Crucifixion Diptych (van der Weyden)

Artist Rogier van der Weyden
Year c. 1460
Type Oil on oak panels
Dimensions Left panel: 180.3 cm x 93.8 cm (71.0 in x 36.9 in)
Right panel: 180.3 cm x 92.6 cm (71.0 in x 36.5 in)
Location Philadelphia Museum of Art

Crucifixion Diptych (also known as Philadelphia Diptych, Calvary Diptych, Christ on the Cross with the Virgin and St. John, or The Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist Mourning) is a two-panel painting completed c. 1460^[1] by the Early Netherlandish artist Rogier van der Weyden, today in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The diptych was executed late in the artist's life, and is unique among paintings of the early Northern Renaissance in its utilization of a flat unnaturalistic background to stage figures which are yet, typically highly detailed. Nonetheless, the contrast of vivid primary reds and whites serves to achieve an emotional effect typical of van der Weyden's best work.

It is not known if the panels were intended to comprise a self-contained diptych, as two-thirds of a triptych, or originally were a single panel.^[2] Some art historians mention that a robe of the left panel spills into the right panel and its passage forms a line that stretches through to the horizontal lines of the bones. This would imply a lost right wing panel. Other have mentioned that the work seems unbalanced overall and lacking symmetry. Yet the two panels are noted for their visceral impact and regarded as a major work in their own right. The Philadelphia Museum of Art's guidebook describes the pair as the "greatest Old Master painting in the Museum."^[3]

Description

The figures are almost two-thirds life size. The right panel depicts a deliberately unnaturalistic Crucifixion scene. Christ's blood is visible on his hands, feet and brow, and trickles down from the wound in his side. The impression of blood is amplified by the brilliant red cloth of honor draped behind him. The body hangs heavily from the arms, forming a Y-shaped figure against the T-shape of the cross and the rectangle of the cloth. The skull and bone at the foot of the Cross refer to Adam, the first man created by God in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Christ's loincloth flutters in the wind, indicating the moment of death.

The left panel shows a swooning Virgin Mary supported by Saint John the Evangelist. Both are dressed in pale folded robes, and again presented before a draped red cloth of honor (which, given the creases, appears to have been recently unfolded). The high stone wall gives the effect of pushing the figures into the foreground. The dark sky conforms with scripture: (Matthew 27:45: "Now from the sixth hour [noon] there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour [3:00 pm]." King James Bible, Cambridge edition.) The dark sky, stark wall, cool light and bare ground contribute to the painting's austerity.

In his first masterpiece, The Descent from the Cross (c. 1435-40), van der Weyden likened the Virgin Mary's suffering during the Crucifixion to that of Christ by having her collapse in a pose that mirrored that of his body being removed from the Cross. In the diptych the faces of the pair mirror each other, as do their positions at the center of the red cloths.

• 

  Detail of the Mary and St. John panel.

• 

  Detail showing the skull and bone at the foot of the cross.

• 

  Detail of right panel.

Origin

The background to the panels is unknown. Scholars have theorized that they could be the left and center panels of a triptych, that they formed either the wings or shutters of an altarpiece, or that they were intended to decorate an organ case.^[4] The train of the Virgin's robe continues onto the right panel, which evidences that the panels were intended to lay side-by-side, rather than separated as the wings of an altarpiece would have been. Art historian E. P. Richardson proposed that they were the center panel of the lost Cambrai altarpiece (executed by van der Weyden between 1455 and 1459), a single painting now split into two parts.^[5]

Art historian Penny Howell Jolly was the first to propose that the diptych was painted for an unnamed Carthusian monastery.^[6] Carthusians lived a severely ascetic existence: absolute silence, isolation in one's cell except for daily Mass and Vespers, a communal meal only on Sundays and festival days, bread and water on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, clothes and bedding of the coarsest materials.^[7] Van der Weyden's son Cornelis entered the Carthusian Monastery of Herrines about 1449, and was invested in the order in 1450. The artist donated money and paintings to the order during his lifetime, and made a bequest to it in his will.^[8] His only daughter Margaretha became a Dominican nun. Art historian Dirk de Vos describes the diptych as a "monastically inspired devotional painting" whose composition was "largely determined by the ascetic worship of the Carthusians and Dominicans."^[9]

Related works by van der Weyden

Escorial Crucifixion

Crucifixion with the Virgin and St. John (c. 1460), Rogier van der Weyden, Escorial Palace, Madrid.

