Flight into Egypt (Henry O. Tanner painting, 1899)

Flight Into Egypt (1899)
Flight Into Egypt (1899)
	Mary and Joseph flee for Egypt, Mary riding on a donkey, holding baby Jesus.
Artist	Henry Ossawa Tanner
Year	1899
Medium	Oil on canvas
Movement	impressionism, symbolism
Subject	Holy Family, Flight into Egypt
Dimensions	50.2 cm× 64.8 cm(19 3/4 in× 25 1/2 in)
Location	Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
Accession	69.452

Last updated August 20, 2024

Flight into Egypt was a painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner, created in Paris about 1899 and displayed at the Carnegie Institute that year, along with Judas.^[1] The painting, a religious work, is an example of Tanner's symbolist paintings. The 1899 version was his first version of the painting.^[2]

The painting shows the Holy Family fleeing to Egypt, to save the life of Jesus. The painting's themes were important to Tanner, and he would paint the story as many as 15 times across his lifetime.^[3] Tanner's background was in the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.), his father Benjamin Tucker Tanner a bishop in the church who wanted his son to follow into the ministry.^[4] When Tanner persistently chose to paint, his father wanted him to pursue religious themes, to use his paintings as his ministerial voice.^[4] Those religious interests included standing up for African Americans, who were living under prejudice.^[4]

Tanner painted Flight into Egypt in such a way as to give it universal appeal. Thematically it stood up for the oppressed, through its theme of good people fleeing persecution. Further, its characters, were rendered indistinctly in the twilight, enough that it was difficult to pin them down as being from a particular race or ethnic group; people could imagine their own in the painting.^[5]

Symbolist painting

See: Precursors and origins of Symbolism and Symbolist painting

Tanner painted in Paris during the time when symbolism was becoming widespread. The movement in literature arose in the 1860s and at the end of the 19th century, Symbolist painting was one of the main artistic manifestations. Symbolists "sought represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images".

According to Tanner's son Jesse Tanner, his father attempted to use his religious paintings to trigger a "receptive state of mind", that the paintings were meant to help viewers find communion with God.^[6]

Symbolic use of color

Tanner used nocturnal light to "give an aura of mystery" to his subjects.^[7] The effect was to help viewers suspend a modern outlook and enter Tanner's biblical world.^[7] Light was also an "expression of God" in Tanner's paintings, offering comfort, guidance and safety.^[8]

Tanner used color symbolically. In doing this, he joined contemporary Symbolists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries such as Franz von Stück or Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Theory of Colours), who used color for its "psychological qualitities."^[9] Tanner's son Jesse described Tanner's use of "spiritual colors", saying that his father linked spiritual colors with spiritual themes.^[10] In Flight into Egypt, Tanner used blues and greens.^[9] Stück placed blues as affecting "mystery, eternity and calm."^[9] In a similarly colored work, Angels Appearing before the Shepherds, colored blue, green and shades of gray, his colors were described as "exuding the tranquility of God’s spiritual grace."^[9]

Holy Family, symbols of humility

Besides his use of color symbolism, Tanner used impressionist methods, not filling in the details on the people, leaving it up to the viewer's imagination. He used "faceless figures" in dim light to represent Mary and Joseph fleeing for their safety.^[10] Mary and Joseph and the infant Jesus, themselves symbols as the Holy Family are not portrayed in an elevated and idealized manner but as "normal folk", "generalized and demysticized" people with whom anyone could identify.^[10]

Related Research Articles

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The Sin is an 1893 painting by the German artist Franz Stuck. Stuck created twelve known versions of the painting. Some of these can be viewed at the Neue Pinakothek, in Munich, the National Gallery, in Berlin, the Galleria di arte Moderna, in Palermo, the Frye Art Museum, in Seattle, and at the Villa Stuck, in Munich, where it is enshrined in the artist's Künstleraltar. It depicts the nude Eve with a large serpent wrapped around her body. In the upper right corner is a bright field, while the rest of the surroundings are dark.

The Young Sabot Maker is an oil-on-canvas painting made by the American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner in 1895. The painting was accepted for the 1895 Paris Salon and was Tanner's second Salon-entered painting.

