The Diligent Worker United with Christ after Death, by Galle after van Heemskerck (1572)

Picture179.jpg

Title

The Diligent Worker United with Christ after Death, by Galle after van Heemskerck (1572)

Description

This engraving shows Christ in the centre holding a cross, a man kneeling on the left, a woman on the right and three children next to the woman. On the ground under the cross there is a skull and a snake around it.

Gender perspective: Death, although alluded in the image, is not properly represented in this image as a personified figure but as a skull and a snake under the cross. Even if the snake may represent the devil or heresy, which is common in the period, the location by the cross as a new tree of paradise, and the presence of the skull by the cross, normally taken to be Adam’s, skull, presents a double idea of death affects both genders. The allegorization of charitas as a female allegorical figure and of labor, a masculine Latin noun as a male figure, contribute to this gender ambiguity about death and gender

Creator

Galle, Philip (1537-1612)
van Heemskerck, Maerten (1498-1574)

Date

1572

Format

Engraving.
Dimensions: Unknown

Item Relations

This item has no relations.

Comments