 |
| Bernardino Poccetti, Good Samaritan Italian, c. 1590 Florence, VIlla Torre di Bellosguardo |
“There was a scholar
of the law who stood up to test Jesus and said,
"Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Jesus said to him, "What is written in the law?
How do you read it?"
He said in reply,
"You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your being,
with all your strength,
and with all your mind,
and your neighbor as yourself."
He replied to him, "You have answered correctly;
do this and you will live."
But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus,
"And who is my neighbor?"
Jesus replied,
"A man fell victim to robbers
as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.
They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead.
A priest happened to be going down that road,
but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
Likewise a Levite came to the place,
and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him
was moved with compassion at the sight.
He approached the victim,
poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them.
Then he lifted him up on his own animal,
took him to an inn, and cared for him.
The next day he took out two silver coins
and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction,
'Take care of him.
If you spend more than what I have given you,
I shall repay you on my way back.'
Which of these three, in your opinion,
was neighbor to the robbers' victim?"
He answered, "The one who treated him with mercy."
Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."
"Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Jesus said to him, "What is written in the law?
How do you read it?"
He said in reply,
"You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your being,
with all your strength,
and with all your mind,
and your neighbor as yourself."
He replied to him, "You have answered correctly;
do this and you will live."
But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus,
"And who is my neighbor?"
Jesus replied,
"A man fell victim to robbers
as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.
They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead.
A priest happened to be going down that road,
but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
Likewise a Levite came to the place,
and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him
was moved with compassion at the sight.
He approached the victim,
poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them.
Then he lifted him up on his own animal,
took him to an inn, and cared for him.
The next day he took out two silver coins
and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction,
'Take care of him.
If you spend more than what I have given you,
I shall repay you on my way back.'
Which of these three, in your opinion,
was neighbor to the robbers' victim?"
He answered, "The one who treated him with mercy."
Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."
Luke 10:25-37, Gospel for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary
Time, Year C,
July 14, 2019
There is little doubt that one of the best known of the
parables of Jesus is that of the Good Samaritan. This is obvious even in everyday
conversation. The term “Good Samaritan”
comes up frequently, whenever there is a news story about a stranger stepping
in to help someone in distress. Everyone
seems to understand what is meant and no one seems offended that this is term
is derived from a story told by Jesus in the Gospels.
Since the story is well known it has been illustrated many
times in the history of Christian art.
The Gospels of Otto III
One of the most charming, and thorough, illustrations of the
story occurs in the beautiful manuscript known as the Gospel Book of Otto
III. Otto III was the Holy Roman Emperor
at the turn of the eleventh century. The
manuscript was executed in the monastery of Reichenau, situated on an island in
Lake Constanze, in what is today Germany.
Reichenau was one of the most important centers of early medieval
painting. And this charming page from
the Gospel Book of Otto III shows why.
 |
| The Parable of the Good Samaritan From the Gospel Book of Otto III German (Reichenau), c. 1000 Munich, Bayerisches StaatsBibliothek MS Clm 4453, fol. 161v |
It depicts the story of the Good Samaritan in several different scenes,
each clearly delineated from the other, but creating a sort of flow of energy
from one scene to the next. We see the
unfortunate traveler at the top. He is mounted on a horse and wears a blue
tunic and green cloak. In the middle of
the picture he is set upon by a gang of robbers, two of whom beat him with
clubs, while a third tries to spear him and a fourth steals his horse. At the bottom left of the page, the traveler
is tended by the passing Samaritan, who wears a yellow tunic and brown cloak
and who seems to have a sort of tonsured haircut. At the left he is shown giving the wounded traveler
something near his mouth, possibly food or possibly an ointment for a cut. In the middle of the bottom page we see the
wounded traveler seated on the Samaritan’s horse, strapped into some kind of
device to keep him seated upright on the horse.
At the far right of the bottom page, the Samaritan is shown giving money
to the innkeeper for the traveler’s upkeep.
Other Medieval Images
This attention to telling the full story seems to have been
fairly common during the middle ages.
One hundred years after the Reichenau painting, one of the capitals of
the major Romanesque church of Moissac displayed different parts of the story
on each of the sides of the capital of a column in the nave of the church.
 |
| Capital with the Parable of the Good Samaritan French, c. 1100 Moissac, Abbey of Saint-Pierre |
About one hundred years after the Moissac
column, the story appeared in the Picture Bible prepared at the Monastery of
St. Bertin located at Saint-Omer in Northern France. The illustration shows the traveler being attacked, the priest and the Levite passing by and finally the Samaritan leading the victim on his horse after having bound up the traveler's wounds.
 |
| Parable of the Good Samaritan From Picture Bible French (St. Omer), c. 1190-1200 The Hague, Koninklijk Bibliotheek MS KB 76 F 5, fol. 17v |
Early in the thirteenth century it appeared in a series of
vignettes in one of the stained glass windows at the Cathedral of Chartres.
