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Saturday, March 30, 2024

Meditation on the Passion – In the Tomb

Andrea Mantegna, Lamentation Over the Dead Christ
Italian, c. 1483
Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera

"After this, Joseph of Arimathea,
secretly a disciple of Jesus for fear of the Jews,
asked Pilate if he could remove the body of Jesus.
And Pilate permitted it.
So he came and took his body.
Nicodemus, the one who had first come to him at night,
also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes
weighing about one hundred pounds.
They took the body of Jesus
and bound it with burial cloths along with the spices,
according to the Jewish burial custom.
Now in the place where he had been crucified there was a garden,
and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been buried.
So they laid Jesus there because of the Jewish preparation day;
for the tomb was close by."


Excerpt from the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to John
(John 19:92-42)
The Gospel reading for the Good Friday liturgy of the Lord's Passion 



From the late afternoon of Good Friday until the evening of Holy Saturday the Church keeps prayerful, quiet vigil. The tabernacles are empty, the altars are bare, no Mass is celebrated. We remember the second day (from sundown to sundown) of the Passion, the day on which Jesus’ body lies in the tomb. We ponder the sacrifice and await what we know is the joyful outcome. 



Artists have done this also. They have wondered, as we do, about what was happening on that second day. Taking their guide from the phrase in the Apostles Creed “He descended into Hell” some have imagined Jesus freeing Adam, Eve and the righteous ancestors from their bondage in Limbo. Others have imagined the Body of Jesus simply lying in the tomb. Still others have imagined the Body of Jesus tended by angels, who console and prepare Him for the Resurrection. Last year we looked at the first of these.1 This year we will look at the second and third images.

Probably the most astonishing image of the second of these types, the Dead Christ, comes from the brush of Andrea Mantegna, one of the great north Italian painters of the Quattrocento. Often called the Lamentation over the Dead Christ, it shows the body of Jesus, depicted in excruciating detail, in extreme foreshortening, with the nail-pierced feet immediately before our eyes. It is barely a Lamentation, receiving the title only because of the partial inclusion of two people, a man and a woman, at the extreme left edge. The woman is sometimes identified as Mary, but I am doubtful about this. Rather, I think these are two older people of Mantegna’s era and not the richest of his contemporaries either. The woman is shown wiping her eyes, the other figure (presumably a man) is barely visible in profile. This startling image, combining the 1st-century corpse with 15th-century people, still startles us as it must have startled his contemporaries. 

This image, not idealized, detailed, even brutal, became a model for other artists to follow. And, although it was never a popular image, there were followers. Among them were other artists with a realistic, almost scientific bent: Carpaccio, Hans Holbein the Younger, Philippe de Champaigne, Giuseppe Sammartino and others.

In these images we are presented with “just the facts”, a dead body, a cadaver.


Carpaccio, The Dead Christ
Italian, c.1520
Berlin, Gemäldegalerie der Staatliche Museen zu Berliln




Hans Holbein the Younger, The Dead Christ in the Tomb
German, 1521
Basel, Kunstmuseum



Zacharias Hegewald, The Dead Christ in the Tomb
German, c. 1630
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum




Philippe de Champaigne, The Dead Christ
French, Prior to 1654
Paris, Musée du Louvre




Jean Delcour, The Dead Christ
Flemish, 1696
Liege, Cathedral of Saint Paul




Giuseppe Sammartino, Dead Christ in a Shroud
Italian, 1753
Naples, Church of Santa Maria della Pieta dei Sangro



The last quarter of the nineteenth century saw a flurry of this imagery all over Europe.  This may perhaps be the result of an increased interest in death as a physical phenomenon that accompanied the rise of modern medical science that was taking place at the same time.



Eduard Adrian Dussek. The Dead Christ in the Tomb
Slovak, 1873
Vienna, Belvedere Museum




Wilhelm Truebner, Christ in the Tomb
German, 1874
Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle




Jean-Jacques Henner, Jesus in the Tomb
French, 1879
Paris, Musée d'Orsay




Alphonse Legros, The Dead Christ
French, 1888
Paris, Musée d'Orsay




Henri Levi, The Dead Christ
French, c. 1893
Villefranche-sur-Saone, MuséPaul Din




Alexandre Charpentier, Covered Christ
French, 1895
Paris, Musée d'Orsay






Gabriel Ferrier, Sorrow
French, 1903
Arras, Musée des Beaux-Arts




In the third type, the Dead Christ tended by angels, we see something very different. These images have a deep relationship with the Man of Sorrows image, especially the form of the Man of Sorrows in which Jesus is supported by another person. But, in this variation, the humans have been replaced by angels.

