Masterpieces of the J. Paul Getty Museum: European Sculpture

12 Corpus, circa 160 0

Italian

Wood

32.5cm(12^3 /4in.)

97.SD.4 5

Gift of Lynda and Stewart Resnick

in honor of Peter Fusco

This wood Corpus (the representation of the body of Christ crucified) presents a

restrained and noble image of Christ's death on the cross. The crucified Christ, a

central image in Christian iconography dating back at least to the fifth century, could

be presented in a variety of ways, each of which conveyed certain messages or stressed

particular aspects of Christian belief. Early representations, for example, show Christ

on the cross alive, with eyes open, expressing his triumph over death. In the fourteenth

century, an emphasis on Christ's suffering, calling attention to his humanity and the

frailty of his human flesh, became more prevalent.

In fifteenth-century Florence, Filippo Brunelleschi carved a monumental

crucifix (in the Church of Santa Maria Novella) that is the ancestor of this Corpus.

He presented Christ dead but not suffering, with head dropped to the proper right,

a straight muscular torso, and legs crossing only at the feet and shifted to the same

side as the head. This idealizing image of Christ on the cross was further developed

by sixteenth-century artists like Michelangelo and Guglielmo della Porta. In fact, the

present Corpus is very close to a group of crucifixes and Crucifixion reliefs attributed to

Della Porta. The placement of the limbs and head, the carefully modeled musculature

of the torso and back, and the reserved depiction of Christ's death are all found in the

Della Porta examples. The torso is truly frontal, with none of the contrapposto twisting

of later, more animated images. The clinging loincloth reveals the anatomy of the body

below it in the back view, which is distinctly different from most Baroque versions, in

which the drapery takes on a life of its own. The quiet, contemplative quality of the

Getty Corpus finds close parallels in late sixteenth-century Italian paintings, where

sacred imagery is presented in a straightforward fashion in keeping with the precepts

of the Council of Trent. The Getty sculpture has the timeless beauty of such images,

which played an important role in devotional life in Counter-Reformation Europe.

MC

42 EUROPEAN SCULPTURE