The Northern Renaissance
Deposition, about 1400 - Rogier van der Weyden
created in Brussels
This painting has high amounts of emotion incorporated. This painting is a very religious painting of the removal of Christ off the cross. You can depict the emotion by the body language and facial expressions. You can see the somber expressions and downed faces, even the sobbing of the woman in the background. The vivid colors add to this emotion and intensity. It draws your eye to each individual person with the use of vivid color as well as duller colors that contrast. Then you have the raw flesh of Christ that stands out the brightest and draws your eyes directly to the center and the view of his lifeless body. Even with this already being a biblically emotional scene, the artist has brought the emotion even further to life and makes you feel it personally. This painting is part of the Humanism era of the Northern Renaissance. This artist was known right along side Jan van Eyck and Robert Campin. After researching Rogier van der Weyden, all his works are done in the Humanism era of the Northern Renaissance and the painting Deposition is one of his most famous.
Work Cited
1. Dr. David Drogin and Dr. Beth Harris, et al. “Rogier van Der Weyden, Deposition.” " Rogier van Der Weyden, Deposition, 13 Nov. 2015, smarthistory.org/rogier-van-der-weyden-deposition/.
2. Duncan, Alexandra. “Rogier van Der Weyden Paintings, Bio, Ideas.” The Art Story, 23 Jan. 2021, www.theartstory.org/artist/van-der-weyden-rogier/.
I definitely agree with you that the emotion portrayed in this piece is astounding! I really liked how you mentioned how the colors contribute to the depicted emotions and heighten them, this is something I look past sometimes.
ReplyDeleteI like how you pointed out that Christ is the only one without full clothing and it really makes him stand out. His skin almost seems to be glowing. This is a really dramatic scene to recreate, and as you mentioned the artist really showed that through the faces and body language of the people. There is even a skull on the ground in the left hand corner. The artist stuck with the humanism theme, the people look very down to earth except for Christ, who after his death, is not.
ReplyDeleteHi Alicia, great work! I agree that this painting shows many emotions, most of which are sorrow. The vibrant colors of each person do allow us to focus on each one of them, and Christ does stand out more because he is not fully clothed. Did you know that this painting is one of the most dramatic religious paintings to be created? It just has such a powerful meaning to it.
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