The angels are sometimes sad and sorrowing, sometimes busy working on preparing for the Resurrection. They support and prepare His physical Body for its new, glorified existence.


Giovanni Bellini, The Dead Christ Supported by two Angels
Italian, c. 1465-1470
London, National Gallery





Carlo Crivelli, The Dead Christ Supported by Angels
Italian, c. 1470
London, National Gallery





Antonello da Messina, The Dead Christ Supported by an Angel
Italian, c. 1474-1475
Madrid, Museo National del Prado





Giovanni Bellini, Dead Christ Supported by  Angels
Italian, ca. 1474
Rimini, Pinacoteca Comunale





Girolamo da Treviso, Dead Christ Supported by Two Angels
Italian, c. 1475-1485
Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera





Giovanni Bellini, The Dead Christ Supported by Two Angels
Italian, c. 1480-1485
Berlin, Gemäldegalerie der Staatliche Museen zu Berlin





Pedro Berruguete, The Dead Christ with Two Angels
Spanish, 1480
Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera




Dead Christ Mourned by Angels
Italian, 16th Century
Rome, Pinacoteca della Basilica di San Paolo fuori le mura





Rosso Fiorentino, Dead Christ Supported by Angels
Italian, 1524-1526
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts
Rosso portrayed a typically Mannerist image of a contorted, unstable body barely supported by the angels.




Baccio Bandinelli, The Dead Christ Supported by Nicodemus
Italian, c. 1554-1559
Florence, Church of Santisssima Annunziata





Leandro Bassano, Dead Christ Mourned by Angels
Italian, c. 1580
Cleveland, Museum of Arts






Tintoretto, The Dead Christ Adored by the Doges Pietro Lando  and Marcantonio Trevisan
Italian, c. 1580s
Venice, Palazzo Ducale




Veronese, Dead Christ Supported by Two Angels
Italian, c. 1587-1589
Berlin, Gemäldegalerie der Staatliche Museen zu Berlin






Alessandro Allori, Dead Christ with Two Angels
Italian, ca. 1600
Budapest, National Museum
This tiny painting, painted on copper, is a bridge between the "scientific" Dead Christ and the Dead Christ with Angels.  Here the angels minister tenderly to the Body of Christ, preparing it for its new role. 




The Dead Christ Supported by Angels
German, c. 1600-1625
 London, Victoria and Albert Museum





Jacopo Palma the Younger, The Dead Christ with Two Angels_
Italian, c. 1600
Budapest, Szépmûvészeti Múzeum





Abraham Janssen van Nuyssen, The Dead Christ in the Tomb with Two Angels
Flemish, c. 1610
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art






Guercino, Angels Weeping over the Dead Christ
Italian, c, 1517-1618
London, National Gallery





Alonso Cano, The Dead Christ Supported by an Angel
Spanish, c. 1646-1652
Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado




Francesco Trevisani, The Dead Christ Supported by Angels
Italian, c. 1710
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art




Edouard Manet, Dead Christ With Angels
French, 1864
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art



As he so often did, the French painter Jacques-James Tissot stood out in his interpretation of this theme.  His narrative paintings of the life of Jesus drew on the observations he made while residing in the Holy Land for more than a year.  Consequently, his interpretation of the body of Christ in the tomb is one that accords with the traditional burial customs of the area.  In his work the body of Jesus is not simply laid on a slab with a cloth under it.  It is swaddled in cloth from head to foot, much like a mummy.  This accords with both reality and the Biblical texts.  



James Tissot, Jesus in the Sepulchre
French, c. 1886-1894
New York, Brooklyn Museum


____________________________
1.  See also "O Key of David!  Come, break down the walls of death" at http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/12/o-key-of-david.html

© M. Duffy, 2012, 2018


Excerpts from the Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States of America, second typical edition © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC. Used with permission. All rights reserved. No portion of this text may be reproduced by any means without permission in writing from the copyright owner.





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