Sensing the sacred
Jacopo Tintoretto | Venice 1518-1594 | Cristo risorgente (The risen Christ) c.1555 | Oil on canvas | 201 x 139cm | Purchased 1981. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation | Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe, art was most often produced under the patronage of the Catholic Church. Easel paintings, architectural murals, church decorations, tapestries and mosaics usually depicted biblical scenes or devotional imagery. Italy and the Netherlands were centres of production during this time, but their respective art was considerably different in both style and content; the Reformation divided religious doctrine and practice in the two countries.
The development of oil painting methods in the Netherlands contributed greatly to the meticulous detail and tonal modelling of Dutch and Flemish painting and was, in turn, increasingly adopted by Italian painters. The Master of Frankfurt’s Virgin and Child with Saint James the Pilgrim, Saint Catherine and the Donor with Saint Peter c.1496 exemplifies the attention to surface detail and symbolism characteristic of northern European painting.
While Florence was perceived as the centre of Renaissance architecture, painting and the rebirth of classical learning, the seafaring Venetians developed a style of painting in which colour, light and movement were paramount. In Tintoretto’s Cristo risorgente (The risen Christ) c.1555, the miraculous event of Christ’s resurrection is infused with a sense of drama that would have appealed directly and powerfully to the faith of the believer. Similarly, Giambologna’s wax relief sculpture The Flagellation of Christ c.1579 exemplifies an often-depicted episode from the Passion, communicating the movement and drama of the scene through the gestures and naturalism of the human form.
