I stumbled across this painting by Ford Madox Brown over the weekend and am thoroughly captivated by it. I am particularly drawn to the disciples' faces - it seems that in each of their faces is every emotional response to Jesus that I have experienced - shock, wonder, love, bewilderment and on and on...
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I love the grouchy look on the footwashee's face. It looks like he's about to say "You missed a spot, Hippie!"
No. the look on his face is one of unworthiness. His Father doing in this picture what he did on earth. Being a servant. Wonderful picture!!
The look I see is, "What is He doing?"
Which isn't at all sacrilegious, if you think about it.
Strange picture. Peter looks like he's been twenty years in the Old Fisherman's Home already, while the young bloke at the left is Judas, evidently getting his sandals back on 'cause he's been taken care of already. The next group over features someone with a terrible headache, or who's horror-stricken by the whole business, while the lady at the far right who looks like Mary Mags in red-- that's actually meant to be St John, with Christina Rosseti as the model-- is earnestly praying.
I understand that Jesus originally had less on, but public upset caused the artist to add more clothing. That's fine, I'm all for decency in religious pictures, but this one would have been better without the superfluous halo. Various well-known persons modeled for this painting, including art critic FG Stephens who provided the face of Jesus.
One nice thing about religious art prior to (let's say) WWI is that it manages to be neither sappy nor ironic-- something which would be very hard to pull off now.
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