ABRAHAM JANSSENS
TROPHIME BIGOT
A braham Janssens was one of many Flemish artists who traveled to Rome in the late 1590s. During his Italian sojourn, he absorbed the different artistic styles he encoun- tered, from polished and elegant classical forms to the more naturalistic way of painting that Caravaggio promoted. When he returned to Flanders in 1602, he achieved considerable success as a history painter and soon adopted the increasingly fashionable Rubenesque style. Following the crucifixion, Christ was removed from the cross and people mourned over his body. Paintings of this scene typically include the Virgin Mary (at left, in the blue robe), weeping over her dead son. The large figures that invade the pictorial surface and the emphatic sculptural modeling of Christ’s body are characteristic of Janssens and derive from his fascination with antique and Renaissance sculpture. Exaggerated faces convey the somber mood of the scene. The discarded Crown of Thorns, nails from the Cross, and Veil of Veronica (at the lower right) signify Christ’s coming resurrection. Janssens references Caravaggio in the way in which he lights the composition and in his focus on Christ’s body, almost turning it into a portrait. Caravaggio used a similar approach in his religious paintings centered on a single figure.
TROPHIME BIGOT (b. Arles, 1579; d. Avignon, 1650) Saint Sebastian Tended by Saint Irene , n.d. Oil on canvas 49 ₁ ⁄8 x 63 inches Museum and Gallery at Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC
P arish registers con- firm the presence of Trophime Bigot in Rome in the 1620s and 1630s, where he is mentioned as living at some point with French painter Claude Lorrain. Bigot stayed in the city until at least 1634, as evidenced by his activity with the Accademia di San Luca, an association of painters, sculptors, and architects of Rome. Like many other Caravaggisti painters, Bigot often depicted the same subject matter. This painting is one of four versions he made of Saint Sebastian being healed. Caravaggio’s impact is visible in the tight framing
of the action and the presentation of a few figures performing a specific task. As an officer in the army of Emper- or Diocletian, Sebastian was discov- ered releasing captive Christians. His superiors ordered that he be tied to a post and executed with arrows; he survived, only to be stoned to death later. In this candlelit scene, the Ro- man Saint Irene tenderly removes the arrows from his body, whose posture recalls that of Christ in images of his descent from the cross. Dramatic lighting allows the viewer to see faint drops of blood. Saint Sebastian, in- voked in the Middle Ages against the plague, was one of the most painted saints until the seventeenth century.
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio,
Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness , 1604. Oil on canvas, 68 x 52 inches. The Nelson- Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (Missouri), Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, inv. 52-25
Trophime Bigot, Saint Sebastian Tended by Saint Irene , ca. 1640. Oil on canvas, 38 ₁ ⁄2 x 54 inches. Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican City.
ABRAHAM JANSSENS (Antwerp, ca. 1575–1632) Lamentation Over the Dead Christ , ca. 1610–12 Oil on panel 70 ₇ ⁄8 x 60 ₁ ⁄4 inches Museum and Gallery at Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC
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