The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb is an oil and tempera on limewood painting created by the German artist and printmaker Hans Holbein the Younger between 1520 and 1522.
It shows a life-size, grotesque depiction of the stretched and unnaturally thin body of Jesus Christ lying in his tomb. Holbein shows the dead Son of God after he has suffered the fate of an ordinary human. The painting is held in the Kunstmuseum Basel.
The painting is especially notable for its dramatic dimensions (30.5 cm x 200 cm), [1] and the fact that Christ's face, hands and feet, as well as the wounds in his torso, are depicted as realistic dead flesh in the early stages of putrefaction. His body is shown as long and emaciated while eyes and mouth are left open. [2]
Christ is shown with three visible wounds: on his hand, side and feet. Discussing the artist's use of unflinching realism, art historians Oscar Bätschmann and Pascal Griener noted that Christ's raised and extended middle finger appears to "reach towards the beholder", while his strands of hair "look as if they are breaking through the surface of the painting". [2] Above the body, angels holding instruments of the Passion bear an inscription in brush on paper inscribed with the Latin words " IESVS·NAZARENVS·REX·IVDÆORVM" (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews). [3]
In common with many artists of the early Protestant Reformation, Holbein was fascinated with the macabre. His father, Hans Holbein the Elder, took him to see Matthias Grünewald's altarpiece in Isenheim, a city in which the elder also received a number of commissions from the local hospice. [2] In common with the religious traditions of the 1520s, the work was intended to evoke piety and follows the intentions of Grünewald, who in his altarpiece set out to instill feelings of both guilt and empathy in the viewer. [4]
It is unknown for what purpose the painting was created. Various suggestions have been offered, including as a predella for an altarpiece, a free-standing work, or an ornament for a sepulchre. [1] The painting was commissioned by Bonifacius Amerbach, [5] who was also portrayed by Hans Holbein. Subsequently, it was included in the Amerbach Cabinet where it was described as a "Picture of a dead man by H. Holbein...with the title Iesus Nazarenus rex". [6] In 1999, Bätschmann and Griener raised the possibility that the panel was intended to form part of a Holy Tomb, perhaps as a lid to be laid over a sepulchre. [4] Legend has it that Holbein used a body retrieved from the Rhine as a model for the work. "Whether this is true or not, there is no doubt of his attempt to be totally convincing." [7] The painting is exhibited in the Kunstmuseum Basel. [8]
The panel has attracted fascination and praise since it was created. The Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky was captivated by the work. In 1867, his wife had to drag him away from the panel lest its grip on him induce an epileptic seizure. [4] Dostoevsky saw in Holbein an impulse similar to one of his own main literary preoccupations: the pious desire to confront Christian faith with everything that negated it, in this case the laws of nature and the stark reality of death. [9] In his 1869 novel The Idiot , the character Prince Myshkin, having viewed a copy of the painting in the home of Rogozhin, declares that it has the power to make the viewer lose his faith. [10] The character of Ippolit Terentyev, an articulate exponent of atheism and nihilism who is himself near death, engages in a long philosophical discussion of the painting, claiming that it demonstrates the victory of 'blind nature' over everything, including even the most perfect and beautiful of beings. [11] [12]
The effect of the open eyes and mouth has been described by the art critic Michel Onfray as giving the impression that "the viewer sees Christ seeing: he might also perceive what death has in store, because he's staring at the heavens, while his soul is probably there already. No-one has taken the trouble to close his mouth and his eyes. Or else Holbein wants to tell us that, even in death, Christ still looks and speaks." [1]
Hans Holbein the Elder was a German painter.
Ambrosius Holbein was a German and later a Swiss artist in painting, drawing, and printmaking. He was the elder brother, by about three years, of Hans Holbein the Younger, but he appears to have died in his mid-twenties, leaving behind only a small body of work.
Hans Holbein the Younger was a German-Swiss painter and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style, and is considered one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire, and Reformation propaganda, and he made a significant contribution to the history of book design. He is called "the Younger" to distinguish him from his father Hans Holbein the Elder, an accomplished painter of the Late Gothic school.
Matthias Grünewald was a German Renaissance painter of religious works who ignored Renaissance classicism to continue the style of late medieval Central European art into the 16th century. His first name is also given as Mathis and his surname as Gothart or Neithardt.
The Kunstmuseum Basel houses the oldest public art collection in the world and is generally considered to be the most important museum of art in Switzerland. It is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance.
Portrait of Sir Thomas More is an oak panel painting commissioned in 1527 of Thomas More by the German artist and printmaker Hans Holbein the Younger, now in the Frick Collection in New York.
