Monday, January 19, 2015

Expressionism: Claire Cheung talks on Nolde's Crucifixion, 1912.





Title: Crucifixion
Artist: Emil Nolde
Completion date: 1912
Style: Expressionism
Material: Oil on canvas
Dimenions: 220.5 x 193.5 cm


This is the Crucifixion painted by Emil Nolde in 1912. Together with the other eight religious paintings painted by him, including Holy Night and The Twelve-Year-Old Christ (on the left above of Crucifixion), The Three Magi and The Betrayal of Christ (left below), Women at the Tomb and Ascension (right above), Resurrection and Doubting Thomas (right below), these nine paintings contribute to the whole piece of artwork of The Life of Christ. The whole artwork describes the stories told in Bible, the religious basis of Christianity.  But what is different from the common perception of the image of Jesus is the middle one in The Life of Christ, Crucifixion which describes the fear, pain and anguish of Jesus when he was facing the crucifixion contrasting with the idea which Jesus is commonly perceived as he was brave and great.


Content

For the content, it narrates the scene of Jesus facing the crucifixion with the other two criminals as mentioned in Bible. The painting clearly illustrates Jesus’s emaciated body, his obvious wounds, the blood streaming on his face and his distorted legs caused by the punishment. The body of Jesus clearly shows that he is being through a very painful torture and he physically suffers from it. Though  Jesus is commonly emphasized on his mental braveness and greatness, this artwork is very likely the other way, this helps reminding people that Jesus was also a human while being through the process and he can strongly sense the torture by his body.

The two criminals are also stressed. While one of them looks much more depressed than the other one and painted in red, it is strongly related to the story mentioned by Bible. As it mentioned that one of the criminals ultimately before his death except the salvation brought by Jesus, he admitted all of the crimes he committed on the Earth and finally got saved. But the other one is not as lucky as he is, he until his death refused the salvation and as the principle the Bible always mentioned, the ones who do not admit the existence and get the salvation would go to the hell after death instead of heaven. This is why Nolde painted him to be much more depressed, he wanted to stress that this unsaved criminal is doomed to be cursed instead of blessed.

In the painting, his followers are on the left hand side, who may include Mary, his mother with the green dress on. They are weeping as shown through their gesture which apparently show their intense emotions as they are intensely sad and depressed due to the pain of Jesus. In the Bible, it is even mentioned that the followers followed the path that Jesus gone through in the way to the location he had crucifixion, and they weeped all the way long. This pretty much gives the evidence that the followers were truly being upset for Jesus as shown in the painting.

The executioners and the mockers are on the right hand side, teasing at him and two of them are even playing dice which was a popular game in the ancient times, this means that they disdain his crucifixion. As the Bible mentioned, they even wrote down "the great king" on the board on Jesus's cross in order to tease that Jesus admitted himself and God as the king of the world. This evidence shows that the painting matches the fact mentioned in the Bible and is undoubted.

The emotions the followers and the mockers shown convey a big contrast of feeling. 


Analysis

For the drawing method, the brushstroke is very rough, things are drawn in an very plain and angular form and seemed like they are unworked. The colour is flat and with very few shading, all these express Nolde’s feeling in a rough and explicit way without any excess and unnecessary dressing up as this painting is to violently express the pain Jesus being through but not some feelings soft and warm.

The colour Nolde used also convey his strong feeling. The colour on the background is dark which expresses Jesus’s feeling of fear as we cannot see the light which commonly symbolized hope. The contrasting colour on the followers’ and the executioners’ face is also stressed. The followers’ faces are green, to show that they are sad, afraid and disappointed. It forms a feeling of coldness and weakness. On the other side, the faces of executioners are red, which show that they were a little bit angry and evil-liked because they had a dominant role in this affair as they are putting Jesus into death. It forms a feeling of hotness and toughness.


For the structure, I observed three of them. 

The first one is that the three crosses form “the central axis, outer boundaries and the upper edge of the composition” (http://www.unomaha.edu/esc/2007Proceedings/Sieger_LiteraryTexts.pdf), together with the people under the cross especially the executioner with fork-like tormentor, it creates a frame-like boundary in the painting. This structure conveys the feeling of uniformity and regularity of the whole picture.

