The red Christ
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| The red Christ |
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| Lovis Corinth , 1922 |
| oil on wood |
| 129 × 108 cm |
| Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen , Pinakothek der Moderne |
The red Christ is a painting by the German painter Lovis Corinth . The image of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was painted as an oil painting on wood in 1922. The painting, measuring 129 × 108 centimeters, has been in the possession of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen since 1956 and is on display in the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich .
The painting is one of numerous pictures during his creative period in which Corinth takes up the motif of the crucifixion and the Passion of Christ. He painted this expressionist version on wood, as was done with historical altarpieces. His last picture, a self-portrait made in 1925 in the figure of the suffering Christ ( Ecce homo ), dealt with this topic.
Image description
The picture shows a crucifixion scene, with the crucified body of Jesus Christ in the center of the picture, moved slightly to the left edge of the picture. The edge cuts off his hands at the upper corners of the picture, so that neither the hands nor the horizontal wood of the cross can be seen. The feet and the right knee touch the lower edge of the picture. According to Sonja de Puinef, the body of the suffering Christ “dominates and bursts” the composition “with his hands protruding above the picture frame”. The scene is "fitted very precisely into the unusually compact picture space." The body, tilting to the left in the direction of the viewer, hangs on the cross with straight arms and knees bent. The head with the crown of thorns has fallen to the side on the left shoulder, the eyes are looking forward and thus in the direction of the beholder. The largely white, naked and bleeding body is clad only with a cloth around the loins. The cross can only be seen in the lower part of the picture between the legs, above the feet that are nailed to the cross. In the upper part of the picture it is outshone by the sun and the crossbar lies outside the picture and can only be guessed at, so the viewer cannot see how and whether the body is fixed.
A man standing in the lower left corner of the picture pushes a lance into the body of the crucified Christ under the left breast, and blood spurts over the body from the wound. It is probably about Longinus , the Roman soldier mentioned in the Bible , who is said to have stabbed a spear in Jesus' side after his death . Above the person there are two other figures that are supposed to represent the apostle John and the Virgin Mary . Johannes, dressed in a red robe, stands slightly offset behind the unconscious Mary in a blue robe. On the right side another figure can be seen holding a sponge on a long stick, a hyssop branch , to Jesus, which - according to the Gospel of John - is soaked with vinegar. All persons with the exception of the unconscious Maria look from their respective position in the direction of the hanging body.
A three-part composition forms the background. While there are three other people in the field to the left of the corpse, the landscape is indistinctly shown on the right and a single person appears only in the lower area. The picture shows a seascape instead of Mount Golgotha , on which the crucifixion is said to have taken place according to the New Testament . The horizon line lies at chest height of the crucified body , above is the sky and in the third section between the stretched arms the sun with accentuated rays of the sun. Both the sky, the lake and the sun are interspersed with red, creating an impression of twilight.
The picture is signed and dated in two lines in yellow on the upper left edge: " Lovis Corinth 1922 ".
Background, origin and interpretation
The crucifixion scene shown corresponds in its main features to the description in John's Gospel. This is a summary of several consecutive scenes described in John 19: 29-34 that include the death of Jesus Christ:
“(29) There was a vessel with vinegar. They put a sponge with vinegar on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. (30) When Jesus had taken some of the vinegar, he said, It is finished! And he bowed his head and gave up his ghost. (31) Because it was preparation day and the bodies were not to remain on the cross during the Sabbath, the Jews asked Pilate that the legs of the crucified should be broken and their corpses removed; for this Sabbath was a great holiday. (32) So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first one, and then the other who was crucified with him. (33) But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead , They didn't break his legs, (34) but one of the soldiers stabbed his side with a lance, and immediately blood and water flowed out. "
Corinth painted the picture "in the tradition of the altarpieces by old German and Dutch painters on wood." The depiction is described as the "most terrible interpretation of the subject", which "brutally" shows the "horror of martyrdom". According to Andrea Bärnreuther, Corinth chose the expressionist style of painting because of the "insight into the limits of naturalistic representation, which has to fail where the inconceivable, not directly accessible to the senses and the naturalistic representation only becomes the expression of speechlessness." Bärnreuther also recognizes in the representation an “aesthetics of the ugly” that goes “beyond the aesthetic boundaries” and “in which the brutality of abstraction in the figure, the arbitrariness in the color scheme of the omnipresent red, and last but not least the violent, violating all the rules of good taste Paint application in the thick spots and the maltreating treatment with palette knife and brush "represent an" attack on perception ".
Sonja de Puinef places the picture in the political context of 1922 in Germany and Corinth's personal situation. This year, four years after the end of the First World War , there were several waves of inflation in Germany . At the same time, Corinth's health and mental health were at a low point. In a letter to his wife Charlotte Berend-Corinth dated September 23, 1923, Corinth described his reluctance to work at the time the picture was taken. He wrote:
“Unfortunately I have become very lazy. I am very reluctant to work on the “Death of Jesus” board. I quickly painted a still life; even without pleasure. It's lazy as always. "
According to Sonja de Puinef's interpretation, "his Christ with uncertain facial features is undoubtedly also a projection of the pain of the artist himself and beyond him of an entire nation". She also explains that Corinth chose “a religious subject of universal significance in order to express his personal shock.” In 1925, the day he completed Ecce Homo , Corinth painted a self-portrait as a man of sorrows , in which he was directly involved identified the figure of the suffering Christ by giving him his facial features.
