Michel Coxcie Circle

Circle of MICHEL COXCIE (Mechelen, Belgium, 1499 - 1592).
"Christ of the Nazarene", 16th century.
Oil on panel. Engatillada.
Size: 104 x 110 cm.
In this work of devotional character the author closely follows the model of the Nazarene established by Michel Coxcie (see the oil painting "Christ with the Cross on His Back" from 1555 kept in the Prado Museum). This is a painter of the same period as the Flemish master. There are clear similarities in composition and framing as well as in the Italianate style, although the present work also features a soldier. The imposing cross seems to protrude from the foreground, with its wooden arms forming rounded volumes. Despite this, Christ embraces it rather than carrying it. This embrace symbolises the acceptance of martyrdom for the purpose of redemption. The hands, with their long fingers, thus take centre stage, together with the face. The wiry countenance, with closed eyelids, communicates contained suffering. The blood pearls on the forehead, pierced by thorns. The colour ranges are soft, so that the features are softened. We are still a long way from baroque dramatism. Much closer are the models of the Florentine Renaissance.
Michel Coxcie was a Flemish painter, known as the Raphael of the Low Countries because of his great success in the Romanist style. He began his artistic training with Bernard van Orley in Brussels and subsequently travelled to Haarlem and Rome, where he lived around 1530-39, where he developed the technique of fresco mural painting, the first Nordic master to practise it. In 1532 he decorated the chapel of Cardinal Enckenvoirt in the Roman church of Santa Maria dell'Anima, for which he achieved a certain reputation in Italy, and Giorgio Vasari acknowledged that Coxcie had successfully adopted the Italian style. Back in the Low Countries, Coxcie entered the guild of Saint Luke in Mechelen in 1539. Shortly afterwards he moved to Brussels and in 1546 he worked as chamber painter to Mary of Hungary, Philip II's aunt, filling the vacancy left by the late Van Orley. He was a prolific artist due to the fact that in addition to paintings, altarpieces, frescoes and portraits he produced designs for prints, stained glass and tapestries. His work, as the Museo del Prado describes, is characterised by his particular attention to the depiction of female figures, which are always elegant and well-proportioned, while his male figures are more stylised and stiff.