The Flagellation

Israhel van Meckenem was the most prolific 15th century engraver in Germany, as well as a notorious copyist. During his early career, he was drawn to the expressive qualities of contemporary Westphaliain paintings. In the distorted poses, twisted limbs and grotesque faces of Christ and his torturers shown in this engraving, van Meckenem carried the northern Gothic non-anatomical approach to an extreme. However, the receding depth and spatial relationships of the structure are rational and convincing, indicating that he understood one-point perspective, already utilized by Italian painters for several decades.