Skip to main content

Grunewald, 'The Crucifixion' from the Isenheim Altarpiece, c.1516



The Crucifixion by Matthias Grunewald ~ Bread for Beggars 

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 escaped his lips, hence Mary's utter despair to the far left of the painting. Or perhaps Jesus is struggling for that last breath, which links to the way his stomach is sucked in, highlighting the pain of simply breathing. The way his legs are turned in and knees knocking together shows the limpness he feels inside. And finally his feet are really what catch my eye, or rather his right foot on top. It almost looks broken at the ankle because of the unnatural position Grunewald has painted. It looks as though it has been forced into that position to be nailed. If you look closely, you can even see the straining of the ligaments on the ankle, amplifying the agony. Grunewald has painted the truth here, and has not used art to cover up any of the finer details. 

Grunewald uses a dark background to really make the crucifixion pop out and then emphasises this with his use of colour. Christ looks deathly, his skin tinged with greens and yellows. Moreover, these colours suggests dirt ingrained into his skin, which is emphasised by the dark, chiaroscuro shadows on his body. From his crown of thorns, there are clear punctures in the skin and the sea of sickly yellow is only interrupted by flecks of blood, red and freshly dripping down the contours of his body. As we look at this painting, whether religious or not, our faces mirror those of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene, pleading to anyone at all to make it stop. Even though we know how this story ends, we still want to interfere and save Christ from this suffering. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mark Rothko, 'Light Red over Black', 1957

  My eye is not drawn to the painting itself but the title of the painting, 'Light Red Over Black'. We would automatically think that the black is on top of a red background, but Rothko has flipped this around, subverting the title just like he subverting the meaning of what it was to be an artist and what Art actually was. During this time, art was going through rapid changes, with abstract expressionism coming into full force (Rothko, Pollock). But Rothko showed that all this change was for the good, even if for him, it was short lived.  The colour red in this painting is searing and the black struggles to fully cover this velvety border, especially at the bottom of the canvas. Unlike the black squares which have a hazy quality to their edges, the red is clear and impregnable. It is hard to figure out what this represents - the Tate has suggested a window perhaps, but if it is a window then what are we looking out into? Perhaps it is night, or perhaps the viewer is catching ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Egon Schiele, 'Dead Mother', 1910

  My eye is drawn to the hand. Those long, bony fingers are so characteristic of Schiele but here they are particularly skeletal and deathly – the veins seem to have been injected with poison. And they are a warning right in the foreground of the painting that keeps the viewer at bay as an outsider to this incredibly intimate relationship between mother and child, and sets the tone of death and mortality which hangs over the whole image. The mother cradles her child in a womb-like shroud, alluding to childbirth and the death of the mother explained in the title. She seems desperate to feel that bodily connection with her child, highlighted by the emphasis on her craned neck as she tries to connect to the baby. There is a clear link between the mother’s bent neck and the child’s bent neck, again emphasising their longing to be with each other. However, the darkness around the child is almost like ropes, with flecks of white in the painting making it look as though the darkness is wo...
Post a Comment
Read more

M.K. Ciurlionis, 'Funeral Symphony VII', 1903

  There are many who have been left out of the art historical canon and Lithuanian artist and composer Mikalojus Ciurlionis is one of them. Producing over 200 musical works and 300 paintings, his career was extensive, prolific and multifaceted. Yet, he was a 'genius cursed by fate' according to artist and critic Alexandre Benois, dying from exhaustion in 1911. Praised within his lifetime, Ciurlionis is virtually invisible today, especially to a Western viewer. Describing one artwork by Ciurlionis is not enough to appreciate his diversity and synthesis of artforms - pastels, as this work shows, vignettes, oils, designs for stained glass, even abandoning the easel for cardboard. More importantly, he was indebted to the Lithuanian landscape. Ichiro Kato refers to him as 'Lithuanian in nature and national feeling...a genius from the Baltic lands', reflected in works including  Serenity depicting idyllic, peaceful settings of mountains and lakes, devoid of humanity. Like man...
Post a Comment
Read more