Christ leaving the praetorium

Gustave Doré  1832 - 1883

Le Christ quittant le prétoire  Christ leaving the praetorium

1867-1872.

Oil on panel

600 × 900 cm

Musée d'art moderne et contemporain, Strasbourg 

Gustave Doré  1832 - 1883

Le Christ quittant le prétoire   Christ leaving the praetorium

Brush and brown wash heightened with white gouache on paper

35 x 49,5 cm

Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain de la Ville de Strasbourg

He called the painting his life`s work or masterpiece

It is monumental in its scale and composition

While working on it he had to leave Paris in 1870 because of the Siege during the Franco-Prussian War and the Comune and its aftermath. Fortunately it survived

He made two other versions. One is in Nantes and the other is in South Carolina

The Museum in Strasbourg built a special room for its viewing so that it can be seen to its best effect

Unappreciated by French critics, Doré  went to London where he and his works were feted

While at the Great Exhibition, he met  George Grove  and Frederick Kill Harford (1832 - 1906) a Minor Canon of Westminster Abbey. Over dinner in Sydenham, they mused over art and the depictions of the Passion and Crucifixion

They noted that there many works on two themes: Ecce Homo, where Pilate shows a scourged Christ to the crowds only for the crowd to ask for mercy for Barabbas; and Christ carrying the Cross

"Pilate, wanting to release Jesus, addressed them again; but they kept shouting: “Crucify him, crucify him!” A third time he said to them: “Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no ground for the sentence of death; I will therefore have him flogged and then release him”. But they kept urgently demanding with loud shouts that he should be crucified; and their voices prevailed. So Pilate gave his verdict that their demand should be granted. He released the man they asked for, the one who had been put in prison for insurrection and murder, and he handed Jesus over as they wished "(Luke 23:21-25).

"And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe, and put his own clothes on him, and led him away to crucify him" (Matthew. 27:31)

But none on the theme "in between": Christ coming down from the balcony to the place where he would take up his cross

The idea appears to have  been that of Harford. The idea seems to have inflamed Doré`s  interest and imagination as he started work almost immediately and carried on for about ten years on this work

Harford appears to have advised quite substantially on the theme and the tone

Harford was also a poet, hymn writer, and amateur musician.

The temple and statue on the right were inspired by the  end of  Hanover Square in London where there is the neo classical Church of St George`s (where Handel worshipped) and before it a statue of William Pitt the Younger

He knew London well as can be seen from his book London: A Pilgrimage

Christ is the centre of the work

All lines intersect at his head

He is in white and he is illuminated and illuminates the dark scene and setting

He is the only one who is looking at the denizens who compose the mob

Pilate stands dressed in purple at the top of the stairs of the praetorium

On the stairs are Caiaphas, Ananias and Alexander and they are rejoicing

At the bottom of the stairs anguished and distraight are his mother Mary, holy women and John who is comforting Mary Magdalene

Judas is in the crowd with a horrific grin

The soldiers are pushing against the crowd. The features of the crowd show every emotion: curiosity, compassion, pain, hatred, satisfaction 

Doré`s reputation as a "preacher painter" was in the last third of his career, following his famous illustration of the Holy Bible in 1866. Soon after, he began many spectacular religious works intended for the Gallery in London he co-founded in 1867-1868, the Doré Gallery . 

Chûte de feuillus

Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853 – 29 July 1890)

Chûte de feuillus  or Falling Autumn Leaves I

November 1888, Arles

Oil on canvas

73 x 92 cm

Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo

Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853 – 29 July 1890)

Chûte de feuillus  or Falling Autumn Leaves II

November 1888, Arles

Oil on canvas

72 cm × 91  cm

Private collection

Van Gogh painted the twin works when Gaughin was staying with him in Arles

The area is Les Alyscamps, Occitan for The Elysian fields, an area outside the town which was the site of an ancient Roman necropolis lined with poplars and stone sarcophagi.

Here is a photograph of the scene from 1870

Arles, Les Alyscamps

c. 1870

Print on albumen paper

0.115 m. x 0.168 m.

Musée d'Orsay, Paris

In a letter to his brother Theo dated 3rd November 1888, Vincent wrote:

"I think that you’d like the leaf-fall that I’ve done. 

It’s lilac poplar trunks cut by the frame where the leaves begin. 

These tree-trunks, like pillars, line an avenue where old Roman tombs coloured lilac-blue are lined up to right and left. Now the ground is covered as if by a carpet with a thick layer of orange and yellow leaves — fallen. Some are still falling, like snowflakes. 

And in the avenue dark figurines of lovers. The top of the painting is a very green meadow and no sky, or almost none. 

The second canvas is the same avenue but with an old fellow and a fat woman, round as a ball."

In April 1889 he had to send the works to Theo to be sold. He needed the money to pay for his board and lodging at the asylum in Arles. The prices for both totalled 400 francs

It was the main burial ground for 1500 years and from AD 250, the growing Christian influence can be detected until by AD 310 it was solely for Christian burial. 

Until suppressed in the French Revolution and later by the Concordat of 1801, the See of Arles was one of the oldest and most important in the Western church

For centuries, martyr, saints and bishops resided in the town. It was also one of the most important centres of pilgrimage for centuries

Early important Church councils were held here

Dante reversed the image. He used it as a metaphor for Hell

In Canto IX of The Inferno, Dante and Virgil enter the city of Dis. There heretics are being  punished in tombs burning with intense fire. the scene of the multitude of sephulcres is compared to the great number at Arles:

"We, unopposed,        105

There enter’d; and, my mind eager to learn

What state a fortress like to that might hold,

I, soon as enter’d, throw mine eye around,

And see, on every part, wide-stretching space,

Replete with bitter pain and torment ill.        110 

  As where Rhone stagnates on the plains of Arles,

Or as at Pola,  near Quarnaro’s gulf,

That closes Italy and laves her bounds,

The place is all thick spread with sepulchres;

So was it here, save what in horror here        115

Excell’d: for ’midst the graves were scattered flames,

Wherewith intensely all throughout they burn’d,

That iron for no craft there hotter needs.  

  Their lids all hung suspended; and beneath,

From them forth issued lamentable moans,        120

Such as the sad and tortured well might raise."

Here is Sandro Botticelli`s vision of the scene

Sandro Botticelli 1445 - 1510

Dante and Virgil in the City of Dis amongst the tombs of the heretics

1480s

Silverpoint drawing on parchment, completed in pen and ink, coloured with tempera

Manuscript Reg. lat. 1986

Biblioteca Apostolica, Vatican

Here is the artist Gustave Doré`s conception of the same scene. You can access a free edition of The Divine Comedy featuring Doré’s illustrations at Project Gutenberg.