ArtWay

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Peter Paul Rubens: The Resurrection of Christ

ArtWay Art Meditation Easter 2024
 
 
Peter Paul Rubens: The Resurrection of Christ
 
 
Glorious and Terrible
 
by David Lyle Jeffrey
 
“Up from the grave he arose! “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!”
 
With such hymns and liturgical exclamations Christian worshippers on this most important day of the Christian Year rejoice with one another, celebrating the world-changing event of the Resurrection of Christ Jesus from the tomb, two days after his degrading, tortuous death on the cross and burial.
 
It seems that hardly any other event in the gospels ought so powerfully to attract visual artists, yet the frequency of depiction of the Resurrection pales into quite modest comparison with the countless images of his terrible death, or even of the removal of his body from the cross and deposition in the tomb. Images of the Annunciation to Mary and the Nativity overwhelm this subject in frequency, despite that the Resurrection is the true climax of the gospel narratives and apex of the gospel message, without which, as St. Paul so famously said, our faith is in vain (1 Corinthians 15:13-14).
 
One reason for this lesser presence surely is that none of the gospels actually depict the moment; they tell us rather of his body’s absence from the tomb when the women first, then Peter, came.  John’s gospel gives us the poignant first appearance to Mary Magdalen, Luke has him revealed to the Emmaus pilgrims at the blessing and breaking of the bread, then he presents himself to other gathered disciples, and finally John recounts his appearance to Thomas the Doubter.
 
There is a gap. Consequently, artists have been obliged to imagine how the very first witnesses, the guards at the tomb (Matthew 28), may have reacted when and if they saw Jesus actually bursting forth from behind the sealed stone. This is the conjecture Piero della Francesco and Mantegna depict with more conventional iconography. In their depictions the risen Christ emerges serenely victorious from a sarcophagus, banner of his triumph over sin and death in his hand, with the tomb guards as ineffectual spectators.
 
Peter Paul Rubens goes far beyond any of these paintings in realism and raw power. His resurrected Christ literally bursts forth from a rough and rocky hillside tomb like a young Hercules about to do battle (compare with Rubens’ Drunken Hercules, painted just a year earlier). We see a massive, vigorous, fully corporeal yet divinized body. The radiant beams emanating from his head (no longer wounded, marks in his forward foot and side barely visible) may be an allusion to the young bridegroom as the sun of Psalm 19:5-6, a poetic image borrowed from the Babylonian myth of the Sun-god, already employed in an allegory for Christ’s resurrection in the famous Utrecht Psalter. But most of all we recognize the influence of Michelangelo, who used just such an allusion for his drawing of the Resurrection (1532, British Museum), a study for his controversial Sistine Chapel Last Judgment, a work which Rubens had seen and greatly admired. The Jesus of his 1612 Resurrection of Christ explicitly resembles Michelangelo’s suddenly appearing Judge of All. There is nothing serene whatsoever about this image of the resurrected Christ. His is a terrible beauty.
 
In the midst of our joyful Easter celebrations, splendid traditional hymns and colorful array, it may be that we miss the kinetic power of the risen Christ. He is not conformable to our well-dressed niceties, simply because he is far too strong, and much too real. John Updike captures the discomfiting scandal of the Resurrection well enough for our time when he writes,                                           
 
Make no mistake: if he rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.
(Seven Stanzas at Easter, 1964)
 
For some, the Resurrection can seem like a judgment on unbelief. For others, such as Rubens’ English contemporary the poet and priest John Donne, it is the pre-eminent ground of faith. Donne connects the Resurrection to the Judgment of God in a manner Rubens’ painting seems equally to affirm, reminding us that what must appear as a terror to those who do not know him in the power of his Resurrection is for those who do, conversely, an assurance of eternal hope:                                              
 
…If in thy little booke my name thou enroule,
Flesh in that long sleep is not putrified.
But made that there, of which, and for which t’was;
Nor can by other means be glorified.
May then sinnes sleep, and deaths soone from me passe,
That wak’t from both, I again risen may
Salute the last, and everlasting day.
(Holy Sonnet 6, ca. 1615)
 
Rubens’ resurrected Lord is glorious, but far from manageable. That, Rubens suggests, ought to be a source of abiding Christian comfort. He is a great god and a mighty king above all gods.
 
