Eye to Eye With Jesus Christ – Botticelli’s Profoundly Intimate “Man of Sorrows”

In January 2020, one of the few Botticelli paintings in private hands, Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Roundel, sold for $92 million (including auction fees) . Now another Botticelli is being offered, to be sold on January 27, 2022 at Sotheby’s, New York. ?The last time this picture, Man of Sorrows, dating from around 1501, was on the market was in 1963. At that time, the painting was thought to be the product of the artist’s workshop assistants, rather than by the master himself. It brought $28,000. Now things have changed. Leading experts have declared that the painting was executed by Botticelli's own hand. Man of Sorrows is expected to bring around $40 million. It is common for religious paintings to fetch less than secular works of the same quality.

The Man of Sorrows theme was a standard “iconic devotional image that shows Christ, usually naked above the waist, with the wounds of his Passion prominently displayed on his hands and side, often bearing the Crown of Thorns and sometimes attended by angels. The type developed in Europe from the 13th century and was especially popular in Northern Europe.” In Botticelli's version, eleven weeping angels appear (two of them only partially visible), and display several ?of the “Instruments of the Passion” which commonly appear in depictions of the Man of Sorrows.

The Instruments are: “the ladder used for the removal of Christ's body from the cross; the whip used for the 39 lashes; the Holy Lance with which the Roman soldier inflicted the final Five Wounds; The Cross (held by three angels); the column to which Christ was tied when whipped; the pincers used to remove the nails; the Holy Sponge, soaked with gall and vinegar and lifted on a reed. ?

The grieving angels are arranged so that the form a wreath-like halo in an unusual, if not unique, arrangement. In another painting Botticelli painted about the same time as his Man of Sorrows, known as The Mystical Nativity, we observe the artist’s almost obsessive inventiveness in the depictions of groups of angels. In this case they are engaged in jubilant celebration.

Botticelli’s Man of Sorrows has another special quality – one that is characteristic of Botticelli’s secular portraiture: an uncanny representation of the emotional state of the subject, giving the picture lifelike presence, despite the highly stylized, somewhat severe, treatment typical of the artist.

Christopher Apostle, Sotheby’s Head of Old Master Paintings in New York, describes that special quality this way: “The Man of Sorrows is a remarkably realistic portrayal of Christ symbolizing his suffering and death, but with an astounding degree of humanity that is the hallmark of Botticelli’s portraiture, and showcases Christ’s divinity with a stunning psychological depth.” Quite true, but what specifically is the psychological state mentioned by Mr. Apostle -- and others commenters on this painting -- that Botticelli has depicted?

The expression is not one of physical suffering, dejection, weariness, sadness, nor the throes of misery. Rather, the expression is of deep hurt from betrayal by a loved one. The deepest sorrow of all is the sorrow of rejection by those we love.

Jesus is looking the viewer – at me, or, at you. This is what is unique about this Man of Sorrows. The “psychological depth” that Mr. Apostle calls “stunning," in fact, carries a profoundly religious meaning. When we stare into the eyes of Jesus, we recognize what has hurt him, the cruelty of that human soul whom he loves – which, in Christian terms,?would be any person who looks into the face of Jesus. The moment shown is the moment of Jesus's recognition of rejection by his people -- a moment in which the eyes “speak” what the heart sees.

To understand just how different prom other pictures of the Man of Sorrow this particular expression of recognition of betrayal is, let's look at seven other paintings of the type from the general period which also show Christ looking out at the viewer. We see anguish, dejection, physical pain, grief, sorrow, but not that peculiar sense of intimate direct “eye contact” communication that confronts and engages the viewer, that the Botticelli picture conveys.

COMPARISONS: 1) Sandro Botticelli, 1501, 2) Workshop of Aelbert Bouts, ca. 1525, 3) Petrus Christus, ca. 1445, 4) Giovanni Santi, ca 1490, 5) Juan Sánchez de San Román, Sevilla, Ca. 1500, 6) Albrecht Dürer, 1493, 7) Antonello da Messina, ca 1470, 8) Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1515

Devotional art is meant to provide a focus of attention and a reminder of a religious reality, through the depiction of a person or a scene.

I can think of no other work of visual art that directly (phenomenologically) causes one to recognize, through the act of gazing – gazing into the eyes of Jesus – to feel the heavy weight of the most tragic of all sins, failing to love that which deserves to be loved. The awareness of our human capacity for cruelty, for betrayal, afforded by this remarkable painting is something different from the ordinary purpose devotional art is meant to serve.

In this case, the Man of Sorrows is not a devotional device whose purpose is to focus us merely on the suffering of the tormented Jesus. Rather it is a device that confronts us, causing us to recognize how incomplete our heart is, how susceptible we are to selfishness, to becoming creatures who betray, creatures whose heart is far, far away from their state of innocence in the Garden before the Fall.

Looking into the eyes of this particular representation of the Man of Sorrows is not an ease-making experience. It is a sorrow-producing one. On reflecting on decades of looking at works of art, I can think of no more profound depiction of the tragic condition of selfish human shortcomings than this one. This Man of Sorrows burns to the quick.