Holbein Halott Krisztusa és a radikális reformáció
Holbein’s “Dead Christ” in Basel and the Radical Reformation

Summary/Abstract: When one talks about Hans Holbein’s (the younger) “Dead Christ,” painted in 1521–22, it must involve the interpretation that Fyodor Dostoyevsky gave in his novel Th e Idiot: ‘Supposing that the disciples […] saw this tortured body […] how could they have gazed upon the dreadful sight and yet have believed that He would rise again?’ Th e message of the painting was researched in the light of four great schools of thought but neither medieval piety, nor Renaissance and Reformation not early modernism could off er a perfectly precise tool for the understanding of the picture. Th at is why I would like to examine Holbein’s painting from a point of view that has not yet been used. I call this point of view “Radical Reformation,” even though I am fully aware of the fact that the spiritual-religious movements mentioned under this name were only forming at the time of the painting of the picture. Th eir radical views were not expressed in the revolutionary transformation of the world but in urging the inner rebirth of man. Their ideas were very close to that of Erasmus – consequently advocating spiritual Reformation – who may justly be called “radical” in this sense. Holbein, Erasmus’s portrait painter, belonged to this intellectual group. We have no reason to suppose that Holbein’s painting contributed in any way to the Christological debate of the time. But by emphasizing the real death and true Resurrection of Christ, known as a human being, with such enormous artistic force, he got close to the most important message of radical Reformation, rejecting the dogma of the Holy Trinity: namely the denial of Christ being divine, only recognizing his human nature. We might thus rightly suppose that “Dead Christ” also captures the most important traits of the spiritualism of Radical Reformation.

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