There is also a going downward movement. As we can see Jesus and the two criminals’ chests are collapsing, it creates a very stressed sinking-like tension in the picture. We can also perceive the idea of his hopelessness as Jesus’s life is also sinking. 

For the Jesus in the middle position in the picture, he separates the picture into two parts with balance and contradiction at the same time. The left part is his followers symbolizing his supporters and the right part is his executioners symbolizing his opponent. Besides, Jesus is opening his arms which used up the largest area of the picture, it shows Jesus’s greatness contrasting with the littleness of the people though the theme of the painting is the fear of Jesus.

Personal feelings and Conclusion

This artwork explores my view on Expressionism and Christianity. As I have never studied art before and this is my first piece of work analyzing artwork, it is such a tough task for me to analysis and even explain the details in a work. However, after this work, I did learn a lot of how to admire an artwork and to be careful and focused to spot the details in an artwork which may probably showing the covered and deep feeling of an artist.

I admire this painting a lot because this shows an obvious difference from what people commonly perceived about the braveness of Jesus. Nolde stressed on the painting method to show the intense feeling that Jesus might had physically and I think it is a great work for one to convey his/ her own feeling in a clear and direct way. As people always hide their feeling in reality like what Nolde has been showing, to use mask-like face to symbolize the act which people always cover their true feeling, it is so touching for one to explain themselves in such a honest and uncovered way. And this is why I am especially interested in the works of expressionism, which stressed on the true feeling and emotion that a human should has and show them bravely by the artists' brush.

What I can also observed from Nolde's work is that he made a good use of color to symbolize some specific feelings and emotions, for example red representing the idea of anger and roughness. Besides, brushstroke is also a very critical factor to show one's feeling, while Nolde's brushstroke is very hard and rough, this shows an intense feeling which showing the direct feeling of an artist is the core value of expressionism.  This inspires me to work on my own artworks and trying to add the elements that expressionism taught me is exciting and inspiring. In the future, I will keep working hard on studying expressionism and grab every chances I have to appreciate the expressionists' works.


Questions

I have a question: Why Nolde uses green, red and blue to separate the painting into three parts, what are they symbolizing respectively?

I actually have a guess on this question though I worried that this is just an over-interpretation. I think that the color of blue shown in the upper part of the picture may just representing the presence of heaven in the sky. The color of green which is on the ground where the followers of Jesus stand and the cross of Jesus hold on might represents that all of them are saved in the "oasis" of God, they got the salvation. And the color of red surrounding the mockers on the right hand side might represents the presence of the hell because the hell is commonly known as a place full of red fire and darkness and they are doomed to be cursed after their death as shown in the Bible.



References

“Crucifixion”

“Crucifixion” 

“Emil Nolde: A Loner”, Kira Melamed
http://www.examiner.com/article/emil-nolde-a-loner/

"Expressionism - The Spirit of Expressionist Art"

http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/art_movements/expressionism.htm

Furness, R. (1973). Expressionism. London: Methuen.

King, A. (2013). Emil Nolde: Artist of the elements. Philip Wilsons.

“Literary Texts and Formal Strategies in Emil Nolde’s Religious Paintings”
http://www.unomaha.edu/esc/2007Proceedings/Sieger_LiteraryTexts.pdf



3 comments:

  1. Mandy Chiu:
    1) Claire gave a comprehensive analysis about the painting, for example the way how Nolde painted, the color using and also brush strokes.
    2) Claire's ideas were organized into 3 parts which included content, analysis and question part. However, I think she may make some improvement about the organization of the essay. Introduction and Conclusion were not founded in the essay. Also, I think Claire may write more about the relationship of the painting and expressionism.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sabrina: The description of the painting is quite clear. The analyzing part of composition is also detailed. Still, I think it would be better to change ' His followers are on his (Jesus's) left hand side' to 'His followers are on left hand side of the painting' because it is different. Apart from color and composition of the painting, you can also mention the distortion of characters and their expression. For the part of color, you can add some references showing the meanings or symbolism of colors. If possible, you can also explain more deeply about why those followers are playing dice.Finally, the essay is quite short, and your opinions are missed. Using books as references is also preferred.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Buy cheap nembutal pentobarbital pills, liquid, powder, SECONAL FOR SALE ONLINE, SECONAL and more online.
    Buy nembutal online, order nembutal online, purchase cheap nembutal online.

