''Christ's Entry into Jerusalem'' is an

oil painting Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the Binder (material), binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or oil on coppe ...

by English painter

Benjamin Robert Haydon Benjamin Robert Haydon (; 26 January 178622 June 1846) was a British painter who specialised in grand historical pictures, although he also painted a few contemporary subjects and portraits. His commercial success was damaged by his often tactle ...

, from 1828. It is located in the Athenaeum of Ohio which is in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

, Ohio, United States. It depicts

Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

entering

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

as described in the

Gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the second century AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sen ...

, the event celebrated on

Palm Sunday Palm Sunday is the Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels. Its name originates from the palm bran ...

. The painting features

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poetry, Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism, Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Balla ...

William Hazlitt William Hazlitt (10 April 177818 September 1830) was an English essayist, drama and literary criticism, literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history ...

and

John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tub ...

along with

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment that followed ...

and

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit ...

, as faces in the crowd looking upon Jesus.

Description

The painting depicts the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday on a massive scale typical of both Haydon's work and wider

Regency era The Regency era of British history is commonly understood as the years between and 1837, although the official regency for which it is named only spanned the years 1811 to 1820. King George III first suffered debilitating illness in the lat ...

English paintings of the

Romantic art Romanticism in the visual arts, originating in the 1760s, marked a shift towards depicting wild landscapes and dramatic scenes, reflecting a departure from classical artistic norms. This movement emphasized the sublime beauty of nature, the inte ...

school.

History

Creation

Following the 1814 completion and exhibition of his rendition of the

Judgement of Solomon The Judgement of Solomon is a story from the Old Testament in which Solomon ruled between two women who both claimed to be the mother of a child. Solomon ordered the baby be cut in half, with each woman to receive one half. The first woman accept ...

, Haydon began working on another grandiose biblical subject, Christ's entry into Jerusalem before his crucifixion. By December of 1817, Haydon had completed enough of the work to unveil it at his home to an audience of guests including

and

, who were also meeting each other for the first time. Twenty years later, Haydon described the supper as "indeed an immortal evening."

Exhibition

In March of 1820, Haydon began advertising the commercial premiere of the work to be hosted at

Egyptian Hall The Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, London, was an exhibition hall built in the ancient Egyptian style in 1812, to the designs of Peter Frederick Robinson. The Hall was a considerable success, with exhibitions of artwork and of Napoleonic era re ...

, after failing to find a commission for the painting. This exhibition was Haydon's first major endeavor as a commercial artist, and he borrowed the approach of street painters in nearby

Leicester Square Leicester Square ( ) is a pedestrianised town square, square in the West End of London, England, and is the centre of London's entertainment district. It was laid out in 1670 as Leicester Fields, which was named after the recently built Leice ...

by selling programs with a key to understand the important portions of the work. However, wanting to preserve the upper-class nature of his work, Haydon first sent invitations to the members of the

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

. This self-promotion caused Haydon to become the subject of mockery in the English art world, laughed at in caricatures in the newspapers of London. The biblical painting was also upstaged by the premiere of

The Raft of the Medusa ''The Raft of the Medusa'' ( ) – originally titled ''Scène de Naufrage'' (''Shipwreck Scene'') – is an oil painting of 1818–1819 by the French Romantic painter and lithographer Théodore Géricault (1791–1824). Completed when the ar ...

Théodore Géricault Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault (; 26 September 1791 – 26 January 1824) was a French painter and lithographer, whose best-known painting is '' The Raft of the Medusa''. Despite his short life, he was one of the pioneers of the Romanti ...

, which was being shown next door to Haydon's work at the same time. Despite positive reviews, the painting failed to be purchased and Haydon re-entered it in the annual exhibition of the

Royal Society of British Artists The Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) is a British art body established in 1823 as the Society of British Artists, as an alternative to the Royal Academy. History The RBA commenced with twenty-seven members, and took until 1876 to reach fi ...

Saint Gregory Chapel Atrium with Entry of Christ into Jerusalem

Sale and move to Athenaeum of Ohio

As a result of Haydon's ongoing financial troubles, the painting was sold to the firm of Childs and Inman in Philadelphia in 1831. For a time it formed the nucleus of the American Gallery of Painting, erected by his cousin

John Haviland John Haviland (December 15, 1792 – March 28, 1852) was an English-born American architect who was a major figure in American Neo-Classical architecture, and one of the most notable architects working from Philadelphia during the nineteenth ce ...

of Philadelphia. After being cut from its frame and dragged "like a wet blanket" from the building it was displayed in to save the painting from a fire in 1846, the painting came into the possession of Archbishop James Wood. Wood, in turn, gave it to bishop

John Baptist Purcell John Baptist Purcell (February 26, 1800 – July 4, 1883) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Cincinnati from 1833 to his death in 1883, and he was elevated to the rank of archbishop in 1850. He formed the b ...

of Cincinnati. It hung in the Cathedral Basilica of St. Peter in Chains and then was sent to the seminary of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Mt. St. Mary's of the West in 1929. It received a restoration by personnel of the

Cincinnati Art Museum The Cincinnati Art Museum is an art museum in the Eden Park neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1881, it was the first purpose-built art museum west of the Alleghenies, and is one of the oldest in the United States. Its collection of ...

in 1941. In 1961, it was installed in the atrium of Saint Gregory Seminary, and remained there after Mt. St. Mary transferred its operations there.

References