Exhibition Label:
"Corpus," Apr-2012, Chassica Kirchhoff
This small panel was once part of a series of companion panels that depicted scenes from the Passion, and which were intended to elicit both awe and empathy from the viewer. The artist known as the Master of Alkmaar was likely one or both of the brothers Claas and Morijn van Waterlant, who painted in Haarlem during the late 15th and early 16th centuries. In this painting, St. Peter looms across the foreground with his sword drawn as if just concluding a swipe that severed the ear of Malchus, one of the servants sent to apprehend Jesus. Peter’s violent rage is in direct contrast to Jesus’ compassion toward his attackers; later in the narrative, Jesus
was said to have miraculously healed Malchus’ ear.
Archive Label 1999:
According to the gospel of John (18:1-11), Christ was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane by soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and Pharisees. When the men seized Christ, his disciple Simon Peter cut off the right ear of the high priest's servant Malchus. The next day Christ was tried and crucified.
The Arrest of Christ is one of only a handful of extant paintings by the Master of Alkmaar, an artist named for the Dutch town where he spent most of his career. Examples of early North Netherlandish religious painting are scarce because some 16th-century Protestants, called iconoclasts, destroyed works of art they considered idolatrous. Although the Arrest of Christ is believed to have been part of a multi-panel altarpiece, possibly depicting events from the life of Christ preceding his crucifixion, its small size suggests that it was commissioned for a private chapel or home.
Archive Label:
This panel, which once formed part of a larger altarpiece, shows the scene of the Arrest of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. Following the gospels and artistic convention, Christ is shown surrounded by soldiers with their weapons and lanterns. In the foreground Peter has raised his sword and cut off the ear of the High Priest’s servant, Malchus.
The artist is called the master of Alkmaar because he painted a series of panels showing The Seven Acts of Mercy for the church of St. Lawrence in Alkmaar, a small town in Holland. The panels, which are dated 1504, are now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The master of Alkmaar is probably Cornelis Buys, and important painter who is documented in Alkmaar. Relatively few paintings by the Master of Alkmaar have survived the iconoclastic outbursts of the sixteenth century.
The southern and northern Netherlands (now Belgium and Holland) boasted extraordinary centers of artistic production during the 150 years from Jan van Eyck (died 1441) to Pieter Brueghel (died 1569). The north and south each favored distinct artistic styles. For example, The Master of Alkmaar’s smooth, homogeneous treatment of the grassy landscape and the cool transparency of the atmosphere contrast with the more cluttered Crucifixion Triptych by the Master of Frankfurt in this gallery, which was made in Antwerp in the southern Netherlands.
