PUBLIUS LENTULUS [ACTOR]:
“Christ had a reverend countenance which they that look upon may love and fear; hair of the hue of an unripe hazelnut waving over his shoulders; a parting in the middle of the head; a brow smooth and very calm, with a face without wrinkle or any blemish; a full beard not long, but a little forked at the chin.”
FEMALE NARRATOR:
The unknown writer who penned those words might well have been describing The Blessing Christ by the Flemish artist Hans Memling, painted in the late 15th century. Memling probably followed such descriptions, believed to stem from antiquity.
Memling was a master of portraiture. The faces he painted glow with life and subtly suggest the sitter’s character. He was equally famous for his devotional paintings, designed to promote private worship and prayer.
Here, Christ confronts us in dramatic close-up. His frontal pose and focused gaze confer a majesty befitting his divinity, and a nimbus surrounds his head in tiny rays of golden light. Yet, he is also seen in very human terms. He is shown against a plain dark background, his figure filling the frame like a real portrait. Notice how minutely Memling has rendered Christ’s soft beard the highlights in his curls or the delicate creases on his fingers and neck. He raises one hand in a gentle gesture of blessing. The other rests on the edge of the frame, as if he were standing behind a window or parapet, looking out at us.
By blending the formality of a religious icon with the realism of a late 15th-century portrait, Memling has created both a loving meditation on the physiognomy of Christ, and a celebration of his divine role as Redeemer.
Christ Giving His Blessing
1478
Hans Memling (Netherlandish, c.1430/40-1494)
On View
Hans Memling was the leading painter in Bruges during the last quarter of the fifteenth century. His Christ Giving His Blessing recalls an iconographic type found in early Christian and Byzantine sacred icons, but echoes the later compositional types of Rogier van der Weyden, in whose workshop Memling presumably worked before settling in Bruges. Unlike the work of his predecessors, however, Memling's portrait of Christ is neither severe nor characterized by tragic pathos. In form and feeling, it presages Italian portraiture from the following decade: the search for clarity and order, the monumental effect achieved by filling the frame with Christ's head and shoulders, and the close-up view of the delicately modeled face against a neutral background. The gentle spirit and grace of the Redeemer, presented in fully human terms in this compelling devotional image, marks Memling’s debt to Rogier, but also his status as someone who transformed religious and portrait imagery throughout Europe from that point forward.
Details
- Artist Name: Hans Memling (Netherlandish, c.1430/40-1494)
- Title: Christ Giving His Blessing
- Date: 1478
- Medium: Oil on oak panel
- Dimensions: comp: 14-3/8 x 10-1/2 in. (36.5 x 26.7 cm); panel: 15-1/8 x 11-1/8 in. (38.4 x 28.3 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Art Foundation, Gift of Mr. Norton Simon
- Accession Number: M.1974.17.P
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Art Foundation
Object Information
Don Manuel I, King of Portugal, Palacio das Necessidades, Lisbon, sold 1910 to;
[Duveen Brothers, London and New York, sold 1927 to];
Dr. and Mrs. A. Hamilton Rice, New York, sold 1957 to;
[M. Knoedler & Co., New York, jointly owned with Pinakos, Ltd., New York, stock no. A6680, as The Blessing Christ; sold 5 April 1964 to;
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
[Duveen Brothers, London and New York, sold 1927 to];
Dr. and Mrs. A. Hamilton Rice, New York, sold 1957 to;
[M. Knoedler & Co., New York, jointly owned with Pinakos, Ltd., New York, stock no. A6680, as The Blessing Christ; sold 5 April 1964 to;
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
Exhibition of Flemish and Belgian Art, 1300-1900
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Le Siècle des Primitifs Flamands
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