Denys Calvaert (Attributed)
(Flemish, ca. 1510–1619)
Flight into Egypt
ca. 1580
oil on copper, 17" x 13 3/8"
Flight into Egypt illustrates the New Testament
story of Joseph leading his family from Nazareth to Egypt to escape
the search for
the infant Christ ordered by Herod, King of Judea. Many other paintings
of this biblical story picture the Holy family at rest or en route,
yet this work uniquely depicts the trio at the very moment they are
about to resume their journey. As Joseph steadies the ass she will
ride, the Virgin gazes protectively down at the infant Christ, who
is being handed to her by a kneeling angel. In keeping with this
particular biblical story, Calvaert included a host of symbolic elements,
which first appeared in Albrecht Durer’s engraving of the subject
in 1511. The ox and ass refer to the Nativity, the palms to an early
miracle in which the infant Christ supplied food to hungry travelers
by causing a palm to bend down its branches.
This small work is considered to be among the finest examples of
Calvaert’s paintings on copper. Its brilliance of color and
clarity of detail are due in part to the artist’s use of this
sturdy support, which many painters from the 16th–18th centuries
used as an alternative to wood or canvas, and also to his northern
European training, which stressed the use of minute detail, brilliant
color and a crisp, sharply defined mode of depiction. Born and trained
in Antwerp, Calvaert later moved to Italy, where he established an
academy in Bologna around 1575. There he was credited with introducing
Flemish qualities and a more rigorous academic study of anatomy and
perspective to Italian painting of the period, and as a result his
work provides an important link between the Mannerist and Baroque
styles of painting. Among his pupils in Italy were the important
Baroque artists Guido Reni, Guercino, Domenichino, and Francisco
Albani. |
