Rhapsodies

Today’s sketch is a group of details from the painting Christ Before Pilate by a “Painter from Cologne” It was done sometime in the 16th  century in oil on wood and is an example of Antwerp Mannerism. I have to say this is one of my favorite works in the Seattle Art Museum’s permanent collection. I love the attention that the artist gives to the faces as well as the attention to detaill. In fact I initially started doing this sketch because I liked the “Roman” soldier’s helmet. Which brings me to why I really like this piece.

Whatever my opinion of religion is, I like religious art. I think it’s how you can push the viewers buttons using an arsenal of symbolic vocabulary… What I really like about this piece is the way the artist does this painting as a 16th century period piece. If it wasn’t for the very familiar looking prisoner we would think it was just business as usual at a Hanseatic League meeting hall. Sometimes I wish that modern artists would keep doing this. Religious art these days is really bad most of it being these awful paint by numbers crap, personally I blame Reader’s Digest. They try to be “accurate” but in a way this makes it worse by drawing attention to all of the errors. After a while you have to ask yourself why bother? If Raphael was able to paint Roman Legionaries as conquistadors why can’t a modern artist put them into fatigues and flak jackets?