• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Drowning By Numbers: Visual Reference

Yithian

Yithian

Parish Watch
Staff member
Joined
Oct 29, 2002
Messages
36,432
Location
East of Suez
Peter Greenaway's Drowning By Numbers is one of my favourite films; it's visually sumptuous and I seem to spot another detail or three every time I rewatch it. For some reason, we often play the soundtrack in the car when on weekend trips.

On watching the early scene in which the eldest and second eldest and second eldest Cissie Colpittses (they have the same name) take Nancy—drunk, naked and unconscious—home in a wheelbarrow, I was suddenly struck that this brief tableau reminded me of a famous painting of Jesus: of his body being moved after death, but I can't recall the name of the painter ot the artist. I'm sure it's something famous. The position of Nancy's arm and the way the figures on both sides are holding her seem awfully familiar. That 'limp arm' is definitely an artistic trope.

Can anybody suggest a candidate?

Image Contains Incidental Nudity:
SmartSelect_20220429-112738_VLC.jpg
 
Last edited:
Is there anything you can more specifically cite as something that reminds you of the alleged painting? Two people holding the arms? One arm bent and the other limply straight? Relative position of any / all the figures in the scene? Etc. ...
 
EnolaGaia said:
Is there anything you can more specifically cite as something that reminds you of the alleged painting? Two people holding the arms? One arm bent and the other limply straight? Relative position of any / all the figures in the scene? Etc. ...
Click to expand...

I think that in the painting you can see the full length of Christ's body and legs, but I could be misremembering. He may have been entangled in a blanket or winding cloth...

I've just done some searching to remove the possibility that I'm misremembering a death of Nelson or Sir John Moore, but I'm pretty confident that it was Jesus.

Not much to go on, I know.

And a strange lack of analyses of the film online, too.
 
How about this:

270px-The_dead_Christ_and_three_mourners,_by_Andrea_Mantegna.jpg

Lamentation Over Christ by Andrea Mantegna c1480.
 
Rogier Van Der Weyden's Lamentation of Christ?

1651235737839.png

Fra Angelico's Pieta?

1651235865520.png


'Pieta' or 'Lamentation of Christ' might be good search terms as there are a number of artworks in this specific genre.
 
James_H said:
Rogier Van Der Weyden's Lamentation of Christ?

View attachment 54864

Fra Angelico's Pieta?

View attachment 54865

'Pieta' or 'Lamentation of Christ' might be good search terms as there are a number of artworks in this specific genre.
Click to expand...

I don't think it is the first that my mind has buried, but there's a pretty striking similarity.

Will try your suggested terms.
 
Yithian – I have a suggestion which may not give you the solution you wish, but it may help in deciding which image most closely matches. It is something I have noticed with my memory of artwork, but also happens with other visual memories. I sometimes conflate several different images into one vague image (which functions as a “category organizer”), which is of course not entirely true for any of the actual images. This can happen easily with Christian religious art for iconic images. The dead Christ has been depicted many times, maybe thousands.

If the most important element in your memory is that of the color and value composition – the intense reds all on the right side – then The Lamentation over the Dead Christ by van Dyck is the one. If the most important element is the limp arm, then the Death of Marat by David is the closest match. Etc.

The composition of the figures in Drowning by Numbers may have been a deliberate copying of some religious painting. The elements which suggest this to me are the naked central figure, foreshortened central figure, the central figure being supported on both sides by two others, the central triangular composition, and the many religious images and statues surrounding the central figures – especially the big statue of the Virgin Mary right in the center, looming over the naked person.
 
Could also consider the Descent from the Cross as a theme. Rogier van der Weyden's version for example ( his Lamentation is mentioned above by @James_H ). Flip this and it's even closer!

PS I've shown a copy as the real ones all seem top be enormous files!descent.jpg
 
Endlessly Amazed said:
Yithian – I have a suggestion which may not give you the solution you wish, but it may help in deciding which image most closely matches. It is something I have noticed with my memory of artwork, but also happens with other visual memories. I sometimes conflate several different images into one vague image (which functions as a “category organizer”), which is of course not entirely true for any of the actual images. This can happen easily with Christian religious art for iconic images. The dead Christ has been depicted many times, maybe thousands.
Click to expand...

You could well be onto something, but I hope not!

If I had one impression of the picture I think I recall--a stronger one than any other--it's the position of the upper body and arm.

And yet none of these images that have been posted so far are immediately familiar, so perhaps I have created a composite after all.

Appreciate everybody's efforts to scratch this itch.

Found a gem here:
https://hi-in.facebook.com/petergre...ks-about-drowning-by-numbers/209983447519272/

And he cites a different scene that visually quotes a dead Christ painting! [26.00]

He says there are 'many, many' compositions taken from paintings in the film.
 
Last edited:
Yithian said:
He says there are 'many, many' compositions taken from paintings in the film.
Click to expand...
Consciously applying references, by the Director / cinematographer? Or: to what extent are these convergent (even, inescapable) classic human interpositions?

With each player being shown to possess the space they occupy, and Us below the footlights, behind the Fourth Wall?
 
I am also absolutely certain the scene above closely mirrors a painting but I can't think which one. I've found a few versions of the Deposition of Christ which show similar figure positions but no match yet. Perhaps this is a bit like the Thunderbird picture?

Speaking of Greenaway, and birds, has anyone sat through The Falls?
 
Part of your problem is, not only are there literally hundreds of Depositions or Lamentations of Christ and Pietas, there are hundreds of later non-religious paintings that deliberately reference them as well.

They're notoriously difficult in terms of composition, so there are multiple different variations.
 
Fluttermoth said:
I did A level Art History,
Click to expand...

:twothumbs:

I did some OU Art History stuff, for the sheer joy of it. I now have a thing about Poussin's circles and lines of dancing people. Et in Arcadia Ego and Arcadian Shepherds are just... wow! I really envy you doing the A-level. Concentrated study with a certificate at the end. :twothumbs:
 
Frideswide said:
:twothumbs:

I did some OU Art History stuff, for the sheer joy of it. I now have a thing about Poussin's circles and lines of dancing people. Et in Arcadia Ego and Arcadian Shepherds are just... wow! I really envy you doing the A-level. Concentrated study with a certificate at the end. :twothumbs:
Click to expand...
It's never done me any good in life, except for the occasional answer on a quiz show and impressing people, but I loved it and feel the richer for it too :)
 
Frideswide said:
:twothumbs:

I did some OU Art History stuff, for the sheer joy of it. I now have a thing about Poussin's circles and lines of dancing people. Et in Arcadia Ego and Arcadian Shepherds are just... wow! I really envy you doing the A-level. Concentrated study with a certificate at the end. :twothumbs:
Click to expand...
Weirdly, I got into Poussin's compositions via The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail, which I got into via The Da Vinci Code. And I studied art.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top