The diptych is most closely related to van der Weyden's Crucifixion with the Virgin and St. John (c. 1450-55) at the Escorial Palace in Madrid.^[10] The Escorial Crucifixion also presents Christ on the Cross before a draped red cloth, and there are similarities in the poses and garb of the other figures. Van der Weyden painted this for (and donated it to) the Carthusian monastery in Scheut, near Brussels.^[11] Philip II of Spain bought it from the monastery in 1555, and installed it in a chapel in Segovia, before moving it to the Escorial in 1574.^[10] The diptych's figures are almost two-thirds life size. Those in the towering Escorial painting are fully life size.

In her master's thesis exploring the influence of Carthusian theology on van der Weyden's Escorial Crucifixion and Crucifixion Diptych, Tamytha Cameron Smith argues that the two works "are visually unique" in the artist's oeuvre, "because of their extreme starkness, simplicity and tendency toward abstraction."^[12] The traditional deep blue of the Virgin's robe and dark red of St. John's robe have been bleached out leaving the garments near white (the color of Carthusian robes). Smith notes the "overwhelming stillness" of the diptych, and speculates that it may have been van der Weyden's last work.^[13]

In Vita Christi (1374) the Carthusian theologian Ludolph of Saxony introduced the concept of immersing and projecting oneself into a Biblical scene from the life of Christ.^[14] Ludolph described St. John as steadfastly loyal to Christ, but also "adorned with the brilliancy and beauty conferred by chastity."^[15] If the Philadelphia diptych was utilized as a Ludolphian devotional painting (as the Escorial Crucifixion certainly was), a monk could have empathized with the suffering of Christ and the Virgin, but also been able to project himself into the scene as the ever-loyal (and ever-chaste) St. John. With this intended function, van der Weyden's decision to strip away the extraneous detail present in his other Crucifixions can be seen as having had both an artistic and a practical purpose.

Other Crucifixion scenes

Four other Crucifixion paintings have been attributed to van der Weyden:^[16]

• 

  The Crucifixion (c. 1425-30), Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.

• 

  Abegg Triptych (c. 1438-40), Abegg-Stiftung, Riggisberg.

• 

  Crucifixion Triptych (c. 1440-45), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

• 

  Triptych of the Seven Sacraments (c. 1440-45), Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp.

Provenance

The provenance of the painting, as far as it is known, is as follows:

• 1856, Madrid. Catalogue of the collection of José de Madrazo, no. 659 & 660.^[17]
• June 1867, Paris. Auction of the collection of M. le Mis de Salamanca, lots 165 & 166.^[10]
• About 1905, Paris. Art dealer F. Kleinberger sells the "Christ on the Cross" panel to Peter A. B. Widener, and the "Virgin and St. John" panel to John G. Johnson.^[10]
• 1906, Philadelphia, United States. Johnson purchases Widener's panel and reunites the halves.^[10] Exhibited in Johnson's house museum at 510 South Broad Street, Philadelphia.
• April 1917, Philadelphia. Johnson dies. The diptych becomes part of his bequest to the City of Philadelphia.
• June 1933, Philadelphia. The Johnson Collection is moved to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Conservation

Detail of right panel, with the gold sky added in 1941.

