Verona | Ikella Alonso

The work refers to Paolo Veronese's The Lamentation over the Dead Christ, highlighted by the compositional elegance with which the Venetian artist balances the drama of the scene with an almost theatrical serenity. Compared to the more harrowing intensity of other masters, Veronese constructs a restrained sorrow, where the arrangement of figures and the richness of color soften the tragedy. Under the twilight that casts ash over Golgotha, art has sculpted in words and pigments the deepest silence in history. The lamentation over Christ's body is not just a mourning; it is the theater of emotions, where divinity becomes wounded flesh and humanity, pure weeping. The weeping over the inert word. In Giotto's lamentation, nature breaks: angels twist in chaotic flight, and a dry tree symbolizes universal desolation. Mary holds her son's head, seeking in his pale face the echo of a life that has been extinguished, while Mary Magdalene clings to his wounded feet, merging her grief with the coldness of the stone. It is the Imago Pietatis, the moment when adoration becomes a funereal caress. The deposition or the weight of salvation The descent is an act of physical and spiritual gravity. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus support the body, feeling the dead weight of the Redeemer, a scene that artists like Raphael or Mantegna depicted with a rawness that forces the viewer to confront mortality. The deposition into the tomb marks the transition to apparent oblivion, the instant when the sun of faith sets behind the slab of anointing. The holy burial: the threshold of light. Finally, the holy burial is absolute stillness. The body, wrapped in a clean shroud, is placed in a tomb carved into the rock. Theologically, this tomb is not an end, but the bridge of union between the crucified and the resurrected; a space that, though it smells of death, already germinates the victory of life in its silence. The weight of Painting. The title refers to a quote by Vincent Van Gogh: "I would rather die of passion than live of boredom." This passion for painting, which leads to the brink of misfortune but with absolute vital intensity. Through Western iconography from the Gothic period to contemporary painting, a diversity of artists have dealt with the theme of the lamentation over Christ's body, the deposition into the tomb, and the holy burial. There is not much word in the Gospels, but a great number of works throughout the centuries. It is in this union between iconography and cartography that the series is developed, mixing the image with the map of the painter's hometown. One more step in the research process of zenithal landscapes. Thus, I achieve a balance between cartography and image.