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The Flagellation

Creator

Italian Artist · 1509–1513

After training locally with a little-known artist, Bernardino Lanino was associated with Vercelli's most important painter from 1530. Three years later he had already reached the rank of master painter. His early work displays his teacher's gentle figure style and delicate effects, but Lanino added his own soft, misty brushstrokes. After his teacher left to establish himself in Milan, Lanino becam

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Date: about 1550
Medium: Brown ink wash with white gouache on an oiled surface
Culture: Italian
Department: Drawings
Institution: Getty Museum

Set against a darkened background beneath an archway, two soldiers flagellate the figure of Jesus Christ tied to a column. Christ looks down sorrowfully as the two men prepare to strike him with bundles of sticks. To create the startling effects of grisaille, Bernardino Lanino produced this dramatic monochromatic scene using black chalk and white bodycolor on prepared paper. Deftly handling the point of a fine brush to apply a system of white highlights, he indicated both the lighting and the volume of the forms with a delicate network of hatching and cross-hatching. Numerous fine lines suggest the wiry ringlets in Christ's hair, the delicate fabric of the loincloth, and the muscular texture of the bodies. The figures seem to stand out in glowing three-dimensional relief against the darkness of the inky background.

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