It’s interesting that in the great body of art throughout history that has been inspired by Christianity, or commissioned directly by the various expressions of the Christian church, the resurrection of Christ, the event that is the basis of the important observance of Easter, doesn’t seem to be one of the more common subjects for paintings.

While it understandably doesn’t embody the drama or emotional impact of the crucifixion, it seems less frequently depicted than many less important or dramatic events from the Bible that are often the subject of paintings, statuary or altarpieces.

I’m not certain why; there are some depictions of the resurrection that have plenty of visual impact, like Albrecht Altdorfer’s stormy scene and Matthias Grünewald’s stunningly intense vision in his Isenheim Alterpiece.

Perhaps it’s just my perception. I haven’t attempted an actual count, and there is a pretty long list of resurrection artwork on this site. It may just be that those paintings are not the ones most noticed or remembered.

Here is one to add to the list, though, a fascinating painting by an early master of technique of oil painting, Rogier van der Weyden. It is the right panel of his Miraflores Altarpiece (image above with detail, right and bottom).

This is an extraordinarily elaborate and detailed work, in which Van der Weyden is taking advantage of the ability of oil painting to execute intricate details and carry color in layers of translucent glazes.

This is actually a double scene, depicting two separate events in one image. Our eye moves from the decorative elements on the trompe l’oeil arches into the interior scene, painstakingly constructed in linear perspective, with Christ having arisen and gone immediately to his mother.

From there we move into the background of the painting, and also travel into the immediate past, to the scene of the resurrection, rendered with carefully painted atmospheric perspective. (It’s interesting to note that in work by the early masters of oil painting, there is an understanding of the color shifts and value changes in atmospheric perspective, but distant background elements are often rendered with the same fanatical detail as foreground elements.) The two scenes, and two events in time, are connected by a winding path in the middle ground.

Like Antonello da Messina’s remarkable St. Jerome in his Study, we are invited to journey into and through the painting, and in this case, through time as well.

Gary Kelley is a well-known American Illustrator with a long list of impressive clients, including Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and numerous agencies and design firms.

He has received 27 gold or silver medals from the Society of Illustrators in New York, and was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 2007.

He created the two 70-foot murals for the dramatic Barnes and Noble bookstore at 5th Avenue and 48th Street in New York, has lectured at numerous art schools across the U.S. and is joining the faculty of the Hartford Illustration MFA program.

Kelley has illustrated several picture books, including classics like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle, and Poe’s Tales of Mystery.

Kelley does not maintain his own web site as far as I can tell, but he has a portfolio on the Richard Solomon site. Unfortunately, the new Solomon site is designed in a way that doesn’t permit the bookmarking of individual artist’s sections (What were they thinking?), so I have to direct you to the home page, and tell you to click on “Illustrators” link at top left, that just looks like a heading (What were they thinking?) and pop out the hidden menu (What were they thinking?) and find him in the list to see his portfolio (What? Were they thinking?).

There is a sort of pop-up menu of thumbnails at the bottom that you have to do some mouse gymnastics to get out of your way so you can see the whole picture. There are links at the top to a bio and case study.

Kelley has a strong geometric style, obviously informed by an admiration for Cubism in general and Picasso in particular. He has a remarkable ability to handle complex scenes with multiple figures and faces; and not only fill them with expressive human qualities, but focus your eye unerringly to the particular face or faces that he wants you to see. He does this without overt tricks of lighting, or blatant splashes of color; but instead using subtle control of value, color and composition, all within his intricate grid of geometrically defined shapes.

His palette varies from muted to bright, depending on the demands of the subject, and his colors are augmented with the deft application of texture, both in subjects and backgrounds. He also has a great knack for creating portraits that are stylized without being caricatures.

The Illustration Academy has a page devoted to Kelly, with a short bio, some (unfortunately small) images, and two interesting slide shows of demos he gave at the Academy, one in colored pencil, the other in pastel.