Room
7
Here, two Ecce Homo paintings by Antonello,
from New York and Piacenza, are juxtaposed
with two meditations on the same subject by
the Flemish painter Petrus Christus and the Vicenza artist Bartolomeo Montagna.
Antonello’s two works illustrate the turning
point in his style that occurred around the
middle of the 1470s. While the New York
Ecce Homo, dated 1470, shows the intense
sentimentalism typical of the Flemish
interpretation of the subject, the one from
Piacenza, executed in 1475, reveals the
change that occurred after his contact with
the artistic scene in Venice, when he began
to acquire a dramatic and expressive force so
strong as to influence later painters. The
small panel – almost a miniature! – by
Petrus Christus is an excellent interpretation
of the meditative approach to the theme of
Ecce Homo aimed at encouraging inner
reflection, thus it combines the signs of
Christ’s martyrdom with references to the
Last Judgment (the angels holding the lilies
and the sword). Strongly influenced by
Antonello, Bartolomeo Montagna reached
great heights in the last work in the room, in
which the calibrated realism of the details
accentuates the intensity of the image of
Christ, his body racked with pain.
