Saint Christopher

Saint Christopher stands apart from Witz's large altarpieces, painted on its own around 1435. The legend behind it was one of the most popular of the Middle Ages. Christopher was a giant who carried travelers across a dangerous river on his shoulders. One night he took a small child over, and step by step the child grew impossibly heavy, until he felt he was carrying the whole weight of the world. The child was Christ. Witz shows the exact moment. Christopher is sunk almost to his thighs in the water, leaning hard on his staff, the boy perched high and precarious on his shoulders. The landscape around them is rocky and closed in, and the water is painted with the same attention to reflection and shadow that Witz brought to armor and cloth. People prayed to Christopher for protection against sudden death, which is why his image was so often set where travelers passing by would see it.