Calvary is an oil-on-wood painting executed in 1475 by the Italian Renaissance painter Antonello da Messina. Also known as the Antwerp Crucifixion, it is now in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, making it the only work by the artist in Belgium. [1]
This painting has an important benchmark value in the oeuvre of Antonello da Messina because it is one of the few signed (only twelve) and dated works (ten) by this painter. The painting belongs to the late work of the Sicilian artist and contains influences from South Italian, Flemish and Venetian styles. [2]
With this Calvary, the Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina painted a symbolic masterpiece about death and redemption. Christ hangs on the cross in the center of the panel. The good and the bad thief, flanking Christ on the cross, are tied to truncated trees. The bodies of the three condemned to death are realistically and plastically worked out. The study of the human body through anatomical research and dissection formed an important part of the Italian Renaissance artist's art of drawing. On the ground Mary mourns and kneels John, Christ's favorite apostle. [3]
The skulls at the bottom of the cross refer to Adam. According to some, he was buried on Golgotha, the hill on which Christ was killed. Because Adam and Eve could not resist the temptation of the serpent, sin entered the world. With his death on the cross, Christ put an end to the Fall.
The theme of death and redemption is strongly present here in a symbolic way. The serpents winding through the skulls symbolize death or the devil. The owl at the front refers to the sinners who turn away from the "true faith" as a night bird shuns the daylight. A twig grows from a tree stump behind the cross, symbolizing the contrast between God's Old and New Covenant with mankind. [4]
The work of Antonello da Messina shows a clear influence of the Flemish Primitives. This is particularly evident in the detailed elaboration of the plants and animals in the atmospherically rendered landscape. The painter also adopted the oil painting technique from the Flemish Primitives. This makes the reproduction of colors richer and more vibrant than with the older painting technique with tempera, a binder based on egg and glue. The artist probably became acquainted with the new technique through the presence of paintings by the Flemish Primitives in Naples and southern Italy. [3]
Quentin Matsys (1466–1530) was a Flemish painter in the Early Netherlandish tradition. He was born in Leuven. There is a tradition alleging that he was trained as an ironsmith before becoming a painter. Matsys was active in Antwerp for over 20 years, creating numerous works with religious roots and satirical tendencies. He is regarded as the founder of the Antwerp school of painting, which became the leading school of painting in Flanders in the 16th century. He introduced new techniques and motifs as well as moralising subjects without completely breaking with tradition.
Antonello da Messina, properly Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio, but also called Antonello degli Antoni and Anglicized as Anthony of Messina, was an Italian painter from Messina, active during the Italian Early Renaissance.
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Saint Sebastian is a painting, once part of a triptych by the Italian Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina, completed in 1477–1479. It is housed in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, Germany.
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Christ at the Column (Pillory) is a small painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina, executed c. 1476–1478, showing the Flagellation of Christ. It is in the Louvre in Paris.
Portrait of a Man is the conventional title of several male portraits by the Italian Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina.
The Crucifixion is the subject of three different paintings by the Italian Renaissance master Antonello da Messina; the first one was completed around 1454/1455, the second and the third in 1475. They are housed in the Brukenthal National Museum ; the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp and in the National Gallery, respectively.
Italian Renaissance painting is the painting of the period beginning in the late 13th century and flourishing from the early 15th to late 16th centuries, occurring in the Italian Peninsula, which was at that time divided into many political states, some independent but others controlled by external powers. The painters of Renaissance Italy, although often attached to particular courts and with loyalties to particular towns, nonetheless wandered the length and breadth of Italy, often occupying a diplomatic status and disseminating artistic and philosophical ideas.
The decade of the 1470s in art involved some significant events.
The decade of the 1450s in art involved many significant events, especially in sculpture.
This article about the development of themes in Italian Renaissance painting is an extension to the article Italian Renaissance painting, for which it provides additional pictures with commentary. The works encompassed are from Giotto in the early 14th century to Michelangelo's Last Judgement of the 1530s.
The Madonna with Child is a painting attributed on basis of style to the early Italian Renaissance master Antonello da Messina, depicting the Madona holding the doll-like Child and wearing an ornate golden crown, held by angels over her head. It is housed in the National Gallery, London. The name Salting, which is also applied to a Madonna by Robert Campin, denotes George Salting, the collector who donated it to the gallery in 1910.
Events from the year 1525 in art.
Lamentation (Pietà) is an oil painting on panel of the common subject of the Lamentation of Christ that is now regarded as by an artist in the "circle" of the Early Netherlandish painter Petrus Christus, rather than by Christus himself. It was painted in c. 1444, and is now in the Louvre in Paris.
The San Gregorio Polyptych is a tempera-on-wood polyptych painting by the Italian Renaissance master Antonello da Messina, completed in 1473 and housed in the Regional Museum of Messina, Italy.
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