The post title is the name of this 1483 painting by Piero della Francesca.
Writing in his Lectures on Fine Art on the portrayal of Jesus in the Christian visual tradition, Hegel is doubtful whether it lies within the capacity of painting to represent those awesome moments in which the specifically divine aspects of Christ are revealed in the resurrection, the transfiguration, or the ascension. Painting has no difficulty in showing Christ in his human or earthly aspects, as a teacher, a preacher, a leader, a man of anger and forgiveness, and of course as a man capable of terrible suffering. But where "his Divinity should break out from his human personality," Hegel writes, "painting comes up against new difficulties." It is easy enough to say, in words, that Christ was at once man and god, but to show this complex metaphysical nature in a way that is visually convincing tested the powers of a painterly tradition that defined its achievement in naturalistic terms....
Piero della Francesca's Resurrection... overcomes Hegel's difficulties.... Piero has shown us what it must have felt like to be the subject of a resurrection.... Christ recognizes that something undeniable has taken place, which nonetheless strains the limits of credibility. He is shown at an instant of stunned triumph. His is the expression of someone who accepts, and is even awed by, what he has no way of doubting but cannot altogether believe.... The guard at the extreme right seems to have awakened, even to have seen the miracle that he must have interpreted as a dream, for such is the torpor of his body that he seems to be sinking back into sleep, having raised himself on one arm. Only Christ is awake, but in a sense of "awake" that contrasts not so much with "asleep" as with "dead."....
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81 comments:
He is risen!
He is risen, indeed.
Christ’s face in the painting shows stunned triumph? Not so much. It’s closer to the dead-eyed gaze of a tired rider on the subway. If I were to be resurrected, I’d look quite a lot more surprised and happy.
Give him a break; he had a busy week.
"Christ recognizes that something undeniable has taken place, which nonetheless strains the limits of credibility. He is shown at an instant of stunned triumph. His is the expression of someone who accepts, and is even awed by, what he has no way of doubting but cannot altogether believe."
There is a little bit of the hangover about him — what have I been sleeping off?
But that's the idea! It makes you think, how would you feel if this happened to you. It's the man part of Jesus. He doesn't come out of tomb thinking: Ha ha, victory! I knew all along I was God and I'd come back in glory. He's trying to figure out what happened. Welcome to the Renaissance!
Where did he get the flag?
Why does he have an English flag (the one used before the Act of Union)?
The guards would have been wide awake as the resurrection was accompanied by an earthquake and forcible removal of the stone from the door.
Talking about "risen" . . . I've read that some artists depicted Resurrected Jesus with an erection, showing the life-force fully triumphant over death. No kidding.
Why does he have an English flag (the one used before the Act of Union)?
More to the point, it's the Cross of St. George.
My own favorite painting on that theme is the image that's part of Grünewald's Eisenheim Altarpiece: http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/80/8061/PLB2300Z/posters/matthias-gruenewald-the-resurrection-detail-from-the-isenheim-altarpiece-ca-1515.jpg .
What’s up with the odd assortment of identically green garments?
Blogger tcrosse said...
More to the point, it's the Cross of St. George.
And if they don't get it back they might have an insurrection on their hands.
I was really enjoying the thoughtful writing, clicked on the link, and behold! It's Arthur Danto!
He was an astonishingly good teacher, philosophy with an eye and a brain for thinking hard about art (although we always disagreed about Andy Warhol . . . ).
You have resurrected him in my memory today. Thank you.
A fine portrayal for 1483. This is before artists had refined methods of perspective, chiaroscuro or atmospheric perspective. I do see head of one of the guards clearly casts a shadow and it appears so does Christ's foot. So Christ has risen and seen his shadow which means there's six more weeks of Winter...
Sorry, that's been my go-to Easter joke since I was five.
I think the dead-eyed expression is just because this is a bad painting.
