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Course: Europe 1300 - 1800 > Unit 7
Lesson 3: 16th century- A miraculous appearance for a queen: Juan de Flandes, Christ Appearing to His Mother
- A wedding and a miracle for the queen of Spain: Juan de Flandes, Marriage at Cana
- The Cantino Planisphere
- Bringing the figure to life, Berruguete at The Met
- Bringing the figure to life, Berruguete at The Met
- Alonso Berruguete, Abraham and Isaac
- Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina, Head of Christ
- The Tower of Belém
- Belém Monstrance
- Alejo Fernández, Virgin of the Navigators
- Sacred geometry in a Renaissance ceiling from Spain
- El Escorial, Spain
- El Greco, Burial of the Count Orgaz
- El Greco, View of Toledo
- El Greco, Adoration of the Shepherds
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Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina, Head of Christ
Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina, Head of Christ, c. 1506, oil on poplar panel, 41.9 × 30.5 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art), an Expanded Renaissance Initiative video
speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank. Created by Smarthistory.
Video transcript
(jazzy music) - [Lauren] We're in
the Metropolitan Museum looking at a "Head of Christ" painted by the artist,
Fernando Yanez de la Almedina. - [Beth] Almedina is such
an important Spanish artist at the beginning of the 16th century. - [Lauren] One of the reasons
that he's so important is that he is a part
of this wave of artists who begin to display more influences from the Italian peninsula. We know that he spent time
in Italy, in Florence, working with Leonardo da Vinci. - [Beth] And he may have
even followed Leonardo to northern Italy when Leonardo moved from Florence to Milan. - [Lauren] While him going north with Leonardo is speculative, we do know that he was working with Leonardo and that he then returns
to Spain in the year 1506, and that's right around the time that this painting was produced. - [Beth] Even if you didn't tell me that this artist worked with Leonardo, I would have known that because of the way that the figure slowly
emerges out of the darkness, that use of sfumato, that haziness that softens the outlines of forms and creates an atmospheric effect. - [Lauren] This painting is beautiful. It's also odd in a certain way, particularly the subject matter. We have here a bust-length
depiction of Jesus. But normally when we see him
bust-length or half-length, it's showing him as the Salvator Mundi or the Savior of the World, showing him as the Man of Sorrows where his face is contorted in suffering. Or we see him on the veil of Veronica. We see no indication that this painting is any one of those subjects. - [Beth] But it's clearly
drawing on that tradition of showing us a very close up
portrait-like image of Jesus. These traditions that it
draws on are longstanding. It probably is closest to
paintings showing Christ's face on the veil of Veronica. The legend is that gave
Veronica gave Christ a cloth to wipe his face while he was
on his way to the crucifixion and his face was miraculously
imprinted on that cloth, which became a very
important relic in Rome And paintings showing the face of Christ on Veronica's cloth were very popular. - [Lauren] And so why this
painting is hard to identify is we don't see any of
the other attributes that we a typically associate
with the Man of Sorrows or Jesus as the Savior of the World. We don't see a crown of thorns, we don't see any blood in fact. We don't see the edges of the veil. We don't see Christ making
a gesture of blessing. What we're really seeing is
a bust-length image of Jesus with a halo around his head. - [Beth] One of the things that
tells us that this is Jesus, that this is Christ is the halo but I think even without that
halo, despite it's naturalism we would know that we weren't just looking at an ordinary portrait. - [Lauren] Jesus has long
hair that curls at the end. He has this fabulous beard
that is split in the center. He almost looks like
he's looking behind us but he's not weeping, he's
not expressing a great deal of emotion and yet, I'm
so captivated by the eyes. - [Beth] The light on
his face, which is coming from the left, draws us
to his nose and his eyes. An almost a welling up of
tears perhaps, in his eyes. There is a sadness. If we look at images
of the Salvator Mundi, the Savior of the World,
Christ is blessing us. If we look at the Man
of Sorrows, we see signs of Christ's suffering, but here, there's neither that emphasis on blessing nor that emphasis on his suffering, it's a confrontation with
the deep humanity of Christ. - [Lauren] Something
that I love about Yanez is the very subtle
modeling of Christ's face. Look at the neck, you
get these darker shadows if we're looking at the
painting on the back right, but then you can see the
delicacy of his collar bone. We even see the tendons on
the neck, very subtle there. The use of sfumato is just beautiful here. - [Beth] And yet, there are
also passages that remind me of northern European painting. If we look at the gold
embroidery below his neck, that looks like it's
right out of Jan van Eyck or Hugo van der Goes or
Rogier van der Weyden, that northern Renaissance
tradition and it reminds us that in Spain, a lot of these
influences come together. I find myself thinking
about the way that Christ was fully human and fully
divine at the same time. - [Lauren] And when we
think about the function of this painting, to me that makes sense. We don't know exactly
who owned this painting or where it was
originally, but most likely this was a painting for private devotion and the way that Yanez painted it cultivates that type of close
relationship to an artwork that is a portal to the divine.