A visual Journey into the Bible The Book of Genesis

A Visual Journey into the Bible Page: 50
Henriques were considerable as can be seen from this picture. He could compete with
the best northern artists of Gothic. Remark the full splendid detail of the figures, all
their different faces and attitudes. All gowns are depicted in the rich courtly style of
Gothic. Abram’s armour is rendered with great mastery of the various patches of
brightness and shadows that generate the volume of the forms. Remark the brocade
and lines of the robes of Melchizedek.
The Gothic style can be recognised in the details of the picture, the static composition
and in the favour of the artist for decorum. The lines of the lances held by the soldiers
from a decorative effect not unlike the fine interlaced lines of the stonework of a
Gothic window. Henriques painted plants in the foreground such as can be found in
pictures of the ‘Adoration of the Magi’ in Flanders, such as in pictures of Van Der
Goes. The landscape is mannered but it forms the background to fill the picture and it
is arranged to suit the composition. Thus, the line of the mass of the heads of the
soldiers goes down to the middle, to the face of Melchizedek and the landscape was
necessary to have a line that went to the face of the knelt Abram. Thus the centre of
the composition is in the form of a ‘V’, which brings airiness in the picture and draws
attention immediately to the two main personages, Abram and Melchizedek.
This was a painting that stood on the altar of the church of San Francisco in Evora.
The Portuguese armies had fought many battles against the Moors and since the
1470’s they had been successful in their wars. This picture may have been made to
commemorate the victory of a battle. Henriques however transformed the meaning of
the Bible scene into a Catholic religious theme so that it could be exhibited on the
altar of a church, a very rare example of a Bible Old Testament scene used so
prominently in a Catholic Church. However, the picture shows a king knelt before a
priest and it was thus an example of the subordination of the secular powers to the
church authority, a principle that of course the Catholic Church cherished.
Sarah presenting Hagar to Abraham.
Adriaen van der Werff (1659-1722). Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen –
Schleissheim. 1698.
Abram’s wife Sarai had remained barren. So she brought an Egyptian slave girl called
Hagar to Abram and proposed to her husband to have children by Hagar. Soon Hagar
conceived. But Sarai treated Hagar badly then, so Hagar fled to the desert. An angel
of Yahweh found her at a spring in the desert. The angel told her to go back to her
mistress but he foretold her also that she would have many descendants. The angel
predicted her that her son would be a ‘wild donkey of a man’, he would be with his
hand against every man and live in defiance of his kinsmen. Hagar had to call her son
Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore his son.
Adriaen van der Werff (1639-1722) was an excellent painter of the later Dutch
seventeenth century. Van der Werff painted in the Baroque style but he was evolving
towards a style that was later called Classicism. He used scenes of classic antiquity.
The austere Calvinist times of his country had given way to an opulent and settled
Copyright ©: René Dewil Date: October, 24 2000