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Original fileThe Dead Christ with the Four Evangelists
About This Work
Christ lies horizontally in the center, his muscular form rendered with the exaggerated anatomy typical of Northern Mannerism. He is flanked by the four Gospel writers—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—who display stone tablets citing the biblical accounts of the Passion and Resurrection. In the foreground, the symbolic lion of Mark and the ox of Luke rest near the crown of thorns and the nails used in the Crucifixion.
This print exemplifies the 'Tetramorph'—the four living creatures from the visions of Ezekiel and Revelation which were mapped onto the four Evangelists. In the Western esoteric tradition, particularly in the works of Cornelius Agrippa and Neoplatonists, these four figures were further correlated with the four classical elements, the four cardinal directions, and the four humors, representing a divine quaternary structure underlying the physical world.