The Seven Sacraments - Confirmation 1712

Curator: This is "The Seven Sacraments - Confirmation," crafted in 1712 by Giuseppe Maria Crespi. The current location is the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, Germany. It is an oil painting done in the Baroque style. Editor: There’s a gravity to it. Despite the supposed innocence of the moment – a child being confirmed – there’s a shadow, an almost somber air. It’s in the browns and the muted light, I think. Curator: Shadow is central here. Baroque artists, Italian ones especially, were interested in dramatic lighting, but there's something else going on. Look at the bishop's face. It’s kindness and weight, authority mixed with, perhaps, a tinge of the mundane. These sacraments are human rituals as much as they are divine mysteries. Editor: The gestures are so potent. The laying on of hands – that physical act of transference, the blessing itself. In so many cultures, touch carries the deepest symbolic meaning. You can almost feel the moment charged with that inherited memory. Curator: And Crespi does such a fine job of setting a theatrical stage. Even though there are so many faces around the child being confirmed, they melt back into the shadows giving that singular act incredible importance. I appreciate how he uses this singular scene to express the weight of centuries of tradition. Editor: Traditions solidify our experiences. They create community and make our emotions visible, don't they? This artwork's historical portrayal of a long standing practice does much to solidify feelings for anyone experiencing change. In short, it captures transformation beautifully, even magically. Curator: I like that: magical. Perhaps it’s a little like that. There’s a yearning here for transcendence, captured in the humblest of moments. Crespi invites us to reconsider what it means to become a community in its embrace. Editor: Yes! We are able to step back and remember the symbolic importance of communal acts like confirmation because he captured the power in this scene. It gives the scene and us significance in the grand scale of history and belonging.