About this
work
Object details
- Title:
- Calvary
- Date:
- 1475
- Dimensions:
- 52,5 × 42,5 cm
- Inventory number:
- 4
- Inscriptions:
- lower left: 1475./ antonellus/ meinssaneus/ me pincit
More about this work
The dead Christ hangs from the Cross on Golgotha, also known as Mount Calvary. The Virgin Mary is mourning at his feet, while St John, his favourite disciple, is praying. Crucified to the left and right of Christ are the two thieves on two stripped tree trunks. A cavalcade of soldiers is returning to Jerusalem, the walled city in the distance. They have just pierced Christ’s side with a lance and broken the legs of the thief on the left so as to hasten his death. Golgotha, which means ‘the place of a skull’, is an important place to Christians. According to apocryphal traditions it was the burial pace of Adam, who was responsible for the Fall of Man. Christ died on the same spot in order to redeem mankind from that Original Sin.
Several of the details in the landscape are interpreted as symbols that reinforce the central story. The skulls and snake in the foreground are associated with sin and death, and the owl with Judaism. The painting as a whole stands for Christ’s ultimate triumph of them. Yet one has to be careful. On the one hand the meaning of some of the symbols has been lost in the mists of time, and at the same time there is the danger of overinterpretation. For example, it has been said that the deer, rabbits and flowers in the panel had a specific meaning, but it is more likely that the artist simply added them to make his landscape look more naturalistic.
The painting was signed and dated 1475 by Antonello da Messina, an Italian painter from Messina in Sicily. He was part of the Italian Renaissance, but his style is associated with the north of Italy. He was one of the pioneers of oil painting, the technique that Jan van Eyck brought to fruition, and it is assumed that Antonello adopted the new medium under Van Eyck’s influence. He may have seen paintings by the Netherlandish master during his time in Naples or Venice. Italy was the trendsetter for European art in the Early Modern period. Starting in the 16th century, artists from the Low Countries headed south to study the art of classical antiquity and the Renaissance. In the case of Antonello and Van Eyck that influence was reversed.
Oil paint gave artists greater flexibility than tempera, a paint based on the white of eggs that was customary in Italy. Oil colours are much brighter, as could clearly be seen in this Calvary after its conservation in 2007. The subtle differences in colour and tone with which Antonello created a sense of spaciousness are remarkable. In addition, oil paint enables an artist to make smooth transitions between light and shade, a technique that Antonello employed in the shaded passages of the bodies of Christ and the two thieves.
Nothing is known about the original context of this work. Its small size suggests that it served as an aid to private devotions rather than being used as an altarpiece. Antonello made several such small, refined scenes of the Crucifixion. One of them is in the National Gallery in London (inv. no. NG1166). The Antwerp Calvary entered the KMSKA through Florent van Ertborn in 1841. It is one of the few Italian works in the collection, and the only painting by Antonello in Belgium. There are just 46 paintings of his in the world, only 12 of which are signed.
Several of the details in the landscape are interpreted as symbols that reinforce the central story. The skulls and snake in the foreground are associated with sin and death, and the owl with Judaism. The painting as a whole stands for Christ’s ultimate triumph of them. Yet one has to be careful. On the one hand the meaning of some of the symbols has been lost in the mists of time, and at the same time there is the danger of overinterpretation. For example, it has been said that the deer, rabbits and flowers in the panel had a specific meaning, but it is more likely that the artist simply added them to make his landscape look more naturalistic.
The painting was signed and dated 1475 by Antonello da Messina, an Italian painter from Messina in Sicily. He was part of the Italian Renaissance, but his style is associated with the north of Italy. He was one of the pioneers of oil painting, the technique that Jan van Eyck brought to fruition, and it is assumed that Antonello adopted the new medium under Van Eyck’s influence. He may have seen paintings by the Netherlandish master during his time in Naples or Venice. Italy was the trendsetter for European art in the Early Modern period. Starting in the 16th century, artists from the Low Countries headed south to study the art of classical antiquity and the Renaissance. In the case of Antonello and Van Eyck that influence was reversed.
Oil paint gave artists greater flexibility than tempera, a paint based on the white of eggs that was customary in Italy. Oil colours are much brighter, as could clearly be seen in this Calvary after its conservation in 2007. The subtle differences in colour and tone with which Antonello created a sense of spaciousness are remarkable. In addition, oil paint enables an artist to make smooth transitions between light and shade, a technique that Antonello employed in the shaded passages of the bodies of Christ and the two thieves.
Nothing is known about the original context of this work. Its small size suggests that it served as an aid to private devotions rather than being used as an altarpiece. Antonello made several such small, refined scenes of the Crucifixion. One of them is in the National Gallery in London (inv. no. NG1166). The Antwerp Calvary entered the KMSKA through Florent van Ertborn in 1841. It is one of the few Italian works in the collection, and the only painting by Antonello in Belgium. There are just 46 paintings of his in the world, only 12 of which are signed.
Acquisition history
bequest of: ridder Florent van Ertborn, 1841
Copyright and legal
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