''Lamentation (Pietà)'' (also ''Lamentation Over The Dead Christ'') is an oil painting on panel of the common subject of the

Lamentation of Christ The Lamentation of Christ is a very common subject in Christian art from the High Middle Ages to the Baroque. After Jesus was crucified, his body was removed from the cross and his friends mourned over his body. This event has been depicted by m ...

that is now regarded as by an artist in the "circle" of the

Early Netherlandish painter Early Netherlandish painting, traditionally known as the Flemish Primitives, refers to the work of artists active in the Burgundian Netherlands, Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance period. ...

Petrus Christus Petrus Christus (; 1410/1420 – 1475/1476) was an Early Netherlandish painter active in Bruges from 1444, where, along with Hans Memling, he became the leading painter after the death of Jan van Eyck. He was influenced by van Eyck and Rogier v ...

, rather than by Christus himself. It was painted in 1444, and is now in the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

in Paris.

History

Bought by the Louvre in 1951 from the Schloss Fuschl Collection for 5,000,000

francs The franc is any of various units of currency. One franc is typically divided into 100 centimes. The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription ''francorum rex'' (King of the Franks) used on early French coins and until the 18th centu ...

, this work of the Flemish artist belongs to a groups of paintings in which the

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

influence is clearly visible: see for instance, the '' Entombment'', the '' Nativity'', the ''

Death of the Virgin The Death of the Virgin Mary is a common subject in Western Christian art, the equivalent of the Dormition of the Theotokos in Eastern Orthodox art. This depiction became less common as the doctrine of the Assumption gained support in the Roma ...

'', and the '' Portrait of a Man''.

, working at

Bruges Bruges ( , nl, Brugge ) is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium, in the northwest of the country, and the sixth-largest city of the country by population. The area of the whole city a ...

, continued to paint in the style of Jan van Eyck at a time when most Flemish artists had abandoned this manner in favour of

Rogier van der Weyden Rogier van der Weyden () or Roger de la Pasture (1399 or 140018 June 1464) was an early Netherlandish painter whose surviving works consist mainly of religious triptychs, altarpieces, and commissioned single and diptych portraits. He was highly ...

's more dramatic and

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

character. He seems to have visited

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

some time between 1454 and 1462, and various factors suggest that he may have travelled as far as the south of Italy:

Antonello da Messina Antonello da Messina, properly Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio, but also called Antonello degli Antoni and Anglicized as Anthony of Messina ( 1430February 1479), was an Italian painter from Messina, active during the Early Italian Renaissance. ...

's influence on him, for example, together with the presence of paintings from his hand in

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

as early as the 16th century, and certain affinities between his work and that of the School of

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

. He may possibly have contributed to the introduction of the Flemish technique of painting into Italy. The artist's early manner was dry and awkward, with a tendency towards archaism, but under the beneficial influence of Antonello his work gained in suppleness, revealing a new sense of harmony and rhythm in the compositions, a monumental conception of the figures, and a certain proud dignity of facial expression. The Louvre painting has all these characteristics: the landscape is painted in broad planes, and the diagonal arrangement of the heads and the delicate arabesque on Christ's body contribute to the subtlety of the composition. The Virgin's head is a perfect oval, in the manner of

; St. John's square-cut face, with his determined jaw, recalls that artist's portraits, and the woman's head seen in profile (very rare in the work of Flemish artists) is also reminiscent of certain heads by Italian painters.J. M. Upton, ''Petrus Christus: His Place in Fifteenth-Century Flemish Painting'', Pennsylvania State University Press (1990).

Notes

External links

* ttp://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/c/christus/1/index.html Web Gallery of Art: Paintings by Petrus Christus(Religious Paintings)
Web Gallery of Art: Paintings by Petrus Christus
(Portraits)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lamentation (Pieta) 1444 paintings Paintings in the Louvre by Flemish artists Paintings by Petrus Christus Paintings of the Virgin Mary Paintings depicting Mary Magdalene Petrus

History

Notes

Further reading

External links