Christ Praying on the Mount of Olives
Original title: Christ praying on Mount of Olives; Roman soldiers entering through garden gate in far background, from "The Passion of Christ", after Dürer
kurzbeschreibung
This engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi was made between 1500 and 1534 as part of a series after designs by Albrecht Dürer. It shows Christ praying on the Mount of Olives while the apostles sleep; Roman soldiers enter the scene through the garden gate in the distance. The present impression is the third of three states.
Description
Christ kneels on a rock in the foreground, hands clasped in prayer, surrounded by sleeping apostles. Further back, soldiers step through an opening in the garden wall. An angel carrying a cross hovers among the clouds in the upper left. The layout pulls the eye backward and inward; the figures are carefully worked, and the sheet retains the characteristic light-and-dark gradations of engraving.
Context
Raimondi, an Italian Renaissance engraver, was best known for reproductive prints after other artists' designs. For this sheet he took up a composition by Albrecht Dürer from his Passion cycle and translated it into his own graphic idiom. It dates from the years when Raimondi was working in Rome and establishing himself in the print trade. The borrowing of Dürer's motifs makes visible the artistic exchange between northern and southern Europe in the early modern period.
Impact
Christ's devotional posture meets the threatening nearness of the approaching soldiers, creating tension between stillness and impending conflict. Clear arrangement and precise lines give the print a calm but insistent presence that draws the viewer into the biblical scene.
Technique
Engraving is an intaglio process: lines are cut into a metal plate and then filled with ink. Light and shadow arise from parallel and crossed lines that allow fine transitions. The fact that this is the third state points to later reworking of the plate by Raimondi or his workshop.
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Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)