Art and Eye

My eye first notices the surprising delicacy in which David has drawn this figure. Although the viewer sees this strong, muscular form filling the pictorial space of the canvas, the softness of the lines of the body and the colour of the skin is in complete juxtaposition. Furthermore, the shadows settling on the body do not create hard lines but rather extenuate the smoothness of the skin. The only hard lines are on the red drapery which the figure leans on. The body is not geometric or made up of any straight lines, everything flows into the milky white skin and down the figure's arched shoulders to his feet.  Moving away from the body which obviously catches any viewer's eye, I notice the arrows in the bottom right hand corner. The representation is ambiguous but perhaps these link somehow to the brutish nature of this figure, contrasting with the softness of the lines that make up his body. He may be preparing to kill, with the red drapery like a pool of blood underneath him

My eye is not drawn, unlike most people's, to the finger probing Christ's chest, but to a more insignificant detail. The viewer can tell that this is an astonishing scene by the hole in Jesus' side but also by the way Caravaggio has drawn the other men in the painting. I instantly notice the lines on their foreheads, all mirroring one another. The delicacy of these lines highlight how shocking and unbelievable this scene is. This man is supposed to be dead. They all witnessed it happening. These lines on Thomas' forehead are so many that they are virtually melting into his hairline, so deeply etched they look like a ribcage. And as the viewer, I find myself mirroring his expression without thinking about it. I am as surprised as if I were the one prodding the son of God.  Caravaggio was a master when it came to chiaroscuro . The over exaggerated shadows on Christ's drapery are a good example of this, amplifying the casual folds of the cloth. All of the shadows are h

  My eye is instantly drawn to the agonised suffering displayed on Christ's body. As he is shown in the centre of the painting, it is hard to tear your eyes away from the emaciated body and try to take in the other figures around him. The way Grunewald has painted Jesus' hands is particularly striking; the way in which they grasp upwards to the heavens, straining as they take the weight of the body. 'Why hast thou forsaken me?' Perhaps Jesus has just spoken these lines in a last effort to end the pain, and with no answer, hope has been lost, signalled by the sudden droop of his head. Even his fingers look thin, adding to the feeling that he has been on the cross for what seems like an eternity. We want to rush into the canvas and free Jesus of this burden.  Grunewald's depiction of the human body is striking. We can see the straining tendons of muscle at Christ's exposed armpit. His mouth is sightly parted, perhaps suggesting that his last breath has just escape