Foreshadowing the Ultimate Murder

Art in the early ages portrayed Biblical accounts seeking to impart spiritual lessons to the viewers. Implementing this early artistic purpose in displaying Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Cain and Abel panel maintains its original function in a historically accurate presentation. For the goal of continuing art’s ancient role, the Lamentation Over the Dead Christ by Massimiliano Soldani appears to fit the mission. Individually each art piece tells their story but together they fit as puzzle pieces showing a broader picture. The Cain and Abel panel and the Lamentation chosen as display partners contain physical, historical, and thematic commonalities working together to fulfill the old religious purpose of imparting spiritual truths to the viewer. Considering their individual characteristics and unearthing their various similarities will uncover the eloquence of the two together.
Amongst acclaimed Florentine works stand Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Florence Cathedral East doors completed in 1452[1]. The doors display ten gilded bronze relief panels depicting biblical accounts with one on Cain and Abel portraying important events in the brothers’ lives. On the upper left corner is the first scene, Adam and Eve and the boys, below them are both brothers shown in their occupations: Abel overlooking his sheep and Cain plowing below him. [2] To the upper right both offer sacrifices while God looks toward Abel in favor; below them at mid-panel Cain murders his brother; at the lower right corner God addresses Cain concerning his sin. Ghiberti graduated the relief’s projection from top to bottom having the highest projection on the lower part of the panel. Such graduation timelines the story, the narrative’s first scene on the upper panel section hardly rises above the panel base while the final scene, depicting Cain and God, lands at the bottom, the region of highest relief. One middle scene, Cain at the plow, deviates from this pattern, landing on the high relief foreground to the left of the story’s final scene. The deviation emphasis Cain the sinner as the panel’s principal subject. The panel adopts the Bible account’s emphasis on Abel’s death through focusing the eye the murder and Cain’s character. Cain raises his club high above his head, his clothes swing back with momentum, his legs apart as he forcefully steps to lower the club upon his crouching sibling. In the next scene, God stretches His arm toward Cain while Cain facing the viewer turns his upper torso and face up towards God raising one arm toward Him. His hand cups straight toward God almost in retort to his Maker. The portrayal of motion through position, flying clothes, and relief graduations dynamically retells the horror story.
As Ghiberti’s panel depicted a tragic death, so Massimiliano Soldani’s sculpture portrays a poignant occurrence. The sculpture Lamentation Over the Dead Christ created in 1714, presents the dead Christ, a sorrowful Mother and attending angels and putti during Christ’s burial. The center focal point is the deceased Christ’s body resting on a lounge shaped slab with a rising back where Christ’s torso rests. Below Christ’s legs, the slab continues flat but bunched drapery on the piece raises his upper thigh leaving his lower legs to lie in a downward position. Above Christ is Mary who is swooning back and to the right side. [3] On either side of the two central figures are two angels; the angel on Christ’s left stands facing the viewer, his face turned away in grief; the angel on the right kneels on the slab his side exposed to the viewer, his torso turned to extend his half-stretched arms toward Mary. Above and slightly behind the swooning mother rises a putti holding drapery which swirls down behind her. Behind Mary’s right to the right of the latter putti is another putti facing the viewer with his body leaning inward toward the sculpture’s center. Behind the cast is the coffin, whose lid rises diagonally upward along the sculpture’s horizontal plane toward the left. The positioning and motions of each character fit together like a puzzle and help shape a triangle. A slab of rock forms the sculpture’s base line while the two angels on opposing sides and the flying putti above frame Christ and Mary in a triangular shape. Even the Christ and Mary, the central figures, form the geometrical form: their forms fitting together like a puzzle to shape the triangle. Mary’s upper body and head form the triangle pinnacle as they rise diagonally to the left. Christ’s upper body follows the same diagonal while his left arm hangs limply leftward away from the diagonal forming a lower corner. As Mary’s lower body coincides with Christ’s lower legs shaping the opposite corner it rises left diagonally till her upper body and head contour the last corner or the triangle’s peak. The coffin lid continues Mary’s bodily line diagonally past the second triangle formed by the angels, its square corner becoming a triangle right behind the left angel given its diagonal position. Although it may seem an incongruent piece, it leads the eye from Mary’s sorrow toward the angel’s grief; in addition, it accentuates the central triangle tying it with the exterior angelic triangle.
Overall the sculpture imbues the sense of dynamic sorrow presented through the medium, the character’s positions, and sculptural techniques. Though molded out of bronze, the tone is mostly a deep grey, an appropriate tone given the somber topic.[4] The triangular apex formed as Mary faints diagonally her head just above Christ’s draws the eye to see the grief and the reality of Christ’s death. As the angels on either side form the second triangle they join in mourning, one turning his face away another extending his arms toward Mary. The putti above Mary helps crest the second triangle composed of angels, and shows the sorrowful business of the moment. With the coffin lid continuing Mary’s line, one sees the dead corpse the grieving figure and the telling symbol which tells the reality of this death. The deeply carved lines into the dark bronze adds to the sense of weighty distress.
Having considered each works’ individual physical characterizations, it is necessary to consider them in light of each other. Both panel and sculpture are bronze, visible on the sculpture but hidden under the panel’s gilded finish. Placing the sculpture’s deep bronze against the panel’s brilliant gilded bronze should provide a striking contrast. Although the panel is square and the sculpture triangular, both shapes being geometrical line forms imbue congruency. The panel’s jagged mountainside stage and God’s figure where He deals with Cain combine to form a mirror reflection shape of the Lamentation. With the mountainside, a triangular silhouette, and God’s form breaking the silhouette at a diagonal, the outline reflects the sculpture’s triangular form and the coffin lid breaking in diagonally. All these features work to provide a visually congruent pair.
Consideration of each work not only includes physical characteristics but also the makers’ histories. A Biographical Dictionary of Artists and a biography on the Getty Museum website reveal important facts of Ghiberti and Massimiliano respectively. Both men worked in Florence some three hundred years apart, Ghiberti in the Early Renaissance and Soldani in the Baroque.[5] Lorenzo Ghiberti received the commission for the doors from the Arte di Calimala (cloth guild) a part of the Florentine guild power while Massimiliano Soldani worked under the Medici, the family who overruled the old Florentine guild powers.[6] Significantly, both were sculptors and enjoyed a high status within their time period.[7] The online Getty article states, “Taken with his work, Grand Duke Cosimo III de' Medici sent Soldani-Benzi to Rome to further his artistic education and in particular to learn coin-making…. returned to Florence, where he was made director of the Granducal Mint.”[8] Capturing the eye of the Medici, the talented Soldani garnered an education and position through their patronage. Ghiberti won the contest for the Florentine baptistery project and later received the job for another set of doors to the Baptistery. Thus both artists though living about three hundred years apart, lived in Florence, practiced sculpture, and gained societal approval.

