Easter Exhibition

In what has become a minor tradition over the last three years here at Art Every Day - today’s post is another special exhibition, bringing together a little collection of works from across art history that have been directly inspired by the story of Easter.

But while all of these paintings will be centring around a Christian story - rest assured, we do not necessarily have to be religious ourselves in order to still appreciate them.

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Of course, in every culture around the world, the practice of Art has always been synonymous with spirituality - hence we find that even the very oldest paintings or sculptures that we have found over the years are often devoted to various saints or deities.

And in the art world since The Byzantine era or into the Renaissance - Biblical narratives in particular have been central to the traditions of western art.

But at the same time, great art always has the ability to take on a life of its own too - often transcending the very subject it was first inspired by.

Thus, no matter what faith you may have (or even if you have no religious affiliations whatsoever) - I hope you will all still enjoy the drama, the creative variety, and, most importantly of all, the deeply human emotion which can be found across the range of works in our exhibition today.

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El Greco - The Holy Trinity - 1579

Prado Museum, Madrid

Antonio Ciseri - Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) - 1871

La Galleria d’arte moderna, Florence

Giovanni Bellini - Lamentation over the dead Christ - 1495

Uffizi, Florence

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Caravaggio - The taking of Christ - 1602

National Gallery of Ireland, London

(Note the figure holding the lantern on the far right of the picture as we view it . . . believed to be a self portrait of the artist himself.)

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Gerard van Honthorst - Christ before the high priest - 1617

National Gallery, London

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Rembrandt van Rijn - Etching of Christ crucified between two thieves - 1653

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Almeida Júnior - Judas’s Remorse - 1880

Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro

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Peter Paul Rubens - Descent from the cross - 1614

Cathedral of our Lady, Antwerp

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Vincent van Gogh - Pieta (after Delacroix) - 1889

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

(Painted during his time in the Saint Remy Asylum - this work was based on a lithograph copy of a similarly titled work by one of Vincent’s artistic heroes, Eugene Delacroix.)

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Titian - Noli me Tangere - 1514

National Gallery, London

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Michelangelo Buonarotti - Two drawings of the risen Christ

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