Painting and Sculpture

Man of Sorrows (Heemskerck)

The Man of Sorrows is a 1532 painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Maarten van Heemskerck in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent. It is one of many images in Christian art of the Man of Sorrows, a representation of Christ naked above the waist with the wounds of his Passion prominently displayed. The subject depicts Christ after the crucifixion attended by angels, with bleeding wounds displayed, wearing the crown of thorns and a loincloth. The loincloth is claimed to be wrapped around an erection, visible to some art historians but not others. Van Heemskerck is not the only Renaissance artist allegedly to depict Christ with an erection (ostentatio genitalium), which some scholars interpret as a symbol of his resurrection and continuing power. Other versions of Christ crowned with thorns by Heemskerck are:

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See also

• ▸Cabinet of curiosities
• ▸Arthur Ollman
• ▸Berthe Morisot

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Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.