 |
| Scenes from the Parable of the Good Samaritan French, c. 1205-1215 Chartres, Cathedral |
Later it appeared as two separate pictures in the
beautiful Book of Hours illuminated by the artist Jean Colombe for Anne of
France, daughter of King Louis XI and regent after his death for her young
brother, Charles VIII, making her one of the most influential women of the late
Medieval/early Renaissance period in France.
 |
| Jean Colombe and Workshop, Man Attacked by Robbers From Hours of Anne of France French (Bourges), c. 1473 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS M 677, fol. 290v |
 |
| Jean Colombe and Workshop, Good Samaritan at the Inn From Hours of Anne of France French (Bourges), 1473 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS M 677, fol. 298r |
The Samaritan’s First Action
After this, the depiction of the “whole story” seems to have
been abandoned for an approach to the story that focused more on the actions of
the Samaritan than on any other aspects of the story. Most popular were pictures that focused on
the immediate actions of the Samaritan to help the victim. They became popular during the late
Renaissance and Baroque periods. Since
most show the body of the victim as stripped and nearly naked the popularity of
this portion of the story may be that it afforded a respectable opportunity to depict the
human body. This was a theme in the art
of these periods, deriving from the study of classical Greco-Roman sculpture,
much of which was being retrieved from long burial in the ruins of antiquity.
This pretty much dominated the story of the Good Samaritan from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries.
 |
| Master of the Good Samaritan, The Good Samaritan Dutch, 1537 Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum |
 |
| Jacopo Bassano, The Good Samaritan Italian, c. 1562-1563 London, National Gallery |
 |
| Veronese, The Good Samaritan Italian, c. 1582-1586 Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meisters |
 |
| Cornelis van Haarlem, The Good Samaritan Dutch, 1627 Private Collection |
 |
| Joachim von Sandrart, The Good Samaritan German, 1632 Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera |
 |
| Daniel Bretschneider the Younger, The Good Samaritan German, 1635 Detroit, Institute of Arts |
 |
| Johan Carl Loth, The Good Samaritan German, 1650-1700 Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum |
 |
| Joseph Highmore, The Good Samaritan English, 1744 London, The Tate Gallery |
 |
| Jean Francois Millet, The Good Samaritan French, 1846 Cardiff, National Museum Wales |
 |
| George Frederic Watts. The Good Samaritan English, c. 1849-1904 Guildford, Surrey (UK), Walls Gallery--Artists' Village |
 |
| Eugene Delacroix, The Good Samaritan French, 1852 London, Victotia and Albert Museum |
 |
| Ferdinand Hodler, The Good Samaritan Swiss, 1875 Zürich, Kunsthaus Zürich |
 |
| James Tissot, The Good Samaritan French, c. 1886-1894 New York, Brooklyn Museum |
 |
| Heidel Moritz. The Good Samaritan German, 1892 Dresden, Print Collection |
 |
| Heinrich Nauen, The Good Samaritan German, 1914 Cologne, Museum Ludwig |
Over time additional figures were added, assisting the Samaritan. Some figures obviously represent servants,
but some seem to be more like members of a larger traveling party, suggesting
that the Samaritan was a member of a larger group, an idea not found in the
Gospel account.
 |
| Francesco Bassano, The Good Samaritan Italian, c. 1575 Vienna, Kunsthistorisches |
 |
| Giovanni Battista Langetti, The Good Samaritan Italian, c. 1650-1660 Private Collection |
 |
| Giovanni Battista Langetti, The Good Samaritan Italian, c. 1660-1676 Bath (UK), The Holburn Museum |
 |
| Theodule-Augustin Ribot, The Good Samaritan French, Before 1870 Pau, Musée des Beaux-Arts |
 |
| Max Liebermann, The Good Samaritan German, 1911 Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud |
Occasionally also the landscape, which became an element of the story beginning in the fifteenth century, came to dominate the story, which became an almost unnoticed element within it.
 |
| Herri met de Bles, Landscape with the Parable of the Good Samaritan Flemish, c. 1540 Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum |
 |
| Paolo Fiammingo, The Good Samaritan Flemich, c. 1570 Southend-on-Sea, Essex (UK), Beecroft Art Gallery |
 |
| Follower of Adam Elsheimer, The Good Samaritan German, c. 1600-1660 Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum |
 |
| Alexander Keirincx, Landscape with the Good Samaritan Dutch, c. 1620-1630 St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum |
 |
| Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, The Good Samaritan French, c. 1842 Cleveland, Museum of Art |
 |
| Heinrich Dreber, The Good Samaritan German, 1848 Dresden, Gemäldegalerie der Alte Meisters |
 |
| Johann Wilhelm Schirmer, Landscape with the Good Samaritan German, c. 1860 Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud |
The Priest and the Levite
Less frequently depicted were some of the other aspects of
the story. One of the least frequently
depicted aspects of the story was a focus on the role played (or, rather, not
played) by the Temple priest and the Levite who passed the victim by. This is, in fact, one of the most important
aspects of the parable, for the assumption is that the victim is Jewish,
traveling out of Jerusalem. The priest
and the Levite are Jewish too and would, therefore, be presumed to be the most
likely to help him. However, their
concerns for their own persons, for their own purity, prevent them from aiding
him and cause them to pass him by “on the
opposite side” of the road. Only the
Samaritan, a member of the group despised by most Jews as practicing an early,
divergent form of Judaism, was “moved
with compassion” and stopped to help.
