery night I pray that in the morning when I wake
I'll be in a familiar place and find that I'm recovered and I'm sane
and I'll remember everything
I'll remember what I was like before that bug bit me"
"The Sickness Unto Death," Typhoon 

Of all of the paintings of the crucifixion, this one hits me the hardest. Critics can talk all they want about the strides that Caravaggio made in making Christ accessible to the public at large. I won't disagree with them. However, this is the only work I have ever seen that fully reduces Christ to a human form. There is no grace. There is no dignity. There is no beauty. Instead Grünewald gives us a hanging corpse, skinny and ragged. He gives us ugliness. The true ugliness of death.

Though this particular panel depicts no sense of holiness - not even the faint halo of Mantegna's Lamentation over the Dead Christ - the other panels hidden from view in the above photo depict a scene of glorious resurrection and ascension into the blinding lights of heaven. By portraying Christ's as a deformed corpse and later as a risen angel, Grünewald conquers the fear of death, not for his own sake, but for the sake of the wretched masses who would have seen the altarpiece in the Monastery of St. Anthony. The Monastery, you see, served primarily as a hospital, and served the lepers and cripples of Isenheim, helping to alleviate their suffering and make their final days on earth as comfortable as possible.

And so the Isenheim Altarpiece's ugliness is only surface level. Beneath the grime and gore lies the beauty of compassion and human empathy. And there too lies the belief that our time on earth is what we should dread most. Death is nothing at all.

  • 7:00 AM

Man of Sorrows

Aaron Dupuis
Fra Angelico, Man of Sorrows, 1443
Now, I'm no expert on Jesus paintings, but Man of Sorrows by Fra Angelico has got to be one of the cooler ones out there. For once it wasn't the content or message of the work that drew my attention, but rather the boldfaced weirdness of it all. The use of black in the background is startling, especially given the ambiguity that surrounds its context. Is that the night sky, or a metaphorical space in which the scenes of the Passion of Christ may be displayed?

The scenes themselves borrow elements from Fra Angelico's other works that line the walls of the San Marco. Incredibly detailed and surreally arranged in the negative space, the scenes do not seem to adhere to any particular pattern or linear story. Rather they seek to evoke an emotion. They tell the story of Christ's betrayal and crucifixion in fragments: The Judas kiss, the nails used to crucify Jesus, the payment of 30 silver pieces to Judas Iscariot, the taunting of Christ. It is also notable that the work depicts an empty cross, with two streaks of blood running from the nails, still stuck fast into the wood.

In portraying the resurrection of Christ in this way, Fra Angelico seeks to portray a triumphant portrait, praising the Man of Sorrow for the trials he faced. As modern viewers, whether we buy the biblical story or not, at the very least we should find a sense of victory in the piece: an ultimate sacrifice for a cause outside of the self.

  • 7:00 AM