Life of Christ in art

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
16th-century Italian cycle in fresco by Gaudenzio Ferrari with 21 scenes from Annunciation to Resurrection: Top row: Annunciation, Nativity, Visit of the Three Magi, Flight to Egypt, Baptism of Christ, Raising of Lazarus, Entry to Jerusalem, Last Supper. Middle row: Washing of feet, Agony in the Garden, Arrest of Christ, Trial before the Sanhedrin, Trial before Pilate, Flagellation. Bottom row: Ecce homo, Carrying the cross, Christ falls, Crucifixion, Deposition from the cross, Harrowing of Hell, Resurrection.

The life of Christ as a narrative cycle in Christian art comprises a number of different subjects showing events from the life of Jesus on Earth. They are distinguished from the many other subjects in art showing the eternal life of Christ, such as Christ in Majesty, and also many types of portrait or devotional subjects without a narrative element.

Ivory panel with the Massacre of the Innocents, Baptism of Christ, and Wedding at Cana, 1st third of 5th century

They are often grouped in series or cycles of works in a variety of media, from book illustrations to large cycles of wall paintings, and most of the subjects forming the narrative cycles have also been the subjects of individual works, though with greatly varying frequency. By around 1000, the choice of scenes for the remainder of the Middle Ages became largely settled in the Western and Eastern churches, and was mainly based on the major feasts celebrated in the church calendars.

The most common subjects were grouped around the birth and childhood of Jesus, and the

Protestant art, the number of subjects increased considerably, but cycles in painting became rarer, though they remained common in prints
and especially book illustrations.

Most common scenes

The Passion shown in a number of small scenes, c. 1490, from the Entry into Jerusalem through the Golden Gate (lower left) to the Ascension (centre top)

The main scenes found in art during the Middle Ages are:[2]

Birth and childhood sequence

These scenes also could form part of cycles of the Life of the Virgin:

Mission period

Dives and Lazarus
in four.

Passion of Christ

Triptych of the life and death of Christ, from the early Gondarine period in Ethiopia.

Resurrection to Ascension

Byzantine set of 12 scenes

In

Dormition of the Theotokos (Death of the Virgin).[3]

Choice of scenes

Entry into Jerusalem from the large cycle in the Scrovegni Chapel by Giotto, c. 1266.
Untypical scene from a large 19th-century cycle by James Tissot

After the Early Christian period, the selection of scenes to illustrate was led by the occasions celebrated as Feasts of the Church, and those mentioned in the Nicene Creed, both of which were given prominence by the devotional writers on whose works many cycles appear to be based. Of these, the Vita Christi ("Life of Christ") by Ludolph of Saxony and the Meditations on the Life of Christ were two of the most popular from the 14th century onwards. Another influence, especially in smaller churches, was liturgical drama, and no doubt also those scenes which lent themselves to a readily identifiable image tended to be preferred. Devotional practices such as the Stations of the Cross also influenced selection.

The

Early Christian art
, became much more rare in the art of the Western Church.

However, some miracles commonly used as paradigms for Christian doctrines continued to be represented, especially the Wedding at Cana and Raising of Lazarus, which were both easy to recognise as images, with Lazarus normally shown tightly wrapped in a white shroud, but standing up. Paintings in hospitals were more likely to show scenes of the miraculous cures. An exception is

gospel book.[6]

The scenes originating in the apocryphal Gospels that remain a feature of the depiction of Life of the Virgin have fewer equivalents in the Life of Christ, although some minor details, like the boys climbing trees in the Entry to Jerusalem, are tolerated. The Harrowing of Hell was not an episode witnessed or mentioned by any of the Four Evangelists but was approved by the Church, and the Lamentation of Christ, though not specifically described in the Gospels, was thought to be implied by the accounts there of the episodes before and after. Vernacular art was less policed by the clergy, and works such as some medieval tiles from Tring can show fanciful apocryphal legends that either hardly ever appeared in church art, or were destroyed at some later date.[7]

By the

Emile Mâle's famous study of 13th-century French cathedral art analyses many cycles, and discusses the lack of emphasis on the "public life [which] is dismissed in four scenes, the Baptism, the Marriage at Cana, the Temptation and the Transfiguration, which moreover it is rare to find all together".[8]

Cycles

Duccio's Temptation on the Mount from his Maestà (1308-1311)
The rear of Duccio's Maestà. The middle section has the Passion sequence, beginning with the entry to Jerusalem (bottom left) and ending with Noli me tangere, top right, 2nd row; sequence. Below are the Works, above the post-Resurrection scenes. The birth and childhood scenes are on the front, as part of a Life of the Virgin.

sarcophagi and in paintings in the Catacombs of Rome. Miracles are very often shown, but the Crucifixion is absent until the 5th century, when it originated in Palestine
, soon followed by the Nativity in much the form still seen in Orthodox icons today. The Adoration of the Magi and the Baptism are both often found earlier, but the choice of scenes is very variable.

