Sir Anthony van Dyck is one of the greatest portraitists of the seventeenth century as well as one of his age’s defining painters of religious subjects. During his lifetime commissions in the Netherlands, England and Italy won him international renown. Van Dyck’s Lamentation of Christ is a striking example of his religious work. Mary’s evocative gesture of despair is traditional in form, but the tension and expressiveness that Van Dyck invests it with heightens the emotional force. In this way he creates a rhetoric of sentiment that resonates with the contemporary religious experience. By using a distinctly horizontal format, the artist generates a shallow, relief-like composition. The figures are pulled towards the background while the body of Christ projects forward, increasing the dramatic effect. In the simplicity of its composition, the magnificent colour effects and emotional impact, the Lamentation of Christ is an outstanding example of Van Dyck’s highly personal role in shaping the religious painting of the Counter-Reformation.
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