c. 1590
Camillo Procaccini Italian, 1555-1629
Italy
The Gospel of Matthew in the Christian Bible relates how three disciples accompanied Jesus to a remote hill where they saw him flanked by the prophets Moses and Elijah, and his body transfigured by a heavenly light: “his face did shine as the sun,” in Matthew’s words. Here, Camillo Procaccini visualized the supernatural event by depicting Jesus as a cloud of small dots unbound by any outline. The features of his face are barely visible, since during the etching of the plate they were exposed to the acid for a short time, creating shallow grooves that picked up very little ink. The evanescent effect aptly presents Jesus as hovering between the bodily and the spiritual realms.
Etching in black on cream laid paper