Page 63 - Gallery 19C Nazarenes Catalogues

2 5 PROVENANCE EXHIBITED LITERATURE
Verzeichnis der Gemälde 1976, 181.
Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Julius
Julius Benno Hübner Sale, Van Ham, Cologne, Hübner, 1806–1882, December Monschau-Schnittmann, 253, no.
GER M AN, 1806–1882 16 November 2012, lot 740) 1925- January 1926, no. 67, 16. 47 (Magdalene at the Body of Christ,
1859), nos. 47a-47d
MARY MAGDALENE (sketches and oil studies).
signed Julius Hübner and dated 1860 (upper right) Grewe 2012, 60-63 and 75
oil on canvas (endnote 58).
26 ³/₄ by 23 ⁵/₈ in. (68 by 60 cm)

This is sorrow at its deepest. Throughout history, painters had tried their Magdalene at the Body of Christ is a splendid example of Hübner’s mature style Excising Mary Magdalene from the narrative, Hübner counted, and
hand at portraits of the Bible’s most notorious sinner, Mary Magdalene; and his proclivity to afford the main female protagonists of his biblical rightfully so, on the willingness of an enraptured audience to decode
but few have created such an intense depiction of internal feeling stories with an impressive presence. ¹ Among Hübner’s strong women, entire narratives solely from a figure’s features. It tied into the success,
of grief at once spiritual and universal. Excised from a larger historical Mary Magdalene nonetheless stands out. She is unusually sensual for a practiced not least by Wilhelm Schadow himself (1788–1862), to transform
painting, the close-up replica achieved what the life-size canvas of the Nazarene, her long reddish hair, which flows in thick locks freely over her simple portrait studies into a kind of devotional genre-painting (see
Saint’s lamentation over Christ’s body had not: an intimate intensity bare shoulders is worthy of a Pre-Raphaelite. Quintessentially Nazarene, Fig. 14). In 1839, Hermann Püttmann (1811–1874), later instrumental
and intense intimacy. however, is her composure. Despite the intensity of her anguish, she in establishing a German-speaking press in Australia, succinctly
does not wail. Her hands, wrought together as the only physical sign of summarized the new attitude: “The aestheticians of the old regime
An integral part of the so-called Schadow circle, Julius Hübner (1806–1882) her inner feelings, are pressed tightly against her body as she crouches loathed bestowing the honored name ‘history’ on representations of
remained a major representative of his master’s “naturalist idealism” down to gaze despairingly at the man stretched out on a white cloth in the life of the temperament, of the Gemütsleben, which lack chronological
throughout his long career. This was true for a dedication to Schadow’s front of her. Little gives away his identity, and he seems more asleep leads. In contrast, the new school finds it unjust to dishonor works that
dictum that portraiture may serve as the foundation of all genres, including than dead. The traces of any martyrdom have vanished, and even Christ’s reach into the highest regions of the life of the soul, of the Seelenleben,
history painting. Thus, when the Dresden Academy of Arts appointed wounds are barely visible. Hübner’s contemporaries picked up on the with the superficial name ‘genre.’” ³ Hübner’s portrait of Mary
Hübner in 1841, he proceeded to export Düsseldorf soul-painting from the tension between the sensual depiction of the Savior’s overly relaxed Magdalene strove to reach precisely those highest regions of the soul.
Rhine to the Elbe, where he would leave his mark not only as professor body and a Mary Magdalene almost bursting from the pressure to hold
but, since 1871, as director of the city’s stupendous Gallery of Paintings as in her pain. Looking at this “picture full of academic studies,” critics
well. But he would remain true to the Nazarene spirit not only in artistic lamented that the countenance of the female saint did not correspond Cat. 5a Julius Hübner, Magdalene at the Body of Christ, oil on canvas,
terms. Until the end of his life, Hübner embarked again and again on major with her character, as “it expressed more passionate despair than holy 145× 198 cm, SMPK, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin
projects without a prior commission, choosing subjects strictly for reasons mourning.” ² Focusing solely on Mary Magdalene’s face, the replica solved ¹ https://recsherche.smb.museum/detail/966745/magdalena-am-leichnam-
of religious importance and personal identification. His painting, Magdalene this tension with great emotional gain. As we imagine rather than see christi
at the Body of Christ is a striking case in point (Cat. 5a). The life-size canvas is the body of Christ (now absent), we are invited to identify with one of ² Citations from “Bildende Kunst.” Wochenchronik der Europa 25 (1861): 997-
a late Romantic inflection of Hübner’s uncompromising quest for truth and humanity’s core experiences. The pain shown transcends the biblical 1000, quote 999; and Becker 1888, 128.
authenticity, a quest in the name of God that the Lukasbund had elevated scene, thus as our own encounter with tragic loss reflects back onto ³ Püttmann 1839, 33.
so programmatically to Art’s ultimate precept. Finished in 1859, Magdalene the biblical scene and helps us to reflect upon its higher meaning.
at the Body of Christ remained in Hübner’s estate until the National Gallery
in Berlin acquired the large-format directly from the artist’s heirs in 1888.
By then, it had been shown in Dresden, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Cologne and
Brussels, and, most prominently, at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1867.

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