The Good Samaritan

Entry

The painting depicts the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-35), which extols the universality of compassion. As told by Christ, a traveller going to Jericho from Jerusalem was robbed and left for dead by thieves. The robbers can still be seen: they appear as tiny figures, one carrying a large sword, escaping into the trees in the middle background. Several who saw the injured man passed by, first a priest and then a Levite, portrayed here on the right as an ecclesiastic dressed in black and a monk. It was a Samaritan, whose turban would identify him here as a Turk, who was the only one who stopped to tend to the wounded man. He has dismounted before a tree with a hollow trunk, and he kneels to support the battered traveller as he pours oil and wine on his wounds. Blood trickles down the traveller’s chest, and his impending death is suggested by his blueish-grey hands and feet. The figures on the right moving from the middleground to the background establish a path from the lower right to the upper left corner, where a later episode in the biblical story is shown. The Samaritan has placed the wounded man on his own horse and is taking him to an inn where he will arrange for his care.

The focus of the painting is on the nude form of the wounded man, whose sagging body has taken a complicated pose, with a limp arm, a sharply foreshortened head and crossed legs. Hoogewerff proposed the influence of Michelangelo’s Adam from the Sistine ceiling,⁹ but closer parallels for the figure can be found in Raphael’s works, the figure of Heliodorus in the Stanza fresco, The Expulsion of Heliodorus, the related figure of Ananias in the tapestry of The Death of Ananias, or a variant of both, such as the figure of Jacob in the fresco of Jacob’s Dream in the Loggia in the Vatican Palace.¹⁰ Technical examination reveals that almost all the compositional changes in this painting are concentrated in this figure (fig. a). In the underdrawn layout, the Samaritan’s right hand was originally under the wounded man’s armpit but has been shifted in the paint stage to just above his own knee. As a result, the wounded man’s arm was lifted and the elbow greatly enlarged, as were the hands and feet. The body type of the underlying figure has entirely different proportions, with a thinner torso and legs, and attenuated hands with long, tapering fingers. Since these are stylistic traits that can be associated with Jan van Scorel, it is likely that one of the sketches Scorel made of the monuments he had seen in Rome served as the model for the first version of the wounded man.¹¹ Other instances of this phenomenon are known in the Jan van Scorel group: the form in the layout stage betrays its source more explicitly than the finalised image in paint.¹²

Although this painter has been variously identified in the past (see the biography), the Good Samaritan Master is now recognised as a talented assistant in Jan van Scorel’s workshop. In 1975, the present author assembled a small core oeuvre for the master consisting of drawings and paintings that date from 1537, the date of the Rijksmuseum painting, to c. 1545/46.¹³ This master’s technique differs from Scorel’s in that it relies on a thicker application of paint and bright colours, such as the yellows, oranges, blues and violets seen in the Rijksmuseum painting. The contrasts in lighting and modelling are almost harsh, and the master shows a preference for compact, knob-like forms, seen here in the foliage, and mountains and clouds in the background. Despite these differences, there is convincing evidence that the master worked in close proximity to Scorel. The Samaritan’s hand, which was added only in paint, may even have been executed by Scorel himself, who is known to have made similar additions to other workshop pieces.¹⁴ Moreover, the figure of the wounded man evokes the compassion shown for the crucified Christ in a scene such as the Lamentation, a theme that went through various manifestations in Scorel’s workshop in the years preceding the good Samaritan painting. Earlier scholars have rightly noted similarities with Scorel’s Lamentation in Utrecht.¹⁵ The antique buildings in the distance, the rotunda and the coffered vault, are also reminiscent of Scorel’s works.¹⁶ In particular, the columns of the temple of Saturn, the obelisk known as Caesar’s needle, and the pyramid of Caius Sextus form a group that must have been a Scorel workshop pattern. It occurs elsewhere in the Scorel group, in Scorel’s Madonna in Tambov,¹⁷ in the background of the Visscher van der Gheer Triptych in Utrecht,¹⁸ and in The Family of Ivo Fritema (?) in Groningen,¹⁹ a painting that is also sometimes attributed to the Good Samaritan Master.

The Rijksmuseum painting is one of the earliest depictions of the good Samaritan in the 16th-century Netherlands, and the subject becomes increasingly popular from this point on.²⁰ Unfortunately, the commission and original function of this important painting remain unknown. The depiction of the passers-by as an ecclesiastic and monk in contemporary clothing might imply criticism of the clergy.²¹ It has also been suggested that the Rijksmuseum painting might have been commissioned by a surgeons’ guild,²² but the subject must have had broader appeal as well.

M. Faries, 2010
Literature updated, 2016