| Ecce Homo | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Caravaggio |
| Year | c. 1605 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 128 cm× 103 cm(50 in× 41 in) |
| Location | Palazzo Bianco (Genoa) |
Ecce Homo (c. 1605/06 or 1609 according to John Gash [1] ) is a painting by the Italian Baroque master Caravaggio. It is housed in the Palazzo Bianco, Genoa. Contemporary accounts claim the piece was part of a unannounced competition between three artists, and that the Caravaggio version was eventually sent to Spain.
According to Giambatista Cardi, nephew of the Florentine artist Cigoli, Cardinal Massimo Massimi commissioned paintings on the theme of Ecce Homo from three artists, Cigoli, Caravaggio, and Domenico Passignano, without informing the artists of the multiple commissions. Cardi claimed the cardinal preferred Cigoli's version. [2] [3] The Passignano painting has never resurfaced. [4]
The scene is taken from the Gospel of John, 19:5. Pontius Pilate displays Christ to the crowd with the words, "Ecce homo!" ("Behold the man"). [5] Caravaggio's version of the scene combined Pilate's display with the earlier moment of Christ, already crowned with thorns, mockingly robed like a king by his tormentors. Massimi already possessed a Crowning with Thorns by Caravaggio (thought to be the Crowning with Thorns in Prato [6] ), and Ecce Homo may have been intended as a companion piece. Stylistically, the painting displays characteristics of Caravaggio's mature Roman-period style. The forms are visible close-up and modelled by dramatic light, the absence of depth or background, and the psychological realism of, the torturer, who seems to mix sadism with pity. Pilate, in keeping with tradition, is shown as a rather neutral and perhaps almost sympathetic figure. He is also depicted wearing anachronistic clothing which was more contemporary to Caravaggio's time.
The contract for Ecce Homo was signed on 25 June 1605, with the painting to be delivered at the beginning August 1605. [7] Whether Caravaggio met his deadline is uncertain, as by July he was arrested for attacking the house of Laura della Vecchia and her daughter, Isabella. [8] Friends stood bail for him, but on 29 July he was in far more serious trouble for assaulting the notary Mariano Pasqualone over a well-known courtesan Lena and Caravaggio's model who is referred to by Pasqualone in the police complaint as "Michelangelo's (i.e. Caravaggio's) girl". Consequently, Caravaggio fled to Genoa until the end of August. He continued to be in trouble with the law throughout the year, with a complaint against him in September for throwing stones at his landlady's house, and a mysterious incident in October in which he was wounded in the throat and ear (Caravaggio claimed he had fallen on his own sword). [9] In May 1606 he fled Rome again after killing Ranuccio Tomassoni in a duel, and he was not settled in Naples until the latter part of that year. Cigoli's Ecce Homo was not painted until 1607, [3] and clearly attempts to mimic Caravaggio's style, suggesting that Massimi had not yet received his Caravaggio and was turning elsewhere. It is instructive to compare the two paintings: Caravaggio, unlike Cigoli, has dropped the convention of showing Christ's torturer as a grotesque, and has shown Pilate dressed as a 17th-century official.
Up until World War II the painting hung in a stairwell of the nautical school in Genoa, listed in the inventory as a copy by Leonello Spada. It was moved during the war, and for a time was considered lost. It was rediscovered in 1953 by the Genoa Director of Fine arts, Caterina Marcenaro, in the Palazzo Ducale. [10]
The painting has twice been loaned for exhibitions in the United States. The most recent was for the bicentennial celebration of Genoas sister city of Columbus, Ohio in 2012 at the Columbus Museum of Art. [11] [12]
Examinations after its rediscovery in 1953 revealed the painting was restored at some point during the eighteenth century. It was restored for its second time in 1954, by Pico Cellini in Rome. [13] The painting was in very poor condition by 1954 and during the relining process Cellini had to add several inches of new cloth to all four edges of the canvas. [14] The restoration is now thought to have been "particularly invasive" and may have gone so far as to have had "the addition of superficial shadows", leaving it "difficult to judge with certainty the autography of the underlying painting". This has led to many doubts about the autograph status of the work or even it could be attributed to Caravaggio. [15]
The most recent restoration was carried out in Genoa by Cristina Bonavera Parodi in 2003. [13] During this operation a full examination of the painting was made with new techniques including X-rays, Infrared reflectography, UV light reader, and optical microscopy. The curator who oversaw the process, Anna Orlando, believes a clear attribution of the work can be made to Caravaggio. [16]
The painting was first attributed to Caravaggio in 1954 by noted art historian and Caravaggio scholar Roberto Longhi and Marcenaro. [15] Other scholars, such as Sebastian Schutze, dispute the attribution of this work to Caravaggio, with Schutze noting that "the composition seems extremely cramped, and its narrative structure strangely fractured. The Roman governor seems to belong to a quite different plane of reality; he appears like the donor figure in an altarpiece and is painted in a different manner, with his facial features exaggerated almost to the point of caricature." [17] Other scholars, including Anna Orlando (the curator who oversaw its most recent restoration) [16] and Lorenzo Pericolo, believe it to be a genuine Caravaggio. [18]
