From Newsday, my review of Thursday's concert (Pärt's "Fratres," Mozart's "Ave verum corpus" and Requiem) by the Orchestra of St. Luke's under Donald Runnicles.
The image shows the painting by Rosso Fiorentino known as the "Dead Christ." On display at Boston's MFA, it is one of the finest mannerist paintings to be seen in North America. At least one scholar has argued, persuasively in my view, that we should see the image not as a dead Christ but as a *resurrecting* Christ, given the tension in his body (note especially the right arm, seemingly poised to rise), the looks of eager anticipation on the angels' faces, and the painting's original function as an altarpiece, in which capacity it would have been associated with the vivifying sacrament of the Eucharist.
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