Graflegging van Christus Possibly 1847 - 1849

This is Johannes de Mare's 'Graflegging van Christus', or 'Entombment of Christ', a print of unknown date by the 19th-century Dutch artist. The body of Christ, draped in white cloth, is carried by mourners towards a stone sepulchre. A crown of thorns sits at its base. Mare was director of the Royal Academy of Visual Arts in Amsterdam, and his position at the heart of the Dutch art establishment is revealing. The image is striking for its conservative style and its subject. By the 19th century, religious imagery had largely fallen out of favor with cutting-edge artists. Here, though, Mare embraces a traditional Christian theme and depicts it in a style that evokes earlier northern European masters such as Dürer. He made prints like this in order to spread uplifting and conservative messages, in reaction to what he would have seen as the moral decline of modern society. To fully understand art like this, we need to look at church records, the history of art education, and the political climate of the Netherlands in the nineteenth century. Art is always rooted in the social and institutional conditions of its time.