John in Patmos / Scenes of Christ’s Passion

Audio transcription

From an interview with Gregor Meyer, artistic assistant of the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin, spoken by Andrew Redmond, bass in the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin

A rock, a really strange scenery and a unique depiction. In the midst of this landscape rises a rock with a fire with sooty smoke. This is hell fire. And on top of it sits the pelican with its nest. That’s a traditional symbol of Christ. The pelican with its beak rips open its chest to feed its ducklings. It’s a symbol of Christ who sacrifices himself in order to save humankind.

Parallel to this painting, the pelican also appears in the sixth stanza. [Music.] The pelican that rips open its breast to feed its ducklings with its blood. In the figurative sense, this is Christ who redeems us from our sins with his blood and nurtures us with it. That’s both in the painting and in this hymn.

Audio transcription

From an interview with Stephan Kemperdick, curator of the Gemäldegalerie, spoken by Andrew Redmond, bass in the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin

This is really detailed and of course wasn’t created to be seen from afar. You are supposed to look at it from close by. And that’s when you see the monsters. Perhaps it is deliberate that you sink into this painting and thus start seeing more and more. These monsters – it is the pleasure of the ghost train, in a way. Everyone loves monsters and all these crazy inventions. So all these paintings function on two levels, namely not only the meditative or pious, they are also works of art. They’re works of art that also allow the viewer to marvel at the incredible abilities of the painter and the possibilities of painting and all kinds of peculiar inventions and details.

Audio transcription

From an interview with Stephan Kemperdick, curator of the Gemäldegalerie, spoken by Andrew Redmond, bass in the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin

This is the hellish world of a dark chaos, as of yet unredeemed by God. And the world itself, you have to admit, isn’t a wonderful place at all, it is gloomy, a grey, a terrible, a mean world, and yet this is where Passion takes place. Once again, it all starts with the Mount of Olives.

Christ is kneeling here, and there are his sleeping disciples, and here the persecutors are arriving with their torch, in the next moment Jesus will be captured. It also refers to the scene with Malchus: Petrus severs Malchus’ ear who’s lost his lamp and Christ is about to replace it. And then Christ in front of Pontius Pilate, that’s Pilates' palace, a strangely fantastical structure where Christ is being castigated.

Here’s another part of the palace with lots of idols. This is where Christ is made to wear the thorn crown and from here they go to Golgatha where we see Christ again, yet again as a huge figure, almost like in Multscher’s work, gigantic. We must notice him carrying his cross upwards. At the end, in the middle, we see the crucifixion, and we also see the two thieves who almost look decomposed and hang there. This is the mean thieve who looks away from Christ, while the other leans towards him. And also Mary and John who stand there alone. There’s another woman who doesn’t belong to the saints, she runs with her child through this ragged landscape. Christ’s entombment then takes place in a landscape reminiscent of the Lower Rhine. Albeit in really terrible, grey autumn weather and flooding. Everything we don’t like.

The resurrection and all these positive things are completely missing here. It is the terrible world in need of redemption – at least with the redeeming act. That’s what this eye in the middle points towards.