Crucifixion Diptych

Crucifixion Diptych — also known as Philadelphia Diptych, Calvary Diptych, Christ on the Cross with the Virgin and St. John, or The Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist Mourning — is a diptych by the Early Netherlandish artist Rogier van der Weyden, completed c. 1460, today in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The panels are noted for their technical skill, visceral impact and for possessing a physicality and directness unusual for Netherlandish art of the time. The Philadelphia Museum of Art describes this work as the "greatest Old Master painting in the Museum."

The painting's provenance prior to the mid-19th century is unknown. Its extreme starkness has led art historians to theorize that it was created as a devotional work, possibly for a Carthusian monastery. It is not known if the panels comprised a self-contained diptych, two-thirds of a triptych, or originally were a single panel. Some art historians have mentioned that the work seems unbalanced overall and lacking symmetry (which might indicate a missing panel or panels). Recent scholarship proposes that the panels functioned as the outer shutters of a carved altarpiece.

Origin

The background to the panels is unknown. Scholars have theorized that they could be the left and center panels of a triptych, that they formed either the wings or shutters of an altarpiece, or that they were intended to decorate an organ case. The train of the Virgin's robe continues onto the right panel, which evidences that the panels were intended to stand side-by-side rather than separated (as the wings of an altarpiece would have been). Art historian E. P. Richardson proposed that they were the center panel of the lost Cambrai altarpiece (executed between 1455 and 1459), a single painting now split into two parts.

Art historian Penny Howell Jolly was the first to propose that the diptych was painted for an unnamed Carthusian monastery. Carthusians lived a severely ascetic existence: absolute silence, isolation in one's cell except for daily Mass and Vespers, a communal meal only on Sundays and festival days, bread and water on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, clothes and bedding of the coarsest materials. Van der Weyden's son Cornelis entered the Carthusian Monastery of Herrines about 1449, and was invested in the order in 1450. The artist donated money and paintings to the order during his lifetime, and made a bequest to it in his will. His only daughter Margaretha became a Dominican nun. Art historian Dirk de Vos describes the diptych as a "monastically inspired devotional painting" whose composition was "largely determined by the ascetic worship of the Carthusians and Dominicans."

In a paper presented at the 2006 convention of the Historians of Netherlandish Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art conservator Mark S. Tucker observed that the wooden panels were unusually thin. Across the back of each, he found a horizontal line of dowel holes near the base, which strongly indicated a now-missing structural member. He compared this with similar joinery on the shutters of altarpieces, and theorized that the diptych represented two panels of a four-panel work – either the two-panelled left shutter of an altarpiece, or its center two panels. Based on pictorial style, Tucker argued that the large size of the human figures relative to the size of the panels was more in keeping with figures on the shutters of carved altarpieces than painted ones. He also noted that the shutters of carved altarpieces tend to de-emphasize the deep perspective commonly seen in painted altarpieces, which was consistent with the shallow pictorial space of the diptych.

Description

The diptych's figures are almost two-thirds life size. The right panel depicts a deliberately unnaturalistic Crucifixion scene. Christ's blood is visible on his hands, feet and brow, and trickles down from the wound in his side. The impression of blood is amplified by the brilliant red cloth of honor draped behind him. The body hangs heavily from the arms, forming a Y-shaped figure against the T-shape of the cross and the rectangle of the cloth. The skull and bone at the foot of the Cross refer to Adam, the first man created by God in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Christ's loincloth flutters in the wind, indicating the moment of death.

The left panel shows a swooning Virgin Mary supported by Saint John the Evangelist. Both are dressed in pale folded robes, and again presented before a draped red cloth of honor (which, given the creases, appears to have been recently unfolded). The high stone wall gives the effect of pushing the figures into the foreground. The dark sky conforms with scripture: (Matthew 27:45: "Now from the sixth hour [noon] there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour [3:00 pm]." King James Bible, Cambridge edition.) The dark sky, stark wall, cool light and bare ground contribute to the painting's austerity.

In his first masterpiece, The Descent from the Cross (c. 1435–40), van der Weyden likened the Virgin Mary's suffering during the Crucifixion to Christ's by having her collapse in a pose that mirrored that of his body being removed from the Cross. In the Philadelphia painting, the faces of the Virgin Mary and Christ mirror each other, as do their positions at the center of the red cloths.

The diptych was executed late in the artist's life, and is unique among paintings of the early Northern Renaissance in its utilization of a flat unnaturalistic background to stage figures which are yet, typically highly detailed. Nonetheless, the contrast of vivid primary reds and whites serves to achieve an emotional effect typical of van der Weyden's best work.

Escorial Crucifixion

The diptych is most closely related to van der Weyden's Crucifixion with the Virgin and St. John (c. 1450–55) at the Escorial Palace in Madrid. The Escorial Crucifixion also presents Christ on the Cross before a draped red cloth, and there are similarities in the other figures. Van der Weyden painted this for and donated it to the Carthusian monastery in Scheut, near Brussels. Philip II of Spain bought it from the monastery in 1555, and installed it in a chapel in Segovia, before moving it to the Escorial in 1574. The diptych's figures are almost two-thirds life size; those in the towering Escorial painting are fully life size.

原文较长，这里只摘了前面一部分，摘自英文维基百科「Crucifixion Diptych (van der Weyden)」（暂时没有中文条目，下面是英文原文），按 CC BY-SA 4.0 使用，去掉了参考文献、外部链接等尾部小节和表格，其余文字未作改动。