Rhapsodies

Well since I had a very interesting conversation about this painting with my mother I just had to use this painting for today’s sketch. So here it is “The Supper of Erasmus” By Jan Cossier. I originally thought it dealt with Christ’s first appearance to the disciple’s postmortem where he is invited to dinner but disappears when everybody notices the tell tail scars. I confess that for this entry I looked for the scene I’m talking about in the Bible with no luck. I have a bad feeling it only occurred in a comic book version of the life of Jesus I owned as a kid. Ah well.

This is easily one of my favorite paintings in the RISD collection. The reason being that while I’m sure the artist was going for a look of piety and holiness on Christ’s face as he looks up towards heaven, what he got was the look of “I’m surrounded by idiots”. Considering the comical grotesque quality of the rest of the figures, I’m beginning to wonder if this was intentional.

Unfortunately this is not one of my better sketches. It is a demonstration of why one should not take a camera with them to a museum if they are intending to draw. You think you are creating a back up reference for yourself, but ultimately it’s a distraction and ruins your focus. Here is the original painting.