What new hell is this, Althouse? Suddenly you are waxing aesthetic and philosophical about religious concepts like Resurrection, Transfiguration, and Ascension?! Wasn't it just yesterday you not so gently mocking the religious idea of Hell as "... such an implausible notion... an intelligent person...is unlikely to believe it" Are you no longer so cuttingly 'intelligent'? Or is this like your theory of Pope Francis being so extremely clever he is lying to undo the 'frightening, painful lie of Hell'? Is you surface interest in medieval art only your idea of a clever, intelligent lie on Easter to expose the truly frightening lie of Christianity?
Or is it all simply smug, run-of-the-mill cant?
Jesus was a helluva poker player.
It's possible that the face of Christ is that of whoever bankrolled the painting.
gg6: Or is it all simply smug, run-of-the-mill cant?
I'm enjoying Althouse's running all over the place on these topics. And providing a forum for other people to do so to. Regardless of my thinking that in one of those places on one of those topics she is, yeah, in the "smug, run-of-the-mill cant" category.
So what? If I blogged publicly for 14 years, I'd bet my blog would have higher percent of smug, banal, cant than this one.
God is the Great Anesthesiologist. But the operation most often fails, and almost no one gets revived after.
rehajm: Sorry, that's been my go-to Easter joke since I was five.
Weird - I've never heard that (now that I've heard it, obvious) joke in my life before today, but that's the second time in the last five minutes I've heard it. (OK, seen it.)
He is risen, indeed!
"Hegel is doubtful whether it lies within the capacity of painting to represent"
Hegel underestimated people's ability to view painting as representing what they were looking for. (As illustrated by the next paragraph.)
Which is kind of surprising, in light of his overall philosophy, when you think about it.
Weird - I've never heard that (now that I've heard it, obvious) joke in my life before today, but that's the second time in the last five minutes I've heard it
The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon.
Robert Cook
Piero della Francesca Vs Warhol!! LOL.
Warhol could not duplicate the "bad" painting of Piero Della Francesca if he were give a paint by the numbers and a hundred years.
Maybe Jesus should say to the sleeping, “Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey, get up and smell the coffee!”
Sorry, possibly sacreligious. Happy Easter one and all. Grandkids are looking for their Easter baskets, then off to brunch.
That painting looks to me more modern than 1483.
It's very well done for the period.
Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme
(Not to be confused with PDQ Bach's Canine Cantata, Wachet arf ! Woof uns die Stimme.)
"What’s up with the odd assortment of identically green garments?"
I thought I saw Pepe the Frog!
I think the problem is it's a fresco and the colors have deteriorated in different ways over the years.
Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme
(Not to be confused with PDQ Bach's Canine Cantata, Wachet arf ! Woof uns die Stimme.)
:-D
whswhs: My own favorite painting on that theme is the image that's part of Grünewald's Eisenheim Altarpiece...
Grünewald is one of those artists for whom I had no immediate or intuitive understanding - not just the because of the gruesome aspect that often puts people off, but the colors, the aesthetic in toto. I was on the far side of middle age before I in any way "got" the guy - but only via entering the perspective of a knowledgeable teacher. I'm glad I did.
Still, can't say this is up there in my favorites on the theme.
Resurrexit, sicut dixit, alleluia
"Christ has risen and seen his shadow which means there's six more weeks of Winter"
I LOL'ed. Thanks.
My first, irreverent thought about the painting was that the Lord looks like He spent a lot of time at Planet Fitness in Nazareth. Well, that's one way of trying to convey the power of the Resurrected Christ.
Happy Easter!
Angle Dyne says: " ...If I blogged publicly for 14 years, I'd bet my blog would have higher percent of smug, banal, cant than this one."
Yes, perhaps true.
Or perhaps you might be another proof of Althouse Law#101:
'... colors deteriorate in different ways over the years'.
"Althouse [is] waxing aesthetic and philosophical about religious concepts like Resurrection, Transfiguration, and Ascension"
It's becoming clear that Althouse is a thwarted preacher. I think it's a common affliction. I suspect it's more common among liberals, but I could be mistaken.
Maybe Michael K and Robert Cook are the same person? Who else thinks Renaissance Florence sucks?
