Christ Weeping Over The Sins Of Men

Dated 1906 Dedicated To Monsieur le Principal and Madame Bazin, Very respectful tribute, signed and dated lower right Original frame in black and gilded lacquered wood Student of Gustave Moreau with whom he deepened the mysticism of his art, Nelson Dias was born in Bordeaux in a family of artists of Portuguese origin. Painted in 1906, his Christ weeping over the sins of men is striking in its expressive force and the humanity that emerges from it. From the heights of Heaven, without angels or holy company, Christ weeps over a gray city of which we only see the frail silhouettes of the roofs and walls represented in the lower register of the painting. His face haggard and distorted by the grief of anguish, he faces us in a cloudy sky bathed in warm light; Appearing crowned with thorns and wreathed in a rainbow, the sharp little touches echo the thorns of the biblical crown. It is here the tears of Christ mixed with divine light that form the Rainbow crowning the composition. His emaciated figure with disembodied hands is reminiscent of the presumed self-portrait of a certain Michelangelo. The seventy-year-old Italian artist then finished painting the Sistine Chapel where he would have represented himself in the fresco of the Last Judgment in the suffering and fleshless skin of Saint-Barthélemy.