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
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)
van Heemskerck, Maerten (1498-1574)
Source
The National Gallery of Art, United States
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.54298.html
Archived in:
https://web.archive.org/web/20201202232808/https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.54298.html
Accession Number: 1974.33.6
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.54298.html
Archived in:
https://web.archive.org/web/20201202232808/https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.54298.html
Accession Number: 1974.33.6
Date
1572
Format
Engraving.
Dimensions: Unknown
Dimensions: Unknown
Item Relations
This item has no relations.
Comments