Scripture · John 19:26-27
John 11:43-44
The Resurrection of Lazarus
After Jesus had said this, He called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The man who had been dead came out with his hands and feet bound in strips of linen, and his face wrapped in a cloth. “Unwrap him and let him go,” Jesus told them.
A bare-armed man supports Lazarus near the head while others gather close. Tanner gives the miracle a human setting of bodies, attention, and practical help.
About the artwork
Tanner nearly talked himself into a bigger version. A friend told him that a canvas “that gave as much promise ‘as this small-sized one should be much larger,’” and Tanner, admitting that “very likely it flattered my vanity,” bought a canvas six by ten feet. He decided it could only be “a very much ‘watered’ edition of the smaller one” and went back to his “first love,” which measures about 95 by 121 centimetres. Harper’s Weekly approved: “His picture is comparatively small, but its seriousness of attention is very marked.”
Tanner puts a bare-armed man at the head end of the body, the figure art historian Dewey F. Mosby calls the one “supporting the head of Lazarus.” In John’s account, Jesus does the impossible part and hands the ordinary part to the people standing around: “Unwrap him and let him go.”
Featured in: Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Bible Paintings: Humiliated at Home, Honoured in Paris
What does John 11:43-44 mean?
By the time Jesus reaches Bethany, Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days. His sisters and the mourners accompany Jesus to the burial place. After the stone is removed and He prays, Jesus calls Lazarus out in a loud voice.
John 11:44 gives both the extraordinary event and the work that follows: Lazarus emerges still bound in burial cloths, and Jesus tells the people to release him. Tanner’s close gathering makes the witnesses participants in that return to life. Their practical care follows the act they could not accomplish themselves.
John 11:43–44 connects the gathering around Lazarus with the command to unwrap him and let him go.
Sources
Musée d’Orsay — La Résurrection de Lazare. RF 1980 173, painted 1896 and acquired at the 1897 Salon. The current museum record measures 94.7 × 120.5 cm.
Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Bible Paintings: Humiliated at Home, Honoured in Paris. Artwork reading adapted from this guide.
John 11 — Berean Standard Bible. Context for John 11:43-44.
Philadelphia Museum of Art — Henry Ossawa Tanner (1991). Catalogue account of Tanner’s abandoned larger canvas and return to the smaller composition.
Also from John:Madonna and ChildLux in Tenebris
Continue looking:The Raising of LazarusThe Raising of LazarusSaint Peter Preaching in Jerusalem