1435_The_Deposition_Weyden.txt

http://www.artbible.info/art/large/323.html

Rogier van der Weyden 1399/1400 – 1464
The Deposition

oil on panel (220 × 262 cm) — 1435
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

Rogier van der Weyden biography

This work is linked to John 19:39

This is the oldest work that with some certainty can be attributed to Rogier van der Weyden. It may also be his most impressive work. The altarpiece was made for a chapel in Leuven, but has been in Spanish possession since the 16th century.

In the center, Jesus is taken down from the cross by the bearded Joseph of Arimathea and the well-dressed Nicodemus. His white body forms an arch with the upper arm of the woman on the left: Mary Magdalene, identified by her low-cut dress.

The body is almost immaculate, apart from the wounds: the holes in his feet and hands, the blood on the forehead caused by the crown of thornes, and the cut made by a Roman spear.

The woman in the blue dress is Mary, Jesus' mother. Her great grief makes her faint. In her fall, her body takes the same shape as her son's, implying that her suffering is close to his.

The skull on the foreground helps us remember that we are looking at Golgotha, the Hill of Skulls. (There is a straight line across the painting between the skull's eyes and the eyes of Nicodemus.) But Van der Weyden managed to create a very intimate atmosphere, with ten persons in a small space.