The Caravaggio Ecce Homo was reported by near contemporaries, such as Giovanni Bellori in his Lives of the Artists , to have been taken to Spain. [19] [4] In April 2021 a minor work believed to be from the circle of a Spanish follower of Caravaggio, Jusepe de Ribera, was withdrawn from sale at the Madrid auction house Ansorena. The painting had been brought to Ansorena by three Spanish siblings who had inherited it from their father, Antonio Pérez de Castro. Pérez de Castro was the founder of the IADE school of design and fashion in Madrid and had reportedly received the painting in the 1970s as part of a family inheritance. The painting has been in the possession of the family since 1823, when it was exchanged for another work from the Real Academia of San Fernando, where it had been listed as “Ecce-Hommo con dos saiones de Carabaggio”. This attribution was later lost or changed to Ribera or his circle. The Museo del Prado alerted the Ministry of Culture, which placed a preemptive export ban on the painting leading to its withdrawal from the auction. Stylistic evidence, as well as the similarity of the models to those in other Caravaggio works, has convinced some experts that the painting is the original Caravaggio work for the 1605 Massimo Massimi commission. Colnaghis will be restoring the painting and the gallery will be handling the future sale of the work. [20] [21] [22] [23] Some Caravaggio experts, such as Maria Cristina Terzaghi, believe the 111 centimetres (44 in) by 86 centimetres (34 in) painting to be by Caravaggio, citing its similarity in style and technique to known autograph works. While others, including Nicola Spinosa, have expressed skepticism over the attribution. [24] [25]
Michelangelo Merisida Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio, was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of his life he moved between Naples, Malta, and Sicily until his death. His paintings have been characterized by art critics as combining a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque painting.
Baroque painting is the painting associated with the Baroque cultural movement. The movement is often identified with Absolutism, the Counter Reformation and Catholic Revival, but the existence of important Baroque art and architecture in non-absolutist and Protestant states throughout Western Europe underscores its widespread popularity.
Guido Reni was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, although his works showed a classical manner, similar to Simon Vouet, Nicolas Poussin, and Philippe de Champaigne. He painted primarily religious works, but also mythological and allegorical subjects. Active in Rome, Naples, and his native Bologna, he became the dominant figure in the Bolognese School that emerged under the influence of the Carracci.
The Caravaggisti were stylistic followers of the late 16th-century Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio. His influence on the new Baroque style that eventually emerged from Mannerism was profound. Caravaggio never established a workshop as most other painters did, and thus had no school to spread his techniques. Nor did he ever set out his underlying philosophical approach to art, the psychological realism which can only be deduced from his surviving work. But it can be seen directly or indirectly in the work of Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Bernini, and Rembrandt. Famous while he lived, Caravaggio himself was forgotten almost immediately after his death. Many of his paintings were reascribed to his followers, such as The Taking of Christ, which was attributed to the Dutch painter Gerrit van Honthorst until 1990.
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Ecce homo are the Latin words used by Pontius Pilate in the Vulgate translation of the Gospel of John, when he presents a scourged Jesus, bound and crowned with thorns, to a hostile crowd shortly before his Crucifixion. The original New Testament Greek: "ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος", romanized: "idoù ho ánthropos", is rendered by most English Bible translations, e.g. Douay-Rheims Bible and King James Version, as "behold the man". The scene has been widely depicted in Christian art.
Lodovico Cardi, also known as Cigoli, was an Italian painter and architect of the late Mannerist and early Baroque period, trained and active in his early career in Florence, and spending the last nine years of his life in Rome.
The Crowning with Thorns was the subject of two paintings by the Italian master Caravaggio. The first version, dated to around 1604–1605, is now in the Cassa di Risparmi e Depositi of Palazzo degli Alberti, Prato (Tuscany). The attribution to Caravaggio is disputed.
Palazzo Bianco is one of the main buildings of the center of Genoa, Italy. It is situated at 11, via Garibaldi.
Francesc Ribalta , also known as Francisco Ribaltá or de Ribalta, was a Spanish painter of the Baroque period, mostly of religious subjects.
Orazio Borgianni was an Italian painter and etcher of the Mannerist and early-Baroque periods. He was the stepbrother of the sculptor and architect Giulio Lasso.
Gioacchino Assereto was an Italian painter of the early Baroque period and one of the most prominent history painters active in Genoa in the first half of the 17th century.
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Events from the year 1605 in art.
The Ecce Homo in the Sanctuary of Mercy church in Borja, Spain, is a fresco painted circa 1930 by the Spanish painter Elías García Martínez depicting Jesus crowned with thorns. Both the subject and style are typical of traditional Catholic art.
The Adoration of the Shepherds is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian master Domenichino, executed c. 1607–1610. It has been in the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh since 1971, and was previously in the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London.
Ecce Homo or Christ Wearing the Crown of Thorns is an oil on oak panel painting of the Ecce Homo subject by Peter Paul Rubens, executed c. 1612, now in the Hermitage Museum, in Saint Petersburg. The Hermitage also houses an oil study for its figure of Pilate.
Ecce Homo, also known as Christ Presented to the People, is an oil painting by Antonio da Correggio. It is the last of the surviving pictures of the Passion of Jesus that Correggio executed during the 1520s. The painting is in the National Gallery, London.
Media related to Ecce Homo by Caravaggio at Wikimedia Commons