polity duchy of burgundy

Descent from the Cross (Rogier van der Weyden)

Oil on oak panel (c.1435 CE) by Rogier van der Weyden, probably painted for the Crossbowmen's Guild of Leuven. The largest and most emotionally intense early Netherlandish painting; the ten figures are compressed into a shallow relief-like gold space. The central 'swoon' of the Virgin, whose body echoes the diagonal of Christ's descent, is the most influential composition in Northern European painting. Currently at the Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Notes

·The central T-shaped golden background replicates the form of a Gothic sculpted retable (altarpiece), placing the figures in the position of painted polychrome sculpture.
·The 'swoon' of the Virgin (right centre) — her fainting body echoing the S-curve of Christ's dead body being lowered — is Rogier's most influential compositional invention, widely copied across Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries.
·Ten figures: Joseph of Arimathea (top left), Nicodemus, John the Evangelist, three Maries (including Mary Magdalene at lower right), two unnamed figures lowering the body, the Virgin, and Christ.
·The extreme emotional intensity — tears, contorted grief, Magdalene's dramatic twisting pose — marks Rogier's departure from van Eyck's cooler objectivity toward expressive psychological drama.
·The donor institution — the Crossbowmen's Guild — is signalled by miniature gilt crossbows in the tracery corners of the gold Gothic frame.
·A copy made for the altarpiece when it was sold to Mary of Hungary (1548) remained in Leuven; this original copy is now at the Escorial.
·The Prado acquired the painting in the early 19th century from the Escorial.