The Banjo Lesson is an 1893 oil painting by African-American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner. It depicts two African-Americans in a humble domestic setting: an old black man is teaching a young boy – possibly his grandson – to play the banjo.

Robert Douglass Jr. was an African-American artist and leading activist from Philadelphia.

The Thankful Poor is an 1894 genre painting by the African-American painter Henry Ossawa Tanner. It depicts two African Americans praying at a table, and shares common themes with Tanner's other paintings from the 1890s including The Banjo Lesson (1893) and The Young Sabot Maker (1895). The work is based on photographs Tanner had taken, and is influenced by his views on education and race, which were in turn derived from those of his father, Benjamin Tucker Tanner, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The painting is considered a milestone in African-American art, notably for its countering of racial stereotypes.

The Annunciation is an 1898 painting by the African-American painter Henry Ossawa Tanner. It depicts the biblical scene of the Annunciation, where the archangel Gabriel visits Mary to announce that she will give birth to Jesus. The painting is held by the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The Bagpipe Lesson is a painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner, completed in late 1893 and displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts 63rd annual exhibition, held from December 18, 1893 to February 24, 1894. The painting was begun by Tanner during his first summer in France, during a trip to Brittany. He finished the work in Philadelphia.

Sarah Elizabeth Tanner was active as a missionary worker and a religious leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Woman From the West Indies is a painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner painted about 1891 in Brittany, France, during his first or second summer in France. The portrait is unsigned but is attributed to Tanner based on the way it was painted, compared to Tanner's known works from 1891-1893. Those examining the painting looked for patterns in the way the artist used color, the brush strokes, and the stylistic choices in how light itself is shown in the painting.

Salomé is a painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner, showing the princess Salome from the Bible, who danced before her stepfather Herod Antipas, and who demanded the head of John the Baptist as a reward for her performance. Tanner painted Salome as part of his Christian-themed paintings.

Abraham's Oak is a painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner, an American painter who lived in France, completed about 1905. While Tanner is well known today for two paintings in the United States, The Banjo Lesson and The Thankful Poor, both about African-American families, the bulk of his artwork, including some of his most iconic paintings, were concerned with exploring biblical subjects. Abraham's Oak was supposed to be a place where Abraham pitched his tent and built an alter to God, who had promised the Land of Canaan for him and his children, and where he was visited by an angel.

The Resurrection of Lazarus is a painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner entered into the Paris Salon in 1897 and winning a third place medal. During his lifetime, this was the painting for which he was most known, his "masterwork". Since his death in 1937, secular tastes have pushed The Banjo Lesson to the top place in public esteem. The work was purchased by the French government for display in its Luxemburg museum. Today the painting is held by the Musée d'Orsay.

Christ at the home of Mary and Martha is a painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner completed about 1905 and permanently in the collections of the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Tanner spoke of the painting as having been particularly challenging to paint. The painting was purchased in 1907 by the museum. It was also exhibited in Pittsburgh in 1907 and New York in 1908.

Nicodemus Visiting Christ is a painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner, made in Jerusalem in 1899 during the artist's second visit to what was then Palestine. The painting is biblical, featuring Nicodemus talking privately to Christ in the evening, and is an example of Tanner's nocturnal light paintings, in which the world is shown in night light.