I don't know enough about Renaissance Florence to say it sucks. I just said this is a bad painting.
cannot altogether believe
Talk about limitations and imposing your own limitations on others.
Given the mystery of God, there has long been a tendency to anthropomorphize one's understanding of God, assigning to Him purely human aspects. The Risen Christ -- God Himself -- did not and does not lack in belief in Himself or in His Resurrection.
Look -- this is a guy who created the universe. He created human life. HE IS LIFE ITSELF. No, Jesus at the moment of Resurrection was not awed or surprised or think it unbelievable.
Besides, being eternal -- for Jesus, the Resurrection had happened before He was even born. For Him, the Resurrection was happening when the first man and first woman first walked the earth.
Why the flag of St. George?
I like the brief resurrection scene from Passion of the Christ.
The resurrection, of course, is the absolute of Christianity, the fundamental belief. Either Jesus is worth listening to, which changes everything, and gives authority to everything he taught, which defines the entire narrative of reality.
Or he isn't worth listening to. Just a guy.
One of the major pitfalls of Christianity is the assumption that there's a theology test in order to consider Jesus. Why all the frustration at Althouse? She's posting about an important subject on an important day, and it seems odd that people want to demand she do it in a way that fits their aesthetics.
Over the course of the last many years, I've seen a consistent interest. And then people jump as if their salvation depends on highlighting potential heresies, with a lot of thwarted preachers hereabouts.
But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice,
Mark: Actually, back in the late 1980s, my officemate, who had taken a lot of religion courses at the university (I think she might have been a double major), told me about a debate in Catholic theology over that very point. To put it in technojargon, when God became man, did he download his omniscience?
If he did, as I understand the argument, then when he was crucified, he didn't really experience death the way mortal men experience it: He KNEW, if that was so, that he would not remain dead, but would suffer, and then come back, and come back better, like a man facing surgery. It might be a terribly painful experience, but it wasn't a cause for despair, and despair is an essential part of dying; when he cried out "Why hast thou forsaken me," he was roleplaying, because he knew that he hadn't been forsaken. Really, on that interpretation, what he did was kind of like the Gnostic idea that his mortal body was an illusion.
On the other hand, if he downloaded only as much knowledge as was needed, or as would fit into a finite human brain, then he really did die in despair, as a man, so that his followers could die without despair; and he really did have a need to have faith. All of that was part of taking on humanity.
I think it's a fairly persuasive argument, if you admit the premises. It makes a much more compelling story, and story is really the big selling point of Christianity, as Tolkien told Lewis.
Of course, after the Resurrection, it's different. But at some moment, there must be the awakening from finite to infinite knowledge, mustn't there?
I like the brief resurrection scene from Passion of the Christ.
Trying to depict artistically things that are beyond full human comprehension -- even describing it in words as scripture tries to -- is often not really possible.
The Passion of the Christ shows the Resurrection in a good way -- partly by not trying to depict the event itself.
Depictions of things like the Annunciation also often fail because - how do you show an angel of God? Sure, you could do the human appearance thing with Monica and Tess and Andrew, but that's rather unconvincing at best and laughable at worst.
The Annunciation in Jesus of Nazareth is very well done by merely showing light streaming through the window with no words said except for Mary's reaction.
Then again, I saw one seen of the Ascension, with Jesus looking absurdly silly being physically lifted up off the ground and receding into the clouds like a balloon you let go. The movie Risen, however, shows it in a really good and artistically way by juxtaposing the Ascension to heaven of the Son of God and Light of the World heaven with the rising of the Sun.
OK...not trying to be disrespectful..just curious as to what responses I may get.
God is all knowing and exists outside of time right? He knows everything that will happen, is happening and will happen...right?
So when he put Adam and Eve in the garden...he already knew they would fail his test. Plus God knows human nature right?
If I put bowls of candy and chips around the perimeter of my classroom, and a big bowl of broccoli in the middle, and then told my students they could eat all the candy and chips they want to, just don't eat the broccoli. Then I walk out of the room.
What do you think happens next?
So why did God put Adam and Eve in the garden in the first place?
