Displaying items by tag: Christ

On January 3, 2013 researchers at the National Portrait Gallery in London announced that they had discovered hidden paintings beneath a number of Tudor portraits in the museum’s collection. The findings will be presented in the exhibition Hidden: Unseen Paintings Beneath Tudor Portraits in the museum’s recently remodeled Room 3.

 The exciting discoveries were made while researchers were analyzing works as part of the Making Art in Tudor Britain project, which aims to shed light on the working practices of Tudor artists through scientific techniques including infrared reflectography and x-radiography. This technical research, which allows for examination beneath the paint surface, unveiled the images behind the portraits.

Works on view include a portrait of the Lord Treasurer and poet, Thomas Sackville; a portrait of the first Earl of Dorset by an unknown artist, which boasts a completed painting of the flagellation of Christ beneath its surface; and a portrait of Sir Francis Walsingham. Walsingham was Elizabeth I’s Protestant spymaster and Secretary of State. Hidden beneath the portrait of Walsingham is a depiction of the Virgin Mary with the infant Christ and another figure believed to be Joseph or an angel.

Hidden Treasures will be on view through June 2, 2013.

Did Jesus sport a beard? Painters have held different opinions on that subject.

Following Roman custom, early Christian art in Western Europe favored a clean-shaven Savior while Byzantium portrayed him with a beard. Only in the 12th century did the bearded Christ become universal.

Rembrandt, too, painted him with facial hair. Unlike his predecessors, though, he presented him as a contemporary human being, not an idealized hero.

For the first time since the Dutch master’s death in 1669, the Louvre has brought together the seven portraits of Jesus attributed to him. (Only two are signed, which could mean that some are studio works.)

It’s generally assumed, though by no means certain, that the sitter was a young Jew from Rembrandt’s neighborhood. As evidence, art historians cite the inventory taken after the painter’s bankruptcy, in 1656, when his house and effects were sold at auction: One of the items was listed as “Head of Christ From Life.”

Much has been made of Rembrandt’s close relationship with Amsterdam’s Jewish community, mostly immigrants from Portugal. Four years ago, an exhibition at the city’s Jewish Historical Museum exploded that myth. No more than three of his male portraits are pictures of Jews.

Hazelnut Hair

What the seven portraits do have in common is that they seem to be inspired by the description of Christ in the so- called Lentulus Letter, allegedly written by a predecessor of Pontius Pilate. That is, in fact, a devotional tract from the late Middle Ages when the image of the bearded Christ also had caught on in the West.

“His hair is the color of a ripe hazelnut,” the letter says, “parted on top and falling straight to the ears yet curling further below.” And: “His beard is large and full but not long and parted in the middle. His glance shows simplicity adorned with maturity, his eyes are clear and commanding, never apt to laugh but sooner inclined to cry.”

Around the portraits, the museum has grouped some 80 related works -- paintings, drawings, prints -- by Rembrandt and other artists.
Among the highlights are Rembrandt’s two versions of “Christ at Emmaus.” The early version, from 1628, is one of his most daring paintings: The main figure is seen only as a silhouette while the light falls on his dinner companion who raises his hand in astonishment.