Classification in the work of Corinth
The painting The Red Christ was created in 1922 and is one of the later works of the 64-year-old artist. It is one of the numerous depictions of the Passion of Jesus Christ that Corinth had painted in the course of his life. His first painting sold was a Descent from the Cross in 1895 and his last painting before his death in 1925 showed him in the situation of Ecce homo . His style of painting developed from a naturalistic one, as in the Descent from the Cross in 1895 and The Great Martyrdom in 1907, to an expressionistic one, as he used in Der Rote Christus and Ecce Homo .
Descent from the Cross , 1895
The Great Martyrdom , 1907
Ecce Homo , 1913
Ecce Homo , 1925
As early as 1917 Corinth painted an expressionist watercolor of a bleeding and distorted, crucified Christ (Crucified Christ) , in which, according to Andrea Bärnreuther, he anticipated the figure of the red Christ, which was concentrated on the crucified. Here the body of Jesus Christ hanging on the cross is shown frontally with outstretched arms and splayed fingers, to the right of him a soldier sticks a lance into the body. According to Horst Uhr, this picture as an “incarnation of physical and psychological pain” can only be compared with the plague crucifixes by Matthias Grünewald from the beginning of the 16th century. In the watercolor, Christ is depicted with a lion face, which, according to medieval iconography, symbolizes the resurrection; Details take a back seat in favor of the fast, expressive painting style.
In 1923 Corinth took up the motif of the red Christ again in a slightly different form for a chalk drawing, with the various people on the cross appearing in a spatial void and only indistinctly and disappearing. The drawing apparently served as a study for a graphic print that Corinth made that same year. Like the red Christ, this drawing is also influenced by the expressionism of the artist's later works.
Christ crucified by Lovis Corinth, 1917
Detail of the crucifixion panel on the Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald , early 16th century.
Crucifixion , drawing by Lovis Corinth 1923
Provenance
The red Christ was exhibited in the Berlin Secession in 1922 . Until 1956 it was owned by the artist's wife, Charlotte Berend-Corinth , who took it with her when she emigrated to the United States in 1939 . There it was shown in numerous exhibitions. The painting came into the possession of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen in 1956 via the Resch art dealer in Garching near Munich .
supporting documents
- ↑ a b c d e f Sonja de Puinef: The red Christ. In: Ulrike Lorenz , Marie-Amélie zu Salm-Salm, Hans-Werner Schmiedt (eds.): Lovis Corinth and the birth of modernity . Kerber, Bielefeld 2008, ISBN 978-3-86678-177-1 , pp. 146-147.
- ↑ a b Joh 19.29 EU
- ↑ John 19:34 EU
- ↑ a b c d Andrea Bärnreuther: The red Christ. In: Peter-Klaus Schuster , Christoph Vitali, Barbara Butts (eds.): Lovis Corinth . Prestel, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-7913-1645-1 , pp. 266-267.
- ^ Thomas Corinth: Lovis Corinth. A documentation. Compiled and explained by Thomas Corinth. Verlag Ernst Wasmuth, 1979. p. 295. ISBN 3-8030-3025-0 .
- ↑ a b c Horst clock: Lovis Corinth. California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1990; Pp. 264-265.
- ↑ Barbara Butts: Christ Crucified In: Peter-Klaus Schuster , Christoph Vitali, Barbara Butts (ed.): Lovis Corinth . Prestel Munich 1996; P. 342. ISBN 3-7913-1645-1 .
- ^ Charlotte Berend-Corinth : Lovis Corinth. Catalog raisonné. Revised by Béatrice Hernad. Bruckmann Verlag, Munich 1958, 1992; BC 846b, p. 180. ISBN 3-7654-2566-4 .
literature
- Peter-Klaus Schuster , Christoph Vitali, Barbara Butts (Eds.): Lovis Corinth . Translated from English by Volker Ellerbeck. Prestel, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-7913-1645-1 , pp. 266–267 (on the occasion of the exhibition “Lovis Corinth, Retrospective”, in the Haus der Kunst, Munich, May 4 to July 21, 1996 and in the Tate Gallery , London, February 20 to May 4, 1997).
- Ulrike Lorenz , Marie-Amélie zu Salm-Salm, Hans-Werner Schmiedt (ed.): Lovis Corinth and the birth of modernity . Kerber, Bielefeld 2008, ISBN 978-3-86678-177-1 , pp. 146–147 (on the occasion of the retrospective on the 150th birthday of Lovis Corinth (1858–1925) in Paris, Musée d'Orsay, April 1, 2008 - June 22, 2008 / Leipzig, Museum of Fine Arts, July 11, 2008 - October 19, 2008 / Regensburg, Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie, November 9, 2008 - February 15, 2009).