The mystery of Jesus who is both fully-God and fully-human.
Yes, it is a mystery as to what degree the divine and human interacted within Jesus. And as such, perhaps the best answer is to simply respect that it is a mystery and not try a full and complete answer, accepting with humility that there will be gaps.
But there are indications that at times Jesus did tap into his divinity, including His omniscience, and other times that He remained ignorant of things. Certainly, I would think, that baby Jesus lying in the manger did not understand a single word that Mary and Joseph were babbling at Him, and that, as a baby, He likewise experienced the wonder of shapes and colors, etc. That He had to learn how to speak and walk and do things. And, as an adult, if you were to tell Him a joke, that He would laugh because He did not know the punchline. That He could be surprised by things.
At the same time, personally I would think that He could tap into the divine when needed and that He was fully aware of His divinity. John's Gospel makes that clear.
The Crucifixion -- yes, that would have been a bit of a cheat on God's part if He did not experience it as we who are not divine would have. We would then be able to credibly say to God, "What do you know of suffering?" But we can instead take it on faith that in some way this divine-human interaction worked in such a way that Jesus on earth lived a fully human life, with all the human limitations and pains and sufferings.
But we can also take it on faith -- as many have -- that with His grace, we too can face horrific suffering, as the martyrs did, with strength and fortitude and perseverance and even a bit of joyous hope. With Jesus entering into the human condition, that divine-human thing is now a two-way street.
Blogger Ken B said...
Maybe Michael K and Robert Cook are the same person? Who else thinks Renaissance Florence sucks?
I liked it and the Renaissance began later so it looks more modern to me.
One of my favorites is Fra Lippo Lippi whose model was a nun he later married and had a son with with.
This is more of the type of painting from that period.
That was from about 1450.
On Green--not invariably the color of new growth: more complicated than you might think:
https://www.amazon.com/Green-History-Color-Michel-Pastoureau/dp/069115936X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1522598235&sr=8-2&keywords=history+of+green
Michel Pastoureau has written histories of several colors; I highly recommend them.
Renaissance: 1300 – 1700
The tallest guard appears to be legless
Happy Easter! God bless us, everyone.
Paddy O: Why all the frustration at Althouse? She's posting about an important subject on an important day, and it seems odd that people want to demand she do it in a way that fits their aesthetics.
I'm not seeing either the frustration or that particular demand here.
Maybe it's you?
Even when I was a believer, I was never a particularly religious person. Religious ecstasy is not within my range. There's no visual art work that can communicate that feeling to me. However, some of Bach's work was inspired by his belief in God and, moreover, when you listen to it, you can feel how it is to be inspired by God.
The Crucifixion -- yes, that would have been a bit of a cheat on God's part if He did not experience it as we who are not divine would have."
I believe that is Docetism,the belief that Christ's physical body was just an illusion and it was impossible for Him to actually suffer and die. The early Church declared that a heresy.
I think the problem is it's a fresco and the colors have deteriorated in different ways over the years.
Paging Cecilia Giménez....
The green in the garments looks like something other than Green Earth to me, but this page ( http://www.webexhibits.org/pigments/indiv/overview/greenearth.html ) says that Green Earth was used under pinks to make fleshtones, and that the pinks would often fade to leave green faces. Maybe something similar happened to the garments in Resurrection.
And thank you for the research suggestion, Ann.
"The Crucifixion -- yes, that would have been a bit of a cheat on God's part if He did not experience it as we who are not divine would have."
Besides, "Jesus was mildly inconvenienced for your sins" doesn't really have the same ring to it.
the resurrection…defines the entire narrative of reality
If you don't believe in the resurrection, then Good Friday is not in any sense good. It's a bad day, a day when an innocent man is brutally murdered by the state. If you don't believe in the resurrection, you might be inclined to blame the Jews for killing this man. After all, he was executed for blasphemy and for offending their religious beliefs.
On the other hand, if you believe in the resurrection, then you believe Jesus when he said…
The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life--only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.
