Lamentation

Govert Flinck was about 22 when he signed this in 1637, and he had just come out of the busiest studio in Amsterdam. For a couple of years he had worked under Rembrandt, learning to build a scene out of deep shadow and a few pools of warm light, and that lesson is all over this Lamentation. The dead Christ is laid out below the cross while the mourners gather close, their grief lit from within the dark. Flinck would soon drop the Rembrandt manner for a smoother, brighter style that wealthy patrons preferred, and he did very well by it. Here he is still speaking his teacher's language, down to the reddish glow on the bare skin.