The Resurrection of Lazarus | |
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French: La Résurrection de Lazare | |
Artist | Henry Ossawa Tanner |
Year | 1896 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 90.7 cm× 120.5 cm(35.7 in× 47.4 in) |
Location | Musée d'Orsay, Paris |
The Resurrection of Lazarus is a painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner entered into the Paris Salon in 1897 and winning a third place medal. [1] [2] During his lifetime, this was the painting for which he was most known, his "masterwork". [2] Since his death in 1937, secular tastes have pushed The Banjo Lesson to the top place in public esteem. [2] The work was purchased by the French government (a rare honor for someone not a French citizen) for display in its Luxemburg museum. [2] Today the painting is held by the Musée d'Orsay. [2]
During Tanner's lifetime, the painting was never exhibited in the United States, having been bought at its first exhibition in France. [2] It was finally exhibited in the U.S. in 2012 as part of the show Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit, organized by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. [3]
The painting illustrates John 11 from the Bible, in which Christ raises his friend Lazarus from death. [2] It catches the moment of resurrection when Lazarus opens his eyes and the reaction of the crowd which came to see. Women thought to be Mary and Martha (sisters to Lazarus) kneel to either side of Jesus, Mary with her head in her hands, Martha looking up at him. [2]
The scene is an adaption of the biblical text; in that work, the people did not enter the tomb but Christ told Lazarus, "Come forth." [4]
Tanner's crowd of Jewish people run "from a range of locales across North Africa and the Near East." [2] They are not a racially homogeneous mixture and represent a variety of Jewish peoples. [2]
The purchase of the painting by the French government placed Tanner into a small group of artists who did not have to submit their paintings to an admissions panel for entry into Paris Salons. [5] Beyond that, Tanner's work now held "authoritative cache and the zeal of official approbation," and it was considered that anything he chose to paint would have an instant market. [6]
The painting also gained Tanner the attention of American businessman Rodman Wanamaker who saw it in Paris and was impressed by Tanner's religious sentiments and attempts at Orientalism. [7] He wanted Tanner to have a "firsthand look at the setting of the biblical stories he painted" and paid Tanner's travel expenses in the spring of 1897 to the Near East (Palestine and Egypt). [7]
Tanner would make multiple trips to Israel/Palestine, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco in his lifetime, creating numerous paintings of these trips. [8] He would incorporate details noticed on these trips in his paintings. One example is the dress style of Mary in The Annunciation, which is remarked on as a particular dress style in Israel. [9]
Works coming out of this trip include The Jew's Wailing Place (also final painting), Lions in the Desert , Lion drinking , A Water Carrier , and A Mosque in Cairo .
Thomas Hovenden was an Irish artist and teacher who spent much of his life in the United States. He painted realistic quiet family scenes and narrative subjects and often depicted African Americans.
Henry Ossawa Tanner was an American artist who spent much of his career in France. He became the first African-American painter to gain international acclaim. Tanner moved to Paris, France, in 1891 to study at the Académie Julian and gained acclaim in French artistic circles. His painting Daniel in the Lions' Den was accepted into the 1896 Salon, the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Tanner's Resurrection of Lazarus was purchased by the French government after winning the third-place medal at the 1897 Salon. In 1923, the French government elected Tanner chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
A Woman Reading is an oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, created in 1869. The painting is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The Société des Peintres Orientalistes Français was an art society founded in 1893 to promote not only Orientalism but also the travel of French artists in the Far East.
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.
Atherton M. Curtis was an American art collector and a writer from Brooklyn, New York City, who settled permanently in Paris, France, in 1903. He was also an author of introduction, art historian and publisher, who donated numerous archaeological items to the Louvre and other museums. He was also a principal benefactor of the Humane Society, and is recorded as being a strong supporter for the abolition of vivisection.
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.
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. The painting, a religious work, is an example of Tanner's symbolist paintings. The 1899 version was his first version of the painting.
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.
Myron G. Barlow was an American figurative painter known for his paintings of the lives of rural French women. A gold medalist in international art exhibitions, he had a home at the Etaples art colony. He was friend to Henry Ossawa Tanner. He also remained a resident of Detroit.
At the opening of the Salon of the Champs Elysees—the only salon conferring official honors—a painting by a new American artist was favorably noticed. Afterwards it was numbered among the annual acquisitions of the French state. Finally, it has carried off a third medal, a distinction which it shares this year with the work of only one other American painter...The subject of his painting is Resurrection of Lazarus. It is a small canvas, with Christ standing at the head of the open tomb from which Lazarus is lifted up. Behind are the Jews in attitudes of wonder. The light on all these figures is from the reddish blaze of lanterns. In the background is a bit of blue sky, seen through the entrance to the sepulchre. It is not a great painting, nor even faultless in drawing and color. But it is a meritorious precisely for those qualities of permanent value, which all masters have aimed at, but which are ignored by many of the younger artists. Its composition is original, without upsetting what may be called the ideas of the scene, and its color scheme is not one which might be admissible in an impressionist landscape.