(artist(s) unknown, Church of the Monastery of Christ in Chora funerary chapel asp, Constantinople) (c.1310 to 1320). Anastasis [painting]. Getty Research Library, Los Angeles, Wim Swaan Photograph Collection.

The artist is layering three separate realms on a single surface. The warm, bright doorway to heaven is protected by Christ, who is actively stealing two figures from death to return with him. They are positioned in tombs, also depicted as gateways, in this case between Earth and hell. The void of the underworld is visually described as eternally dark, with masses floating in a void with no solid grounding, just churning chaos. Severely abstracted shapes resembling fleshless bones populate this miasma. As Christ recovers his officials from the dead, Earth-bound figures witness the event. This intermediary plane is rendered as stark, lifeless and rocky. |

It is not difficult to see this work’s reliance on shapes merging to create figures and subjects, but while their treatment is somewhat flattened, there is enough value development and edge blending to create a stylized work of realism. The location of this painting, its unexpected “canvas” shape and the heroic, warrior-like action of Christ charge the picture plane with context and movement. The arrangement and disposition of the spectating figures counter-balances this.

A roughly equivalent blend of shape definition through line and contrasts in color and/or value is present. The artist(s) have taken advantage of the natural texturing the medium offers, combining it with active texturing in the the work’s development. Rather than applying a specific color strategy, I believe reliance on the objective color and formatting subjects with mildly-modeled shadow/highlight development was the plan of this work’s creator(s). This modelling supports rather than establishes the overlapping and reasonably developed spatial order. Evidence of foreshortening and fractional representation are present, but overall the sense of depth is not confused. The more dramatic differences in tone through the vertical center of the scene create a stronger sense of movement and depth in that area, whereas the the peripheries are developed with midtones.

Figurative gestures provide movement and focus more than any other measure, both in their actual and implied directions. For reasons I cannot guess the forms on the right-third are better-defined than the left-third, and on the left the background is built in a higher key. Pale blues, dense oranges, repeated shapes and actual and implied lines flowing in a circular motion are effective at tying the separate areas of the canvas together. The use of diluted colors help to place more focus on the Savior-figure through his contrasting high-key development.

One of the remarkable traits about this painting is the layering of strategies used to direct attention, both obvious and subtle. Pictorial placement (dead-center), activity (versus passivity), formatting contrasts (especially value), slight figurative enlargement and both implied and actual lines of movement all place focus on the figure of the Savior. A graceful closed-composition is crafted, and where those forces of direction focus, the purposeful, direct gaze of the Savior-figure is aimed at the observer, stating, not asking, in a wordless glance that he is the way to the field of paradise.