Every year at Holy Week and Easter the Church, and indeed much of the secular world, focuses on the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus. As Christianity came to dominance as the major religious faith in West, the descriptions of the Passion, Crucifixion, Death and Resurrection became the central and distinguishing images of the faith. Inevitably the Church made use of art to bring these dramatic scenes to the faithful - so welcome to many of course who could not read. The Passion is given its first really detailed depiction in Giotto's frescoes, completed about 1305, for the Arena Chapel in Padua, and also in Duccio di Buoninsegna's majestic altar piece paintings, the Maestà in Seina, installed in 1311. However, the death of Christ cannot be considered as something apart from his Resurrection. The victory of Christ is seen most lucidly in the new dawn light of Easter morning.The art represented in this book covers every aspect of the Passion cycle such as the Arrest, the Betrayal by Judas, the Appearance before the High Priest, the Flagellation, the Crowning with Thorns, the Ecce Homo presentation, the Carrying of the Cross, the Crucifixion and the Deposition, Lamentation and Entombment. Everything then moves into depictions of the glory of the Resurrection. The art represented is a very eclectic selection, ranging from the work of Matthias Grünewald and Michelangelo to Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock and Salvador Dali.

Jesus was not depicted on the cross until the early fifth century. Since then this scene has been painted or carved in sharply differing ways. With the aid of over thirty full-page plates, The Passion in Art explores the historical contexts and theologies that led to such differing depictions. Because the first Christians saw the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus as different aspects of a unified victory over sin and death, scenes of the Passion are juxtaposed with some of the Resurrection, which again are highly varied in what they do and do not show. This is the first book to consider the Passion as portrayed in the whole sweep of Christian history. Each picture is considered both from the point of view of its context and its theological standpoint. Spanning the centuries, the images reproduced and discussed include: scenes from the Passion of Christ in the Catacombs of Domitilla, mosaics in Ravenna, the Rabbula Crucifixion and Resurrection, the Crucifixion Plaque from Metz, the Gero Crucifix, Cimabue's Crucifix, Giotto's Noli me Tangere, Piero della Francesca's Resurrection, the Isenheim altarpiece, Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus, Rembrandt's Christ on the Cross, Chagall's White Crucifixion, contemporary paintings by Stanley Spencer, Graham Sutherland, Nicholas Mynheer, and many more works of great acclaim.

Brimming with Sister Wendy Beckett's irrepressible wisdom and enthusiasm, The Art of Holy Week and Easter is a beautiful Lent book for 2021 exploring the spiritual riches of some of the world's greatest paintings of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus. Illustrated in stunning full colour with thirty famous and lesser-known Western masterpieces and presented in a small, easily portable format, this little book is ideal Lent reading for all art lovers. The Art of Holy Week and Easter offers a chance to hear again the voice of Sister Wendy as she gently leads you into a deeper appreciation of all that these paintings convey to the discerning eye. You'll gain a fuller and more spiritual understanding of Christian art, and see Holy Week and Easter as never before.

Engaging the Passion gathers an impressive array of scholars to survey how the death of Jesus has been portrayed and represented in Scripture, liturgy and music, literature, art and film, and theology and ethics—from the first to the twenty-first centuries. The contributors approach the passion from a variety of perspectives—diversely Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and secular. Their voices differ as well, from the challenging to the comforting and from the academic to the confessional. They address the faithful, the skeptical, and the curious.

"This book will examine the iconography of death as well as that of its symbolic opposite - resurrection and rebirth."--Introduction.

Viladesau focuses on poetry and the visual arts as he seeks to understand 'The Beauty of the Cross' as it developed in theology and art from the early Christian era through the middle ages.

Christ Is Risen relives the essence of the passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ through a series of iconographic illustrations and inspiring text based on the Scriptures. Soul-nourishing and truly remarkable, Christ is Risen unravels to a reading experience that both adults and children will treasure. To read this book is to embark on a fascinating spiritual emprise into one of the most essential events in Christianity. Appropriate for Christian education.

In Engaging the Passion, Oliver Larry Yarbrough has gathered an impressive array of scholars to survey the wealth of ways in which the death of Jesus has been portrayed and represented in Scripture, liturgy and music, literature, art and film, theology, and ethics. In addition to addressing topics many readers will find familiar -- gospel narratives, Holy Week services, Bach Passions, and well-known paintings -- the essays also treat rap music, street art, a contemporary Buddhist Passion, Chagall's crucifixions, the poetry of Walt Whitman and Countee Cullen, J. R. R. Tolkien's unlikely hero Frodo Baggins, images from the battlefield, and stories from the soup kitchen. The contributors approach their topics from a variety of perspectives -- Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and secular; their voices differ as well, from the challenging to the comforting and from the academic to the confessional. Addressing the faithful, the skeptical, and the curious, Engaging the Passion is unique in its breadth and rare in the diverse voices of its contributors. Amply illustrated and with accompanying discography and filmography, it will be a welcome resource for classes in Scripture, theology, liturgy, and the arts, as well as for personal and congregational study.