Holbein’s Dead Christ (1521)

Holbein’s depiction of the dead Christ is an arresting image. Dostoyevsky wrote in The Idiot that "this picture could rob many a man of his faith" causing Derek Wilson, one of Holbein's recent biographers, to remark that Dostoyevsky "missed the point entirely." ¹ Did he? What Wilson did not imagine is that both men were writing or painting on at least two levels for two audiences with two quite different messages: one exoteric, one esoteric. Seen from those points-of-view, the artist's intention becomes logical. ²

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Holbein the Younger, Dead Christ in the Tomb (1521)

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The same year, 1521, Holben designed a printer’s device for Valentin Curio. On it a hand emerges from a cloud like God’s hand creating the universe but here drawing a line within a line in reference to the story of how two Greek painters, Apelles and Protogenes, each drew a line, one finer than the next, until Apelles claimed victory. Rümelin concludes that the hand can only refer to the printer, not Holbein, because the artist was left-handed. ³ All engravings, though, invert their source so Holbein’s original would have been a left hand. Bätschmann, on the other hand, claims that the hand holds the paintbrush so awkwardly that it is neither divine nor Holbein’s. ⁴

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Holbein, Printer's Device for Valentin Curio without architectural surround (1525); original with architecture is dated 1521

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Yet Holbein quite clearly linked his own talent to God’s in his 1533 Portrait of Derich Born. Underneath the ledge on which the sitter leans, the inscription asks whether the likeness of Born can be credited to God or the artist.

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Holbein, Portrait of Derich Born (1533) Click image to enlarge.

Even if the body of Holbein's Christ is dead, his hand and fingers seem alive. Not only does the middle finger appear to move as it touches the dead center of the image (remember how a pointing finger "paints") but the composition of the hand, created the same year, is strikingly similar to the “divine” hand in the printer's device. Holbein's Christ, it is safe to assume no writer has ever noticed, is Holbein. That's why the hand is green: dead and perhaps gangrenous on one level, fertile and creative on the other. ⁵

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Top: Detail of Holbein's Dead Christ Bottom: Detail of Holbein's printer's device, rotated Click image to enlarge.

And, as if in confirmation of Christ's identity, the artist inscribed his name into the coffin at Christ’s feet. In unusually large letters, it reads "1521" in Roman numerals with the initials "HH". Holbein imagines his soul as a dead Christ, creating this image with his “divine hand”, at the moment before spiritual resurrection, the moment in which the artist’s soul (like Christ’s in the historical narrative) becomes at one with God. The light shines on his body in a closed coffin as a metaphor for the (divine) light within, which shines inside his mind but which can also shine,

under the proper circumstances, in our own.

See conclusion below

Diagram of Holbein's Dead Christ

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It may seem egocentric and heretical for Holbein to have imagined himself as Christ but, in the mystical tradition which St. Francis and other Church luminaries followed, it was not only humbling to imagine oneself at one with God but, in doing so, one rid oneself of the delusion that we are individual (Freud's ego). Know thyself is the motto of all mystics. It was the source, too, of Holbein's miraculous skill which this painting makes clear. Like many a great poet and prophet Holbein would have felt that God was operating through his body because he alone could not possibly have created such masterpieces.

1, Wilson, Hans Holbein: Portrait of an Unknown Man (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson) 1996, pp. 94-5

2. Dostoyevsky concluded that the damage done to Christ’s body was so severe that no spectator to the event could ever have imagined that He would walk

again. On the esoteric level, he is quite correct. If someone concludes that it is not possible to believe the Resurrection story as literal truth, they are on their way to the allegorical level in which all initiates must suffer spiritually, die to the external world by robbing their minds of false illusions including visual ones and, then, resurrect metaphorically as God. Thus practitioners like these, no longer believers, do not imagine that Christ will ever walk again. Each individual, it is always important to remember, is a microcosm of the macrocosm and, if intelligent and imaginative enough to understand, they should imitate Christ's life in their minds. On the esoteric level, Dostoyevsky correctly pointed out that this picture is so powerful that it will "rob many a man of his faith." He or she will lose faith in the literal presentation (the live hand is the principal hint) thereby opening their eyes to the allegorical. Believers, on the other hand, get what they would have appreciated: a close-up technicolor, illustration of the literal story (with two, possibly three, exceptions). The exceptions include the hand, the prominent, carefully placed inscription and, perhaps, the light shining above Christ in a closed coffin. Believers - and even art historians, ironically - have so much faith in Holbein as an illustrator and the Bible as a literal story that they overlook the green and gruesome hand, Holbein's overly large and carefully placed inscription, and the light shining on Christ in a closed coffin to suggest the light that is within our own skulls.

3. Hans Holbein the Younger: The Basle Years, 1513-32 (Munich: Prestel) 2006, p. 488

4. Bätschmann notes that Holbein identified with the hand on the tablet, known as Apelles' tablet, on other occasions and points out that the hand arises from a

ring of clouds like a divine hand. He concludes, though, that "this idea cannot be reconciled with the unnatural, cramped position of the fingers", the brush

appearing as an extension of the middle finger. "No-one could possibly paint in such a manner." Bätschmann, "Holbein's Hand" in Hans Holbein the Younger:

The Basle Years, 1513-32, ibid., p. 113

5. The acute angle of Christ's eyebrow on the left is also identical to that in Holbein's 1543 self-portrait, suggesting Holbein had painted a similar but now lost

self-portrait or he intentionally made his self-portrait resemble his earlier image of the dead Christ.

Publication Date: 10 May 2011 © Simon Abrahams. Articles on this site are the copyright of Simon Abrahams. To use copyrighted material in print or other media for purposes beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Websites may link to this page without permission (please do) but may not reproduce the material on their own site.

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