A Christian believes that Jesus sacrificed himself. He was not murdered by the state, or by the Jews. If you see Jesus as a murder victim, then you are adopting a non-Christian view of the world. It is not what Christians believe.
A Christian who believes the words of Christ has nothing but love for Jews, who were chosen by God to give birth to our messiah. Christians refer to the execution of Jesus as Good Friday because that is the day that Jesus sacrificed himself, so that he might be resurrected by the Lord.
When Martin Luther, to give one example, shows hostility to Jews, he is in danger of rejecting Christ. Jesus, of course, teaches us to love our enemies and love strangers. But aside from that, one of the foundations of Christianity is that Jesus sacrificed himself. Thus to be angry with Jews for the death of Jesus is to reject the Christian view of what actually happened.
I heard an announcer on NPR this morning say Easter was the day of Jesus' erection. At least I think that's what I heard.
Jesus looks a lot like Rob Schneider. Jesus was funnier.
Jesus was funnier.
Bleeding hemorrhoids are funnier.
St. Croix at 12:40: Most certainly Luther was wrong about that as were many of the Church who persecuted Jews through the centuries. It does say in Revelations that there are "those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan" so perhaps there are Jews who are JINOs.
Yes, it is a mystery as to what degree the divine and human interacted within Jesus. And as such, perhaps the best answer is to simply respect that it is a mystery and not try a full and complete answer, accepting with humility that there will be gaps.
In the Bible it seems to me there is a clear and constant delineation between Jesus and his Father. He prays constantly, seeking guidance. Why would God pray to himself?
I believe that Jesus fasted in the wilderness for 40 days in order to strengthen his praying, so that he could understand his mission and succeed in it.
I also believe in all the miracles. One of my favorite parts of the Bible is the first public miracle Jesus did, at the wedding at Cana.
When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”
This is a remarkable passage. Apparently Mary has seen one or more miracles before, and knows full well that Jesus can help these poor Jews celebrate their wedding. Jesus tries to disregard his mom. He calls her, "Woman," which cracks me up. And he tells her it's not his time. Like there's a plan and Jesus knows what the plan is. And his mom overrules him anyway. His mother says to the servants, "Whatever He says to you, do it." And Jesus, who just finished saying it was not his time, gives us a miracle anyway.
I just love how light-hearted and happy his first miracle was. It wasn't the right time or place. It wasn't the plan. But He did it anyway, because his mom asked him to. Fully human. But also divine.
That's those Jewish mothers for you.
Char Char, the NPR people were probably not discussing representations in painting of the parts of Christ's body but who knows-- on Good Friday they were not really sure what event Christians celebrate at Easter (did someone already mention this?). I don't listen to NPR.
Blogger mockturtle said...
Renaissance: 1300 – 1700
That's Wiki but the things we associate with it begin around 1500.
Michelangelo was born in 1475 and Leonardo in 1452.
The David was sculpted in 1504.
Copernicus died and released his manuscript in 1543.
The early stuff was certainly important. Some came from the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
Fibonacchi was one of the harbingers and he died in 1250 but he was pretty early. His work paved the way for the Medici.
Besides, "Jesus was mildly inconvenienced for your sins" doesn't really have the same ring to it.
Again from Joseph Ratzinger (days before he became Pope Benedict XVI) --
Christ's mercy is not a grace that comes cheap, nor does it imply the trivialization of evil. Christ carries the full weight of evil and all its destructive force in his body and in his soul. He burns and transforms evil in suffering, in the fire of his suffering love. The day of vindication and the year of favour converge in the Paschal Mystery, in the dead and Risen Christ. This is the vengeance of God: he himself suffers for us, in the person of his Son.
Why would God pray to himself?
Because He is a Trinity, a loving communion of three persons in one divine being who are eternally "communicating" with "each other."
