The Resurrection

As the Renaissance entered its height across Europe, the mysterious German painter Matthias Grünewald looked backwards. Rejecting the classicism of the day, he committed himself to the style of medieval painting that had dominated Northern Europe before Italy’s influence. Gothic works laden with fantastic colours and strange perspectival choices, his paintings are as much about the spiritual as they are the religious, and in his masterpiece, ‘The Isenheim Altarpiece’ from where this work originates, his depiction of Christ is singularly moving. A polyptych, the altarpiece opens across three layers, and includes ten paintings and a series of wooden relief sculptures, beginning with the crucifixion and ending here. The supernatural colours that emanate from Christ’s body, and from the jewel like stigmata on his hands and feet, emphasise the power of his divinity, creating in the viewer not a sense of understanding but one of awe.