Portrait Miniature of Margaret Roper is a painting by the German artist and printmaker Hans Holbein the Younger created during 1535–36, and today held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Margaret Roper (1505–44) was the eldest child of Sir Thomas More and wife of the English biographer William Roper. It is the second and less well known of two portraits of Roper painted by Holbein. The first, Portrait of an English Woman, is generally believed to show Roper but may depict another unknown lady of the English court. The New York work was painted during the artist's second visit to London, likely in the mid-1530s.
Venus and Amor is painting by the so-called "Venus Painter" of Hans Holbein the Youngers workshop and is conserved in the Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland. It was assumed for a long time to be painting by Hans Holbein the Younger, but research showed that this could not be possible. It was discovered that the painter had used a sort of a carbon paper with the contours of the already existing Laïs and used it to transfer those contours in reverse on the new portrait he was to paint of Venus. As the portrait of Laïs is dated with 1526, the year of Hans Holbeins departure from Basel, it is assumed that the work has been painted between 1526 and 1528, the years Holbein stayed in London. The painting depicts the Roman goddess of love, Venus, with her son Amor (Cupid) and the model is believed to be either Magdalena Offenburg or her daughter Dorothea. They are shown in front of a large hanging green curtain and behind a low parapet. Venus is depicted with an open gesture and sincere gaze. Cupid is seen climbing onto the parapet while holding love's arrow in his left hand. He has red-orange hair, rendered in the same colouring and tone of the rich cloth sleeves covering his mother's upper arms.
The Darmstadt Madonna is an oil painting by Hans Holbein the Younger. Completed in 1526 in Basel, the work shows the Bürgermeister of Basel Jakob Meyer zum Hasen, his first wife, his current wife, and his daughter grouped around the Madonna and infant Jesus.
The Braque Triptych is a c. 1452 oil-on-oak altarpiece by the Early Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden. When open, its three half-length panels reveal, from left to right, John the Baptist, The Virgin Mary with Jesus and Saint John the Evangelist, and on the right, Mary Magdalene. When the wings are closed, the work shows a vanitas motif of a skull and cross.
The Amerbach Cabinet was a collection of artifacts, paintings, libraries, assembled by members of the Amerbach family, most notably by the two law professors of the University of Basel, Bonifacius Amerbach and his son Basilius Amerbach the Younger.
Hans Holbein the Younger painted the Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam several times, and his paintings were much copied, at the time and later. It is difficult to disentangle Holbein's original work from that of his workshop and other copyists. Possibly five largely original versions survive, as well as a number of drawings made as studies.
The Double Portrait of Jakob Meyer zum Hasen and Dorothea Kannengießer is a 1516 oil-on-limewood panel painting by Hans Holbein the Younger. The two panels were commissioned by Jakob Meyer zum Hasen, mayor of Basel, and show him and his second wife Dorothea Kannengießer. The occasion for the portrait could be Meyer zum Hasen's election as the mayor the same year. Holbein was eighteen years old at the time and had arrived in Basel together with his brother Ambrosius only in 1515. He signed with the letters HH. He received the right to sign with his full name in 1519, when he was accepted as a member of the painters' guild of Basel.
The Solothurn Madonna is an oil-on-panel painting executed in 1522 by the German-Swiss artist Hans Holbein the Younger in Basel. It shows the Virgin Mary and Christ enthroned, flanked by Martin of Tours and Ursus of Solothurn. Holbein used his wife Elsbeth as his model for the Madonna, and the baby "may well have been modelled on Holbein and Elsbeth's baby son Philipp."
The War, sometimes known as the Dresden War Triptych, is a large Oil and Tempera painting by Otto Dix on four wooden panels, a triptych with predella. The format of the work and its composition are based on religious triptychs of the Renaissance, like those by Matthias Grünewald. It was begun in 1929 and completed in 1932, and has been held by the Galerie Neue Meister in Dresden since 1968. It is one of several anti-war works done by Dix in the 1920s, inspired by his experience of trench warfare in the First World War.
Bonifacius Amerbach was a jurist, scholar, an influential humanist and the rector of the University of Basel for several terms.
The Portrait of Bonifacius Amerbach is a painting by the German master of the Renaissance Hans Holbein the Younger. It is deposited in the Basler Kunstmuseum as part of the Amerbach Cabinet. It is painted in mixed technique on pine panel and measures 29.9 cm x 28.3 cm.
Portrait of the Artist's Family is a portrait of the family of the painter Hans Holbein the Younger by the artist himself. It depicts Holbein's wife Elsbeth Binzenstock, their son Philipp and their daughter Katharina. Holbein painted it during his stay in Basel after his return from England. It was painted, between 1528 and 1529, on paper and glued on wood.