Easter

Happy Easter! I'm taking a break today from my current series for shots fitting the occasion.

These first shots date back to Good Friday 2018, and I felt they were appropriate to hold back for this Easter, as I hadn't started setting up posts until after last Easter. I paid a visit that day to the Canada Agriculture And Food Museum, housed on the grounds of our Central Experimental Farm. A working farm, it houses animals and information in a series of barns and other buildings. One of those is a building called the Learning Centre, and on its second floor, two large kitchens for demonstrations can be found. In one of them were several displays for the Easter season, with an emphasis on eggs.

Back in early January I visited the National Gallery of Canada, and among my shots taken on that date were some paintings that fit the other side of the Easter weekend. The Arrest Of Christ is an oil painting done circa 1630-32 by the Dutch artist Matthias Stom, who spent time in Italy being inspired by Caravaggio and others (this painting was likely done in Rome). Stom depicts Christ and Judas highlighted at the moment of betrayal, while deliberately choosing to depict those arresting Christ in more contemporary clothing of his own era.

The Crucifixion is an oil painting circa 1515 by the Flemish artist Quenten Massys. Christ is on the cross, and his mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, and John the disciple are below, each caught up in their grief.

The Lamentation is from the workshop of Massys, done at some point around 1511, with Christ's followers tending to his body after it has been taken down from the cross. This painting is based on a large altarpiece Massys was working on, and would have been done by one of his apprentices.

This is from the workshop of Peter Paul Rubens. Christ dates to around 1612, and was done by one of Rubens' apprentices. His own version of this hangs in a Vienna gallery, while this would have been done side by side with the master himself. It was the habit of assistants to copy the work, though this one lacks the vitality of Rubens' own handwork.