Just as Ghiberti and Soldani’s lives read similarly, so thematic similarities exist between the Cain and Abel panel and the Lamentation. Ghiberti’s panel depicts the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve’s sons. When Cain and Abel offered their sacrifices to God, God rejected Cain’s since it was not the proper sacrifice a revelation of his rebellious heart. Envying Abel’s favor from God, Cain murdered his brother. Abel’s death became the first human death in the Bible’s history of mankind: another consequence from Adam and Eve’s first sin. Because Adam and Eve transgressed against God, humankind became sinful. Thus, God began His plan for man’s redemption. Abel’s death, a consequence of Adam and Eve’s sin prefigured the ultimate consequence: Christ’s death: the payment for humanity’s redemption. God sent His Son into the world through the virgin Mary to live a perfect life and die for the sin of mankind. Though Christ lived without sin, God imputed humanity’s sin upon Him punishing Him with death. Soldani’s work captures the agonizing consequence of sin: death. Both art pieces join together presenting the cost of sin through two pivotal historical occurrences, one event a foreshadow of the other.

In summary, planning a display for Ghiberti’s Cain and Abel panel that allows it to impart its spiritual message brought the Lamentation and panel under analysis for similarities. Examining the pieces revealed the art works would combine artistically, historically, and thematically if displayed together. As the colors, shapes, and individual artistic qualities merge they bring delight to the viewer. Historically, both are linked together created by Florentines with akin artistic fields and societal status. As these elements merge the fusing bond is their theme. Displaying these two pieces Ghiberti’s Cain and Abel panel and Soldani’s The Lamentation Over the Dead Christ unites two history pieces to perform their rightful historical function in a fused and powerful way to teach the historical plan of God’s redemptive history. Once upon a time the murdered Abel’s blood prefigured the death of God’s Son, a death paying the price for consequences from the sin his parents committed the corruption of mankind and leading to his death. The display projects the masterful plan of forgiveness Christ completed.










































References
“Their Youth and Vocations, Cain's Jealousy, Cain's Murder of Abel and Discovery: Cain and Abel: First Scene.” Enrichment. Grace Cathedral. http://www.gracecathedral.org/enrichment/features/ghiberti/R1_sc1.html (accessed March 7, 2008).
Gowing, Sir Lawrence. A Biographical Dictionary of ARTISTS, The Vineyard, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England, New York, N.Y.: Andromeda Oxford Limited and Facts On File, Inc, 1995.

“Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi”. The Getty. The J. Paul Getty Trust. http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=3240
(accessed March 3, 2008).

“Monumental Sculpture from Renissance Florence: Ghiberti, Nanni di Banco, and Verrocchio at Orsanmichele”. National Gallery of Art,Washington D.C.. http://www.nga.gov/onlinetours/index.shtm (accessed January 2008).

Kleiner, Fred S., and Mamiya, Christin J. GARDNER’S ART THROUGH THE
AGES. 12th Ed., Blemont, CA,: Wadsworth /Thomson Learning, 2005.


Seattle Art Museum. “Display Information on The Lamentation of the Dead Christ.” Permanent Collection. Samuel H. Kress Collection, 61.178.
[1] Fred S. Kleiner, Christin J. Mamiya, GARDNER’S ART THROUGH THE AGES, 12th Ed., Blemont, CA,: Wadsworth /Thomson Learning,2005, pg. 572
[2] “Their Youth and Vocations, Cain's Jealousy, Cain's Murder of Abel and Discovery: Cain and Abel: First Scene,” Enrichment, Grace Cathedral, http://www.gracecathedral.org/enrichment/features/ghiberti/R1_sc1.html.

[3] Seattle Art Museum, “Display Information on The Lamentation of the Dead Christ,” Permanent Collection, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 61.178.
[4] Seattle Museum, “Display Information,”.
[5] Sir Lawrence Gowing, A Biographical Dictionary of ARTISTS, The Vineyard, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England, New York, N.Y.: Andromeda Oxford Limited and Facts On File, Inc, 1995, pg. 245-246.
“Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi,” The Getty, The J. Paul Getty, Trust. http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=3240
(3 March. 2008).
[6] Gowing, A Biographical Dictionary of ARTISTS, pg. 245-246.
“Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi,” The Getty, http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=3240.
“Monumental Sculpture from Renissance Florence: Ghiberti, Nanni di Banco, and Verrocchio at Orsanmichele,” National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., http://www.nga.gov/onlinetours/index.shtm (January. 2008).
[7] Gowing, A Biographical Dictionary of ARTISTS, pg. 245-246.
“Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi,” The Getty, http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=3240.
[8] Ibid., http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=3240.