Christ on the Cross

religious

The Cross stands in an undulating landscape. The scene is profoundly peaceful, giving no suggestion of the place of execution as recorded in the Bible; the two thieves and the soldiers are missing. Only the mourners stand under the Cross, the Virgin on the left, supported by two female companions, and Saint John on the right, wringing his hands in anguish ; yet, far from conveying a deep sense of emotion, they seem almost like travellers who have stopped to pray by a wayside cross.

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About the Artist

Konrad Witz

1400 – 1445

German-born painter from Rottweil in Swabia, active in Switzerland and generally considered a member of the Swiss school. He entered the painters' guild in Basle in 1434 and apparently spent the rest of his career there and in Geneva. Little else is known of him and few paintings by him survive. These few, however, show that he was remarkably advanced in his naturalism, suggesting a knowledge of the work of his contemporaries Jan van Eyck and the Master of Flémalle. In place of the soft lines and lyrical qualities of International Gothic we find in Witz's work heavy, almost stumpy, figures, whose ample draperies emphasize their solidity. Witz's most famous works are the four surviving panels (forming two wings) from the altarpiece of St Peter he painted for the cathedral in Geneva. These are now in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire there; the central panel is lost. One of the panels, the Miraculous Draught of Fishes, is Witz's masterpiece and his only signed and dated work (1444). The landscape setting depicts part of Lake Geneva (one of the earliest recognizable landscape in art) and Witz's naturalism is even more remarkable in his observation of reflection and refraction in the water.

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