Baroque Blog
Today, I am presenting The Dead Christ Mourned By Annibale Carracci, done in 1604 with oils. This was not an art intervention but was used as a tool and designed by the Catholic Church. A group called the Protestant Reformation fought ruthlessly against this piece of art. The Protestant was a religious reform movement that swept through Europe in the 1500s. The Catholics fought against them and got close to their followers, as they thought this canvas was relatable and eye-catching, and it created an emotional response. At the time, the Catholics did not believe true faith had a direct connection and relied solely on emotions and feelings. Carracci was known in his works to paint with his whole emotion. This piece is loud and painful, with heart-wrenching signs of loss and grief.
What makes this such an emotional canvas is Carracci's use of colors. We see Christ laid out in a white loincloth that almost matches his skin color, representing a harsh death. We then are drawn to his mother, Mary, who is lying behind him in a blue robe, the blue representing great sadness. She appears to have passed. She is occupied by three other figures wearing different colors representing different emotions.
Another key feature we see here is the use of chiaroscuro, a precise definition of fine art from the Italian for "Light to Dark," describing the contrast between light and dark shades. We can interpret this again by the bright, warm colors of the women's dresses compared to the pitch-black background. This isn't verified, but in my opinion, the black represents a black hole in the grave, as once dead, there is no return to colorful life. It could also represent the hard, curling grief process the mother is enduring as she holds her lifeless son.
Something that stuck out to me was the realism shown by the close attention that every human figure had. In this piece, we can see Christ lifeless to the point where we can see his muscles fading away, the veins in his arms and hands, and the ribs of his torso. The human faces are so well put together that we are presented with heavy signs of grief and loss. This allows us to have a deep connection with the piece; Carracci mastered a profound depth of feeling.
This relates to the Council of Trent as they were a group reformed to fight off the challenges of the Protestant Reformation. The Council preached why Christ suffered with such greatness and intensity of his divine love towards us, how he died for us, and our sins so we could be forgiven.
I would not own this piece, but where could one put something like this? It holds too much intense emotional depth to be placed in a personal room. The only appropriate location for it to be would be in a museum.
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The use of shape in this piece is interesting because it creates something of a circle. The eye is drawn to the pale figure of Christ, to the flue figure to the green and orange figure to the dark green figure down to the red figure and back again. It’s a really effective use of posture and posing of the subjects to keep the eye moving around the canvas. In some cases it’s appropriate to focus on a single subject but in other times depending on the work it is appropriate to keep the eye busy and moving across the artwork. There is also a little tiny patch of light in the back that also draws the eye as well. There is a bold use of color where blue red and yellow are very bright and almost shouting at the viewer. This is countered by the black and stark background. But those four center figures are also contrasted against the pale body of Christ and the black background. So there are these colorful characters which are contrasted against the monochromatic duality of the background and central subject. Theres symbolism there about the darkened sinful world, but also about the nature of people in the world who are colored by their different experiences, who are neither divine or necessarily corrupted by sin exactly. That would really match with the idea of Catholic Synergism which is over and against the Protestant idea of monergism.
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