Christ is risen! Alleluia!
 
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(Originally published on ArtWay at Easter 2017)
 
PETER PAUL RUBENS: TRIPTYCH WITH THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST, 1611-12, oil on panel, 178 x 138 cm. The triptych was commissioned by the printer Jan Moretus, whose name-saint was John the Baptist, featured here in the right panel. His widow, Martina Plantin – whose name-saint was the martyr Martina of Rome, said to have brought down the temple of Apollo simply by making the sign of the cross – is on the left. The work is oil on panel, with the central panel measuring 138 x 98 cm, the wings 136 x 40 cm each.
 
Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) is the most eminent of northern Baroque painters, sometimes called “the prince of the Counter-Reformation artists”. He was both prolific and in high demand; the years 1609-14 saw him complete more than fifty important works. Among these, his Elevation of the Cross (1609-10) and Descent from the Cross (1611-14), much larger works than his Resurrection (1611-12), all done originally for the Vrouwekathedraal in Antwerp, where despite removal during the French Revolution they now again reside.
 
David Lyle Jeffrey is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Literature and Humanities at Baylor University, Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Baylor Institute of Studies in Religion, and Guest Professor at Peking University.
 
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ARTS NEWS INTERNATIONAL
 
 
21 March ‘24 - 28 February ‘25 | Compton Verney Art, UK
 
For the first time in thirty years, a rare masterpiece will be reunited. Bringing together the central panel from The National Gallery of Scotland’s collection, with the original wings in Compton Verney’s collection, the magnificent Lamentation Altarpiece dated c. 1515, will take center stage in the Northern European collection of Compton Verney.
 
 
 
 
19 March - 30 June ‘24 | Charlotte, NC, USA
 
The Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna’s 2024 spring exhibition is devoted to three pioneers of the Renaissance north of the Alps: Hans Holbein the Elder, Hans Burgkmair, and Albrecht Dürer. It offers an opportunity to experience fascinating works by these artists and to explore how Augsburg became the birthplace of the Northern Renaissance.
 
 
 
CALL FOR ARTIST COLLABORATORS:
Material Rendering of Imagery of 'Divine' and 'Faith' among Practicing Christian Adults with Artistic Skills
 
March - October 2024 | Cambridge, UK
 
This is an invitation for passionate visual artists with a Christian faith to collaborate on a research project run by the director of studies at the Faraday institute in Cambridge, Dr Pavlína Kašparová OP, that delves into the very essence of faith and the divine and how these concepts are expressed through art.
 
 
 
INAUGURAL MCDONALD AGAPE LECTURE IN THEOLOGY + BOOK PRESENTATION
 
9 July 2024, 6-8pm | London, UK
 
Neil MacGregor (former director of the National Gallery and British Museum) and Jonathan Ruffer (founder of The Auckland Project) discuss the role of museums, old and new, in curating the public understanding of Christianity and stimulating conversation about art and religion in a contemporary society. The lecture will be followed by a Book Launch: Theology, Modernity and the Visual Arts, eds. Ben Quash & Chloë Reddaway (Brepols), and a drinks and canapés reception for everyone attending.
 
 
 
REGENT COLLEGE SUMMER COURSE: BIBLE & CULTURE
 
23 June-6 July 2024 | Woltersdorf, Germany
 
Co-presented by Regent College and IFES Graduate Impact, Bible and Culture is an opportunity to explore how God’s word speaks with clarity and relevance to the big issues of our time.
Bible and Culture 2024 will take place at a beautiful education centre in Woltersdorf, just outside Berlin. Come for one or two weeks (your choice!)
for week-long courses on a variety of topics.
 

Other recent meditations:
- April 2024: Marina Abramović – Carrying the Milk
- April 2024: The Church of Saint George in Lalibela
- March 2024: Lamidi O. Fakeye: Annunciation
- February 2024: Silvia Dimitrova: Miriam

For more Visual Meditations, see under Artists