    Contact us at: arcmeds4@gmail.com

    Are you terminally sick , weak , depressed and want to give up your life from the pain of the world? Have you been searching for a reliable and efficient means to get peaceful death without loosing your money ? Have you ever heard about Nembutal Pentobarbital Sodium Solution Peaceful exit medication? We are here to provide you with a peaceful and reliable solution.

    If you are looking to Buy Nembutal Online, then you are at the right place to make your purchase. Look no further, contact us and purchase Nembutal Online at a very affordable price. We have over 9 years of experience supplying nembutal to United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, Africa, Asia with 99.9% successful delivery.

    We are determined in giving real hope and everlasting rest to the terminally ill. We sell Nembutal Powder, Oral Nembutal Liquid and Nembutal Pills. Just providing your age and your weight, we will be able to provide you accurate information about Price, shipping, and payment.

    Note that, we do 100% discrete and express shipping of Nembutal world wide and have a refund/return policy to ensure maximum satisfaction of our clients. If we do not treat you well, tell us and if we treat you good tell the world.
    We are available 24/7 to answer all your question regarding HOW TO BUY NEMBUTAL ONLINE, WHERE TO BUY NEMBUTAL, BEST TYPE OF NEMBUTAL TO BUY etc. Simply send us an email and one of our customer service consultants will get back to you on time.

    * Nembutal suicide dose,

    * How to obtain Seconal,

    * How to buy nembutal Online,

    * Purchase nembutal Online,

    * Nembutal by mail order,

    * How to obtain pentobarbital,

    * Best drugs for suicide overdose,

    * Where to get nembutal,

    * nembutal pills online,

    * nembutal pills for sale,

    * nembutal capsules,

    * nembutal sale,

    * nembutal for sale online,

    * nembutal buy online,

    * where to buy nembutal online,

    * buy nembutal capsules,

    * nembutal pills for sale,

    * purchasing nembutal online,

    * pentobarbital sodium nembutal,

    * buy nembutal pentobarbital sodium online,

    * order nembutal,

    * where can i buy nembutal tablets,

    * what is nembutal prescribed for,

    * veterinary nembutal online,

    * suicide by nembutal,

    * seconal nembutal,

    * nembutal no prescription,

    * nembutal pentobarbital sodium,

    * nembutal pills online,

    * nembutal suppliers,

    We are a legitimate supplier for Nembutal. End the suffering, End the pain and End your sorrow by purchasing Nembutal online from the best nembutal suppliers. 100% Fast, Reliable, Trustworthy, the product being of high quality, everywhere accessible, extremely pure, Nembutal powder as well as liquid and pills ,the best decision to make. Dying with peacefulness, Dying with dignity, Peaceful euthanasia, Peaceful mind. Consumption and order to be placed according to the need.

    Contact us at: arcmeds4@gmail.com

    best drugs for suicide overdose, buy nembutal pentobarbital sodium online, can you purchase nembutal online, how much nembutal is fatal, how to acquire nembutal, how to buy nembutal online, how to get sodium pentobarbital, how to obtain pentobarbital, how to obtain seconal, nembutal by mail order, nembutal for sale, nembutal online, nembutal online pharmacy, order nembutal online, nembutal pentobarbital for sale, nembutal pills for sale, nembutal powder for sale online, nembutal price, nembutal suicide dose, obtaining nembutal online, pentobarbital nembutal sale, purchase nembutal online, sodium pentobarbital, sodium pentobarbital euthanasia, sodium pentobarbital for sale, sodium pentobarbital purchase, sodium pentobarbital suicide, sodium pentobarbital suppliers, where can i purchase nembutal, where to buy sodium pentobarbital, where to buy nembutal online, where to get pentobarbital.

    ReplyDelete