Sketch After Dürer's Small Passion (plate 24) The Crucifixion

Stamp of the studio of the artist CAG lower left, small traces of ink - Mounted in white rigid conservation portfolio No other theme interested Albrecht Dürer more than that of the Passion of Christ. Admittedly, the meditations on the sufferings of the Saviour, between the Last Supper and the Crucifixion, were not a new subject, far from it: they already formed the expected exercise for any important engraver of the 15th century, like Schongauer. Dürer, for his part, confronted it no less than six times, not counting his drawings of the Green Passion and the other non-engraved works related to a theme that literally crossed his career. These series fit into the context of the influence of the devotio moderna, of Germanic mystical piety advocating the imitation of Christ; We know to what extent Dürer lent himself to this game artistically speaking ten years earlier with his famous Self-portrait painted in 1500, an oil on panel now kept at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. It was also for Dürer the occasion to address various audiences according to the treatment used for the same subject. Indeed, certain techniques, more precious and less diffused than others, like his Small Passion on copper, were reserved for a circle of learned art lovers. The xylographed Little Passion produced between 1509 and 1511 is a series of thirty-six engravings from Genesis to the Last Judgment, from which our drawing is taken, was intended to be distributed on a larger scale. The illustration of the life of Christ also constituted a dream field to try out the representation of the suffering body, of the expressive narration as well as of a generous range of emotions, towards his continuous quest for perfection. A brilliant draughtsman, Camille-Auguste Gastine benefited from the Ingresque influence diffused within the Parisian artistic milieu in the 19th century. A student of the historicist painter Paul Delaroche at the Beaux-Arts, he participated in numerous wall decoration projects. The artist is inspired here by the engraving of the master in order to work on rendering the expression of pain through the figure of Mary weeping (plate 25, Deposition of the Cross of the Body of Christ by Nicodemus) on Christ having expired on the cross (Plate 24). Ill.2. Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), The Small Woodcut Passion: The Crucifixion (Bartsch 40), plate 24, circa 1509, woodcut, 126 x 97 mm, British Museum, London.