Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Sunday, 31 March 2024

Easter Day


Christ is Risen! Alleluia!
He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!
 
As we celebrate Easter and its message of Resurrection - the Resurrection of Christ, the Resurrection that is the Church, the Resurrection that is individual to each and every Christian - may I wish all my readers a joyful, peaceful and happy Easter.

Some weeks ago I discovered whilst preparing a post about the artist Andrea Mantegna 1431-1506 this really very surprising image of the Resurrection. Dated to the last years of the fifteenth century it is a theme that is actually not that common amongst the work of great artists and very different in mood from Piero della Francesca’s wonderous masterpiece of a generation earlier which I commented on last year in Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

Mantegna’s vision, now in Copenhagen, stands in the same tradition, but is utterly different at the same time.

Christ as the Suffering Redeemer
Christ is depicted in the act of Resurrection according to Luke 24:1-2, praising the Lord with a hymn
Dated to 1488-1500 or 1495-1500

There is more about the painting from Wikipedia at Christ as the Suffering Redeemer  


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