Christ on the Cross

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Christ on the Cross
How, why, when did images of Jesus change?
Artist Unknown, Christus Triumphans (Christ
Triumphant upon the Cross), late 12th century
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Christ on the Cross
How, why, when did images of Jesus change?
Artist Unknown, Christus Triumphans (Christ
Triumphant upon the Cross), late 12th century
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Christ on the Cross
Coppo di Marcovaldo, Christus Patiens (Christ
Suffering on the Cross), c. 1250-55
Crucifix, ca. 1150-1200
Crucifix, ca. 1292
Book of Hours , 1405-08
Crucifixion, 1457-59
Crucifixion, ca. 1515
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Art Bleeds Christ on the Cross
To compare the Christus Triumphus top that St
Francis saw with Coppo di Marcovaldos deeply
emotional Christus Patiens bottom of some fifty
years later is to measure the gap between the
religious sensibilities of one era and
another--to see the difference between the art
before and after Francis. The bland, calm,
complacently all-powerful Christ of the earlier
painting has given way to another, more
disturbing and engaging figure. Coppos Christ
is racked by pain and sorrow, his arms awkwardly
outstretched, his tendons straining against his
own weight, his body sagging and twisted to the
left. His beard is flecked with sweat and his
dark eyes are filled with an appalling pain.
This was the face of the new art. Renaissance
(1999) by Andrew Graham-Dixon
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Flesh Stone Changes in Sculpture
Nicola Pisano, Adoration of the Magi, detail from
the pulpit, Bapistery, Pisa, 1259-60
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Flesh Stone Late Medieval Sculpture
Franciss emphasis on the body penitential, the
body bleeding and in pain, had just as powerful
an effect on sculpture as on painting, and it led
artists in thirteenth-century Italy to look at
the art of the past with a different eye. Roman
sculpture acquired a new significance for the
sculptors of the thirteenth century . . .
Looking at the relics of antiquity, artists saw a
world of possibilities for their own work bodies
sensual, bodies beautiful, bodies writhing, all
ripe for transposition into the stories of the
Christian faith. Early in the second half of the
thirteenth century Nicola Pisano carved an
elaborate marble pulpit for the Bapistery in
Pisa. It is the first and most compact example
of what has been called thirteenth-century
classicism--a composite work of sculpture in
which figures clearly modeled on those in ancient
Roman art enact scenes from biblical
legend. Renaissance (1999) by Andrew Graham-Dixon
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Flesh Stone Late Medieval Sculpture
Giovanni looked not only to Rome for inspiration,
but also to recent developments in Northern art,
which had undergone its own naturalistic
revolutions in the thirteenth century . . . He
must also have been influenced by the agonized
physiques in thirteenth-century paintings of the
Crucifixion. Renaissance (1999)
Giovanni Pisano, The Nativity, detail from the
pulpit, Pisa Cathedral, 1302-10
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Flesh Stone Late Medieval Sculpture
Another of the most memorable reflections of the
new religious and artistic sensibility during the
century after Franciss death was Lorenzo
Maitanis series of marble reliefs which decorate
the pilasters on the façade of Orvieto Cathedral.
Begun around 1310 . . .and completed in 1330,
the reliefs represent stories from the Old and
New Testaments. Like his Pisan predecessors
Maitani was fruitfully aware of the example of
ancient Roman art . . . The most memorable scene
at Orvieto is that of hell in the relief
depicting The Last Judgement. Amidst much
weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, the
damned writhe and strain against the demons and
snakes that have come to torture them one of
them has been part-swallowed by a dragon-like
creature. The scene impressed Michelangelo
deeply . . . Excerpt from Renaissance (1999)
Lorenzo Maitani, The Last Judgement (details),
façade, Orvieto Cathedral, c. 1310-30
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Giotto Empathy Late Medieval Painting
Nicola and Giovanni Pisano had a great influence
not just on Italian sculptors but also on Italian
painters, and especially on Giotto, who is often
regarded as one of the founders of Western
painting. Giottos finest surviving works, a
series of early fourteenth-century frescos in the
Arena Chapel, in Padua, brought Italian narrative
painting to a new pitch of expression . . . The
walls are painted with scenes from The Life of
the Virgin, scenes from The Life of Christ and
The Last Judgement. Giottos narrative and
pictorial sense was strongly influenced by the
miracle plays of his time, which were themselves
strongly influenced by the Franciscan approach to
the communication of scripture . . . Giotto
simplified and reduced the elements of art in
order to get to the centre of the emotions and
meanings of the stories which he was given to
depict . . . While Giottos sense of drama was
nourished by the sacred theatre and the sermons
of his time, his sense of form was influenced by
contemporary sculpture . . . The figures in
Giottos art are full of life but they have been
conceived as if they have a sculptural mass . . .
30-32 Renaissance (1999) by Andrew Graham-Dixon