 |
| The Parable of the Good Samaritan From the Ottheinrich Bibel, Vol. 3 German (Regensburg), c. 1430 Munich, Bayerisches StaatsBibliothek MS Cgm 8010(3), fol. 12r |
 |
| Jan Rombouts, The Levite in the Parable Flemish, c. 1525-1530 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
 |
| Gustav Jaeger, The Parable of the Good Samaritan as Symbol for Humanity German, c. 1844-1848 Weimar, Ducal Palace Herderzimmer |
Sometimes the figures of those who passed by are the primary subjects of the picture, but more often they are seen as figures in the distance, walking away from the suffering man, even as the Samaritan helps him.
 |
| Jan Wijnants or Adriaen van de Velde, The Good Samaritan Dutch, c. 1670 St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum |
 |
| William Hogarth and George Lambert, The Good Samaritan English, c. 1737-1737 London, St. Bartholemew's Hospital Museum and Archive |
 |
| Francis Hayman, The Good Samaritan English, c. 1751-1752 New Haven, Yale Center for British Art |
 |
| John Runciman, The Good Samaritan English, c. 1765 Edinburgh, National Galleries of Scotland |
 |
| Willilam Etty. The Good Samaritan English, 1838 Cambridge (UK), National Trust, Anglesey Abbey |
Transporting the Injured
Another part of the story which inspired little in the way
of illustration was the Samaritan’s act of placing the victim “on his own animal”.
Save for a series of paintings of the subject done by the studio of Domenico Fetti around 1620, this has not been a popular subject. The Fetti Studio pictures all feature the identical figures, set in the same landscape, which is seen in wide or narrow view, but with varying details. They are dispersed in museums on both sides of the Atlantic.
 |
| Attributed to Domenico Fetti, The Good Samaritan Italian, c. 1618-1622 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
 |
| Domenico Fetti, The Good Samaritan Italian, c. 1623 Venice, Galleria dell'Accademia |
 |
| Domenico Fetti, The Good Samaritan Itaian, c. 1619-1621 Dresden, Gemäldegalerie der Alte Meisters |
 |
| Domenico Fetti, The Good Samaritan Italian, c. 1622 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts |
Save for a series of paintings of the subject done by the studio of Domenico Fetti around 1620, this has not been a popular subject. The Fetti Studio pictures all feature the identical figures, set in the same landscape, which is seen in wide or narrow view, but with varying details. They are dispersed in museums on both sides of the Atlantic.
In the second half of the nineteenth century there was
another spurt of paintings depicting this action by some of the most forward
looking artists of the time.
 |
| Alexandre Daumier, The Good Samaritan French, c. 1850-1860 Glasgow, The Burrell Collection |
 |
| John La Farge, Study for a Memorial Window, Trinity Church, Buffalo, NY American, c. 1888 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts |
 |
| Vincent van Gogh (after Delacroix), The Good Samaritan Dutch, 1890 Otterlo, Rijksmuseum Kroeller-Mueller |
The Scene at the Inn
Finally, a very small group of artists have depicted the
final scene in the parable, where the Samaritan brings the victim to the inn
and gives the innkeeper money to take care of the victim as he continues his own
journey.
 |
| The Good Samaritan at the Inn From a Psalter French (Paris), c. 1200-1225 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Nouvelle acquisition latine 1392, fol. 5 |
 |
| The Good Samaritan at the Inn From Sermons of Maurice de Sully Italian (Milan or Genoa), c. 1320-1330 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Francaise 187, fol. 23v |
 |
| Rembrandt van Rijn_The Good Samaritan at the Inn Dutch, 1630 London, Wallace Collection |
 |
| Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, The Good Samaritan at the Inn French, By 1853 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
 |
| Phillip Richard Morris, The Good Samaritan at the Inn English, 1857 Blackburn (Lancashire, UK), Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery |
Who Is My Neighbor?
One thing that all these various illustrations have in
common is the care and sympathy shown by the figure representing the Samaritan
for the figure who is the victim. This
care and sympathy derives from the words of Jesus in this Gospel. By making the compassionate person a member
of a despised minority within Palestine, Jesus reminds us all that our neighbor
is the person whom we meet who needs our help, not just the person next door. It is the stranger who may command our
compassion and mercy, not only the members of our own family group or clan.
© M. Duffy 2019
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.
Wow, I love the in depth research and multiple examples. Fascinating post!
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