The National Gallery was my favorite museum that we’ve been to so far. I had no idea what I was getting into when we met this morning, but by the time I had a tummy full of gnocchi from Little Sicily across the street, as well as the owner Carlos’ number, seeing Van Gogh paintings in person made it the perfect day. I found so many paintings that I loved, but the ones that fascinated me the most all revolved around the crucifixion and death of Christ. The two paintings that I loved the most were “Christ carried to the Tomb” by Sisto Badalocchio and “The Dead Christ Mourned by Two Angels” by Guercino. Both paintings had a vision of Christ post crucifixion being mourned and held before being taken to his tomb.
As someone who has never taken the time to properly educate myself on all the different styles of art and their names, I was far more focused on how the painting made me feel than anything else. I was in awe of both paintings as soon as I saw them. The time between Christ’s death and the time he entered the tomb is a period I have never really pondered, however both of these paintings along with many others made me so curious. It makes sense that in the time before they put Christ in his tomb his loved ones would be mourning, I had just never really seen a visual interpretation of that before now. What I loved about both paintings was that Christ seemed to almost glow amongst them, despite being dead. He was painted in a way that made his skin look angelic and innocent. In both, it’s almost like he was reflecting off certain areas of their skin. Not only this, but there’s this bubble around his entire body that doesn’t blend in with the environment for a moment. I thought that was a really gorgeous representation of Christ being the light, even in death. I also found it incredibly moving that not only were people mourning, but angels were too. It made me wonder if it was hard, despite already knowing Christ was going to die, to see his body without life. It gave the Passion story a whole new purpose, not just for humans, but for angels too. Now, this is all coming from a Christian worldview, so if you don’t believe the same way I do, that’s totally fine, but I think it’s still so interesting to think about. The idea of supernatural beings feeling sadness is intriguing and wonderful to me. The only difference I found interesting between the two was the overall shape of Christ’s body. Not to take this too far, but my dad’s a mortician, so I have too much information about the process the body undergoes postmortem and I think Sisto Badalocchio did as well. I say this because in his painting, the body looks somewhat distorted and bloated, as if they were still mourning him hours after his death before putting him in grave clothes. Whereas Guercino’s Christ looks fresh, the muscles still full of blood, and the bones not too stiff they would break at movement. Badalocchio’s Christ also had gray tones to his skin, which starts to kick in about an hour after death (sometimes sooner but I’m just going off personal experience), whereas Guercino’s Christ still has some yellowish, pink undertones. Both paintings I found bittersweet, passionate, intimate, and awe-inspiring. I loved seeing them and the rest of the work at the National Gallery.
I didn’t get to venture through the entire museum, so if anyone would like to go back with me I would love that!!
Theatre in London U of A 