Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Pietro Perugino (Pietro Vanucci)
Italian; 15th-century
New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art (Exhibition: Raphael: Sublime Poetry)
85%
Dead Christ with Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus (Sepulchrum Christi). c1494-98. Oil possibly with tempera on panel, transferred to fabric on panel
There's less surety about forms, and more anxiety about what it means to paint a picture, in the work of Perugino compared to that of his student, Raphael. For this reason Perugino was probably the better (if less perfect) artist. The winningest feature of this painting is the way Christ pushes past the threshold established by that ledge in the foreground. This is a metaphorical transgression of the picture plane — an indication of the savior's heightened reality compared to that of the two saints flanking him — but also an ironic intensification of the separateness of this scene in toto from the viewer's own world: there's no amount of movement forward that could counteract the way Nicodemus tugs Christ slightly backwards into depth, or the stillness of Joseph and his glare. Worth noting, too, is the rhythm of hand-shapes moving laterally across the panel just north of the sepulcher, plus the mottled complexity of the three figures' skin (which points forward to the shading of del Sarto). This is a humble picture — no masterpiece — but precisely keyed. (TFS, 2026)