Painting

Exploring Sacrifice and Redemption in Caravaggio’s Masterpieces

A Comparative Look at

18 August 2024291 Views

Caravaggio’s “The Sacrifice of Isaac” and “The Entombment of Christ” both explore the themes of sacrifice and redemption with powerful emotional depth. “The Sacrifice of Isaac” captures the moment of divine intervention as Abraham is halted from sacrificing his son, emphasizing the tension between obedience and mercy. In contrast, “The Entombment of Christ” depicts the solemnity and grief of Christ’s followers as they place His body in the tomb, highlighting the finality of death and the promise of resurrection. Through these works, Caravaggio masterfully conveys the human struggle with faith, loss, and hope.

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The manner of painting is obviously peerless and that overwhelms the viewer. Only: Caravaggio did not paint a grave. You only see a stone slab. If you look closely at the body of Jesus you see the veins stretched. This is impossible if you are dead. Also the hand of the loose arm: there is no muscle power left in a dead person, so the fingers can never be that way.

Did Caravaggio make some mistakes? I think you should rather ask the question: why bury someone in the dead of night? Or are they stealing the body and it’s not dead yet? That would be more obvious. You can not tell on the painting he is going in or out the tomb.

A small gesture that I could not yet unravel: the gesture of the lady on the far right. Her left hand makes a specific gesture. The two middle fingers together, but separated from the rest. It appears regularly in paintings by mostly Italian painters from the 16-17th century. Try it yourself…it’s not easy to make. The meaning is still a mystery to me.

The story: Abraham is instructed by God to sacrifice his only son. Abraham goes to Mount Moriah, grabs his son and takes the knife. Just as he is about to perform the sacrifice, an angel comes and tells him that God wanted to test him. He must sacrifice not his son but a ram standing nearby. But what did Caravaggio paint? Abraham should be relieved with the angel’s mention. However, his brow is furrowed. Nor is the angel pointing at the ram. The finger is pointing at Abraham. A small detail shows what Caravaggio did paint. Look at Abraham’s wrist on which the angel’s hand rests: there are folds of skin. Those can only be there if, either the angel pushes on Abraham’s wrist and/or that Abraham withdraws his hand.

So what he was painting was that the angel came to oblige Abraham to kill his son and Abraham didn’t want to.

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