The lamentation over the dead Christ

Janssens's early Lamentation over the Dead Christ of 1600, now at the Dayton Art Institute, was painted shortly after the artist returned from Italy — making it a direct expression of his Roman experience applied to a northern devotional subject. The Lamentation, with Christ's dead body received from the cross and mourned before burial, is among the most demanding of all religious subjects because it requires maximum emotional investment from both painter and viewer. Janssens's Italian training had exposed him to Caravaggist light, Annibale Carracci's classical figure style, and ancient Roman sculptural treatment of the male body — all of which he brought to bear on a subject the Flemish tradition had handled with more restrained northern sentiment. The result was a distinctive synthesis: Italian monumentality applied to northern devotional intimacy.

Panel with compact figure grouping around the dead Christ, whose pallid body dominates the foreground in a diagonal or horizontal pose typical of Deposition and Lamentation compositions. Janssens's handling of the dead flesh — cold, bluish, differentiated from the living skin of mourning figures — shows his mastery of flesh-painting techniques acquired in Italy. Dramatic downward-directed lighting intensifies the sculptural quality of the figure. The intimacy of the wood support suits the private devotional register.