Easter Paintings: 1 The Passion

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

Gustave Doré (1832–1883), Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem (before 1876), oil on canvas, 98.4 x 131.4 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

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 (1852–1920), Christ Driving the Money-Changers from the Temple (date not known), oil on canvas, 116 × 108 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

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 (1757–1827), Mary Magdalene Washing Christ’s Feet (c 1805), pen and ink and watercolor over graphite on paper, 34.9 x 34.6 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art (Gift of Mrs. William Thomas Tonner, 1964), Pennsylvania, PA. Courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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

Giampietrino (1495–1549), copy after Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), The Last Supper (c 1520), oil on canvas, 298 x 770 cm, The Royal Academy of Arts, London. Wikimedia Commons.

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 (c 1518-1594), The Last Supper (E&I 95) (c 1563-64), oil on canvas, 221 x 413 cm, Chapel of the Sacrament, San Trovaso, Venice, Italy. Image by Sailko, via Wikimedia Commons.

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 (1757–1827), The Agony in the Garden (1799–1800), tempera on iron, 27 x 38 cm, The Tate Gallery (Presented by the executors of W. Graham Robertson through the Art Fund 1949), London. © The Tate Gallery and Photographic Rights © Tate (2016), CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported), http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-the-agony-in-the-garden-n05894

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 (1836–1902), Jesus Before Pilate, First Interview (1886-1894), opaque watercolor over graphite on gray wove paper, 16.8 x 28.6 cm, Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY. Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum, via Wikimedia Commons.

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

Hieronymus Bosch (c 1450–1516), The Crowning with Thorns (c 1490-1500), oil on oak panel, 73.8 x 59 cm, The National Gallery, London. Wikimedia Commons.

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 (c 1430–1479), Christ at the Column (c 1478), oil on panel, 29.8 x 21 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.

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.