St Croix, That you are interested in defeating the persistent anti-Semitism among Christians is well and good, but, surely, citing the text of John 10, 18 sqq, doesn't alter the fact that Roman authority put Him to death at the instigation of some leaders of that Jewish community at Jerusalem. That is, after all, the discourse at the end of which (10, 30) He proclaims, Ego et Pater unum sumus, ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἕν ἐσμεν-- He is describing what He, the divine Second Person of the Trinity, is about to do, relying on the knowledge He possessed in His divine Nature, not preparing to commit suicide for the common good. That, anyway, is my understanding of the common doctrine in the Catholic tradition-- of which you may make what you will, of course. A blessed Easter to you!
It is my favorite painting of Our Lord's Resurrection. I think what others are seeing as hangover symptoms or tiredness is simply the great compassion that He continues to suffer in His body the Church for the sake of us sheep, lost and straying-- at that moment He sees the wars of religion, the collapse of civilisations and the dreadful revolutions, the starving and abused children, the great holocaust of His own kinsmen in the 20th c: yet indeed He is risen from the dead.
Blogger mockturtle said...
Renaissance: 1300 – 1700
That's Wiki but the things we associate with it begin around 1500.
Back in school we learned 1453, the fall of Constantinople, but I'm not sure why.
Death for young people is a violent and unexpected event. I suspect that a resurrection would be even more violent and unexpected......I knew a man who was resurrected. I'm not speaking metaphorically. He had been stabbed. He was dead upon arrival in the Emergency Room, but was brought back to life. He was one of those persons who saw a bright light. When he went towards the light, his brother, who had pre deceased him several years earlier, appeared and told him "It's not your time". The man became a local celebrity. He was on the local tv shows. The resurrection did not make him especially godly. He was kind of crass and drank too much. I lost contact with him, but I suspect he died before his time.
@mockturtle
That was when the Greek scholars and manuscripts started flooding into Italy. But the process was underway before 1453.
Blogger Ken B said...
@mockturtle
That was when the Greek scholars and manuscripts started flooding into Italy. But the process was underway before 1453.
Agreed but most of what we associate with it was 1500 and later.
As I noted, Fibonacci had a lot to do with it and he was much earlier.
It doesn't really matter when the Renaissance began. The important thing is that it did. ;-)
He is...not preparing to commit suicide for the common good.
I wouldn't describe it as a suicide, which is a hatred of your own life, and violence against your own life. Suicide is a violent act of killing and offensive to the Lord.
Jesus is talking about sacrificing his own life so that other people can be saved. The idea that Jesus sacrificed himself is a very fundamental part of Christianity for as long as I have known it.
Also I think one of the finer points of humility is to recognize how little we know of the universe and the nature of God. While we should always feel passionately about God, and love God, we should remind ourselves of our human tendency to create a false image of God in our minds and love that, instead of the real God.
I think this is why we have Jesus, so we might know God.
Jesus gives us lessons on how to act, which puts us on the path to God.
And it's always important for all of us to remember that we are sinners who need to be redeemed for our sins.
Consider again Martin Luther, who was a powerful theologian. I'm sure he has read and contemplated and prayed far more than I have. And yet, like all of us, Satan gets in his heart nonetheless.
In the treatise (On the Jews and Their Lies) Martin Luther argues that Jewish synagogues and schools be set on fire, their prayer books destroyed, rabbis forbidden to preach, homes burned, and property and money confiscated. They should be shown no mercy or kindness, afforded no legal protection, and "these poisonous envenomed worms" should be drafted into forced labor or expelled for all time. He also seems to advocate their murder, writing "[W]e are at fault in not slaying them."
He's convicting them of blasphemy and saying they should be killed for it. That's not Christ-like. It's the opposite of Christ-like. He's acting and speaking as if Caiaphas has taught him how to act, rather than Jesus.
While I'm certainly not going to argue that popes and bishops have not sometimes, without sufficient attention to Scripture and Tradition, decorated their private opinions and called them the 'ecclesiastical magisterium', on the other hand, I will simply point out that we do have the Church that Our Lord gave us that 'puts us on the path to God' with her Sacraments etc etc and so forth. I believe we disagree about the purpose and constitution of the Church; that we are all sinners who were redeemed by the true Pasch, Jesus Christ, is certainly a truth that we hold in common. Now the work week, alas, begins. Pax et bonum!
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