References

↑ Mosby, Dewey F. (1991). Henry Ossawa Tanner. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia; New York: Philadelphia Museum of Art; Rizzoli International Publications. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-8478-1346-9.
↑ Marley, Anna O. (2012). "Introduction". In Marley, Anna O. (ed.). Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 32.
↑ Mosby, Dewey F. (1991). Henry Ossawa Tanner. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia; New York: Philadelphia Museum of Art; Rizzoli International Publications. pp. 172–173. ISBN 978-0-8478-1346-9.
1 2 3 Harper, Jennifer J. (Autumn 1992). "The Early Religious Paintings of Henry Ossawa Tanner: A Study of the Influences of Church, Family, and Era". American Art. 6 (4). The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Smithsonian American Art Museum: 69–72.
↑ Mosby, Dewey F. (1991). Henry Ossawa Tanner. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia; New York: Philadelphia Museum of Art; Rizzoli International Publications. pp. 172–173. ISBN 978-0-8478-1346-9. The lack of articulation in the faces of the figures and the unemphasized Christ Child, who is seen only as a bundle of cloth on Mary's lap, allows one to see them as ordinary people drawn from the crowds that hurried toward Bethlehem. The biblical figures become timeless travelers, whose anxious journey gives them a universality that extends even to the African-American migrants of Tanner's time.
↑ Cozzolino, Robert (2012). "8 "I Invited the Christ Spirit to Manifest in Me": Tanner and Symbolism". In Marley, Anna O. (ed.). Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 120.
1 2 Valance, Hélène (2012). "9 "The Dynamo and the Virgin": Henry Ossawa Tanner's Religious Nocturnes". In Marley, Anna O. (ed.). Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 128.
↑ Baker, Kelly Jeannette (10 September 2003). Henry Ossawa Tanner: Race, Religion, and Visual Mysticism (Thesis). Florida State University. p. 37.
1 2 3 4 Khalid, Farisa. "Henry Ossawa Tanner, Angels Appearing before the Shepherds".
1 2 3 Harper, Jennifer J. (Autumn 1992). "The Early Religious Paintings of Henry Ossawa Tanner: A Study of the Influences of Church, Family, and Era". American Art. 6 (4). The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. By depicting biblical characters as generalized or demysticized "norman: folk, Tanner transformed them into timeless figures and giave them a universal quality that allowed for broader viewer identification, even among the black American migrants of his own era.

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[mosby41-1] Mosby, Dewey F. (1991). Henry Ossawa Tanner. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia; New York: Philadelphia Museum of Art; Rizzoli International Publications. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-8478-1346-9.

[Marley32-2] Marley, Anna O. (2012). "Introduction". In Marley, Anna O. (ed.). Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 32.

[Mosby172-173-3] Mosby, Dewey F. (1991). Henry Ossawa Tanner. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia; New York: Philadelphia Museum of Art; Rizzoli International Publications. pp. 172–173. ISBN 978-0-8478-1346-9.

[ministry-4] 1 2 3 Harper, Jennifer J. (Autumn 1992). "The Early Religious Paintings of Henry Ossawa Tanner: A Study of the Influences of Church, Family, and Era". American Art. 6 (4). The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Smithsonian American Art Museum: 69–72.

[Mosby172-173b-5] Mosby, Dewey F. (1991). Henry Ossawa Tanner. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia; New York: Philadelphia Museum of Art; Rizzoli International Publications. pp. 172–173. ISBN 978-0-8478-1346-9. The lack of articulation in the faces of the figures and the unemphasized Christ Child, who is seen only as a bundle of cloth on Mary's lap, allows one to see them as ordinary people drawn from the crowds that hurried toward Bethlehem. The biblical figures become timeless travelers, whose anxious journey gives them a universality that extends even to the African-American migrants of Tanner's time.

[Marley120-6] Cozzolino, Robert (2012). "8 "I Invited the Christ Spirit to Manifest in Me": Tanner and Symbolism". In Marley, Anna O. (ed.). Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 120.

[Marley128-7] 1 2 Valance, Hélène (2012). "9 "The Dynamo and the Virgin": Henry Ossawa Tanner's Religious Nocturnes". In Marley, Anna O. (ed.). Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 128.

[8] Baker, Kelly Jeannette (10 September 2003). Henry Ossawa Tanner: Race, Religion, and Visual Mysticism (Thesis). Florida State University. p. 37.

[Farisa-9] 1 2 3 4 Khalid, Farisa. "Henry Ossawa Tanner, Angels Appearing before the Shepherds".

[Jesse-10] 1 2 3 Harper, Jennifer J. (Autumn 1992). "The Early Religious Paintings of Henry Ossawa Tanner: A Study of the Influences of Church, Family, and Era". American Art. 6 (4). The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. By depicting biblical characters as generalized or demysticized "norman: folk, Tanner transformed them into timeless figures and giave them a universal quality that allowed for broader viewer identification, even among the black American migrants of his own era.

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