The only

Late Antique monumental cycles to have survived are in mosaic: Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome has a cycle from 432–430 on the birth and infancy of Christ together with other scenes from the Life of the Virgin, the dedicatee of the church.[9] Sant'Appollinare Nuovo in Ravenna has cycles on opposite walls of the Works and Passion of Christ from the early 6th century. The Passion is notable for still not containing, among its thirteen scenes, a Crucifixion, and the Works contains eight miracles in its thirteen scenes. Neither of these features was to be typical of later art, but they are comparable to features of cycles in smaller objects of the period such as carved caskets and a gold pendant medallion of the late 6th century.[10]

For the rest of the Early Medieval period illuminated manuscripts contain the only painted scenes to have survived in quantity, though many scenes have survived from the applied arts, especially ivories, and some in cast bronze. The period of Christ's Works still seems relatively prominent compared to the High Middle Ages.[11]

Although this was the period when the

sarcophagi[12] to the Raphael Cartoons
.

In painting, the Life was often shown on one side of a church, paired with

stained-glass became important in Gothic art, this medium was also used, usually with a small medallion for each scene, requiring a very compressed composition. The frescos on the walls of the Sistine Chapel showing the Lives of Christ and Moses are an unusual variant.[13]

From the 15th century

bird's eye view
image of Jerusalem; another is illustrated here.

In Protestant areas production of paintings of the Life stopped very soon after the

Reformation, but prints and book illustrations were acceptable, as free from the suspicion of idolatry. Nonetheless, there were surprisingly few cycles of the Life. Lucas Cranach the Elder made a famous propaganda set of the Passion of Christ and Antichrist (1521), where 13 matched pairs of woodcuts contrasted a scene from the Life with an anti-Catholic scene. But otherwise scenes from the Old Testament and parables
were more often seen.

Parables

Prodigal Son
with his pigs, 1536

Of the thirty or so

Labourers in the Vineyard
also appear in Early Medieval works.

From the Renaissance the numbers shown widened slightly, and the three main scenes of the Prodigal Son – the high living, herding the pigs, and the return – became the clear favourites.

St Petersburg[18]
) is one of his most popular works.

Individual cycles with articles

Interior of the Scrovegni Chapel with a large fresco cycle by Giotto

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Schiller, I, 152
  2. ^ Schiller has sections on each of these, and many other less common subjects. Mâle's Chapter 2 analyses 13th-century French Cathedral scenes in the text, and an appendix listing the contents of many.
  3. ISBN 0719539714
  4. ^ Schiller, I, 152–3
  5. ^ Lewine, Carol F.; JSTOR Vulpes Fossa Habent or the Miracle of the Bent Woman in the Gospels of St. Augustine, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge,
  6. ISBN 0-226-14292-2
  7. ^ Tring tile, Victoria & Albert Museum]
  8. ^ Mâle, 177
  9. ^ Schiller, II, 26–7
  10. Istanbul Archaeological Museum
    , Inv. no 82.
  11. ^ Schiller, I, 154
  12. ^ Dick Stracke. "Miracles, Augusta State University". Aug.edu. Archived from the original on 2012-02-12. Retrieved 2012-06-05.
  13. ^ "Vatican Museums". Mv.vatican.va. Retrieved 2012-06-05.
  14. ^ Kurth, Willi. The Complete Woodcuts of Albrecht Durer, Dover Books, New York, 1963. All images at Harvard external link.
  15. ^ Strauss, Walter L. The Complete Engravings, Etchings and Drypoints of Albrecht Durer, Dover Books, New York, 1972
  16. ^ Mâle, 195
  17. ^ Gerard van Honthorst
  18. ^ Return of the Prodigal Son

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Life and teachings of Jesus Christ in art.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Life_of_Christ_in_art&oldid=1215891405"