The painting was conserved in 1941 by freelance restorer David Rosen under the supervision of Johnson Collection curator Henri Marceau. Near the upper edge of a panel Rosen found gold paint, one of the factors that led him to conclude that the blue-black sky was an 18th century addition.^[18][19] Rosen scraped away the dark paint and added a gilded sky, which was how the diptych was exhibited for half a century.^[10]

Examination of the painting in 1990 by Philadelphia Museum of Art conservator Mark Tucker showed little justification for the change. The traces of gold were minimal, and could have been residue from a gold-leafed frame. Chemical analysis established that the surviving vestiges of blue pigment in the sky contained azurite of the same color and composition as blue pigment in the Virgin's robe, which was indisputably original. Tucker undertook a thorough cleaning and restoration, 1992-93, painting over Rosen's gold sky, since almost all of the sky's original paint had been removed in 1941.^[20]

The 1992-93 restoration has led to new insight about the artist. Van der Weyden's broad massing of color in the blue-black sky was something new in Northern Renaissance art, although common in Italian frescoes. The diptych's innovative composition and almost abstract use of color may represent his synthesis of the Italian art that he saw on his 1450 pilgrimage to Rome.

References

1. ^ The Philadelphia Museum of Art dates the painting c. 1460; de Vos dates it slightly later (c. 1464-65). De Vos, 334-35
2. ^ Wilhelm R. Valentiner, author of the Dutch and Flemish painting volume of the 1914 Johnson Collection catalogue, proposes that the panels were the shutters of a triptych. Valentiner, W. R. Catalogue of a Collection of Paintings and Some Art Objects Volume II. Philadelphia: John G. Johnson, 1914. 14
3. ^ Crawford Luber, Katherine. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, 1995. 167
4. ^ John G. Johnson Collection. Catalogue of Flemish and Dutch Paintings. Philadelphia: George H. Buchanan Co., 1972. 94-95
5. ^ Richardson, E. P. "Rogier van der Weyden's Cambrai Altar." Art Quarterly Volume 2, 1939. 57-66. Old Cambrai Cathedral was defaced during the French Revolution and demolished in the 1790s.
6. ^ Jolly, P. H. "Rogier van der Weyden's Escorial and Philadelphia Crucifixions and their Relation to Fra Angelico at San Marco." Oud Holland, 95, 1981. 113-26
7. ^ Lawrence, C. H. Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages. New York and London, 1989. 133-37
8. ^ Cameron Smith, Tamytha. Personal Passions and Carthusian Influences Evident in Rogier van der Weyden's 'Crucified Christ between the Virgin and Saint John' and 'Diptych of the Crucifixion.' University of North Texas, May 2006. 20-21
9. ^ De Vos, 120
10. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Johnson Catalogue 1972, 94
11. ^ De Vos, 291-92
12. ^ Smith, 13
13. ^ Smith, 13; 16
14. ^ McGrath, Alister. Christian Spirituality: An Introduction, 1999. 84-87 ISBN 9780631212812
15. ^ Coleridge, Henry James. Hours of the Passion Taken from the Life of Christ by Ludolph the Saxon. London, 1886. 312; quoted in Smith, 33
16. ^ Attribution of work from this period is extremely difficult as Northern Renaissance art fell out of fashion in the early 1510s and was not rediscovered until the mid-19th century. Often definitive attributions were not established until the mid-20th century, and many works from the period are still disputed.
17. ^ De Vos, 335
18. ^ Rosen, D. "Preservation vs. Restoration," Magazine of Art, 34/9 1941. 458-71
19. ^ Van der Weyden's The Descent from the Cross (c. 1435-40), The Last Judgment Triptych (c. 1445-50), and Medici Madonna (c. 1460-64) all feature gilded backgrounds, harkening back to medievalism.
20. ^ Tucker, Mark. "Rogier van der Weyden's Philadelphia 'Crucifixion'." The Burlington Magazine, 139/1135, October 1997. 676-83

Sources

• de Vos, Dirk. Rogier van der Weyden: The Complete Works. Harry N Abrams, 2000. ISBN 0-8109-6390-6

External links

• The Crucifixion, with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist Mourning from Philadelphia Museum of Art.
• Valentiner, W. R. Catalogue of a Collection of Paintings and Some Art Objects, Volume II. 1914. from Google books.