Critical Comment From The “Descent Of Christ Of The Cross”

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Critical comment from The "Descent of Christ of the Cross"

 

It is a Gothic painting where a religious scene is shown in which we see in the center highlight a cross in height with the figure of a boy up on the stairs helping to go down it seems that it is the body of Christ. Under it the set of the remaining figures grouped in a group of three to both sides. The size of the figures is very large and Jesus appears surrounded by both masculine and female figures of whole body and in various attitudes but all of them expressing the feeling of sadness and stuck as a kind of urn. A woman, probably the Virgin Mary faints.

We can observe that it is made in oil on table with very soft brushstroke and smooth texture. There is a great definition of contour and details. Volume is appreciated as if it were sculpture thanks to gradation and nuances of color and there is enough color, the warm colors and great intensity being predominant. The light is unreal, creating not very pronounced contrasts and seems to come from a focus to the right of the painting. There is no depth, the background is gold being more important the figures represented. The composition is closed, the figures are distributed in two groups linked by the body of Christ and predominates the vertical lines cut by the figure of Jesus and Mary that are arranged diagonally so that attention falls on them. It is a naturalistic image, of correct anatomies and proportions. The dresses are very achieved, reproducing the reality of the fabric as well as the different qualities of the fabric and the folds of the clothing.

The theme we see represented in this composition is the descent of Christ, a religious theme that was typical of flamenco painting. We appreciate how Christ is lowered from the cross, after dying. The virgin fainted, the evangelist John, Jose de Arimea, Nicodemo, María de Joset and María Magdalena on the right is distinguished to the right.

We can appreciate characteristics of flamenco painting with great wealth in the treatment of dresses whose textures allow to differentiate silks, velvets and details, the expressiveness to represent the pain;anguish, grief, crying, fainting of the Virgin, the composition centered on the axis of symmetry, towards the theoretical center Jesus that describes a narrative, didactic and devotional function. The evocation of the sculptural style obtains volume and modeling in the bodies, which can be seen in an outstanding way in the woman’s neck that is at the right end of the composition. The figures, ten in total, are Christ dead, Mary, San Juan and the holy male and women, including Magdalena. It is also a characteristic of flamenco art to highlight the quality of the subjects that appear. In addition, the entire fund is covered by golden neutral funds based on gold bread, and blue and green. The golden background, in addition to an ostentation of wealth, prevents the viewer’s look from deepening anything other than the scene, developed by this framework in a magical and unreal space, without human references.

The contours of the figures appear well defined and detail is reached. Ropajes and chiaroscuro provide light effects. The cold colors characterize the most pathetic characters: women and the young man climbed to the stairs;The other characters wear warm colors. The space has been represented in a peculiar way: the painter simulates a shallow box in which, as a stage, the characters are located in the foreground. At the ends of that virtual space, light darkens to simulate some depth similar to a drawer in a rapid and shallow form, being another of the characteristic of the Gothic painting contribute with the light to highlight the volume, being unreal light beingrather symbolic.

The work is the ‘descent of Christ of the Cross’ painted around 1435 by the flamenco painter Roger Wan der Weyden commissioned by the Ballesteros de Lavaina guild (Belgium). We are therefore given a representative work of the painting of the final Gothic and more specifically of the school of those known as ‘flamenco primitive’. Rogier Wan der Weyden was one of the most important artists among the primitive flamencomoment. The theme selected by the artist is ideal, since it allows the exaltation of emotions, and, where better than in the scene of the descent of Jesus Christ of the Cross. It seems that in origin this work was the central table of a triptych, completed by a resurrection and some images of saints, but its whereabouts are unknown. Felipe II, a great admirer of flamenco art, tried unsuccessfully to buy it;Therefore, he commissioned Michel Coxcie, painter and real copyist, to make a copy to hang on the Escorial. Years later, the emperor’s aunt, María de Hungary, managed. The first of Coxcie is the one that currently hangs on the walls of El Escorial. The original descent table is at the Prado Museum since 1939.

As a good flamenco painter, Van der Weyden will dedicate special attention to details, the colorful living and realism of the figures, but to this you must add the drama that characterizes its scenes, as an essential element of its painting. He died in Brussels in 1464 after having worked for the high flamenco nobility, portraying many of its members. It is a picture loaded with religious symbolism. The fundamental message is the redemption of men through passion. María Magdalena is represented with a belt that symbolizes virginity and purity. The presentation of a small scrub next to a skull could refer to life after death. The fifteenth century represents a new orientation of life and art.  A new social class has become the owner of the states: the bourgeoisie. Banking and industry have started the economic revolution process. The increase in wealth brings a growing materialization of life. Is believed in what is felt. That is why in flamenco painting the object becomes such an extraordinary precision. Flemish artists give a homemade interpretation of religion. The religious is already accessible. 

Nothing has to do with this painting with the universality and monumentality of the frescoes that were still painted in Italy. The scenes now happen in the comfortable bourgeois housing, but more important than the religious aspect is gender: the artist adds a thousand details that distract us and delight. The paintings include secondary figures with a symbolism that is sometimes not easy to discover.

The two top representatives of this trend are Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden. If Eyck conceives the art "A pieces" and composes the particular details within the framework of a geometric perspective (its painting is almost a miniature on table), Van Der Weyden maintains a program closer to sculpture and paints on flat funds on.

He is the most dramatic painter in the Netherlands and is a real teacher in the art of composition and the creation of the movement. Van der Weyden was the most influential teacher of the entire flamenco school and his work the descent of the cross one of the most beautiful and extraordinary of the entire history of art.

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