Christ in the winepress
[2] It derives from the interpretation by Augustine and other early theologians of a group of passages in the Bible and is found as a visual image in Christian art between about 1100 and the 18th century, as well as in religious literature of many kinds.
He usually wears only a cloth round his waist, and blood from his wounds may be shown falling to join the grape juice in the treading-floor.
[9] The Dutch Hours of Catherine of Cleves (currently housed at Morgan Library and Museum in New York City) has a bas-de-page image in a typological context, paired with a typically idiosyncratic main miniature of a standing Christ beside a cross resting diagonally on the ground.
[12] A third "mechanized allegory" completes the group of "these strange pictorial inventions in which theology and technology celebrate their unlikely marriage" and depict Eucharistic themes.
[14] For example, the Dutch Protestant artist Karel van Mander, in his drawn design of 1596 for a print, shows Christ under a large rectangular winepress plate in the usual fashion, but with a cross carried nearly upright on his shoulder "in triumph".
[15] A 17th-century German development expanded the image into a wider allegory of "God's work of Redemption in his church",[16] placing Christ in the winepress on a hill at the top of an image in vertical format, with his juice-blood running down or sprinkling groups of the redeemed standing to each side, which may include donor portraits, Adam and Eve, saints, prophets, kings and prelates.
As in many images from the 16th-century onwards, Christ carries the "pennon of the Resurrection" (red cross on white) and here uses the end of the shaft to stab a dragon representing Satan, showing the increasing Protestant emphasis on the Winetreader as conqueror of his enemies, from Isaiah 63.
This passage was closely echoed in Revelation 19:15: "He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty", and the clothes are also soaked, this time with blood.
"In Genesis 49:10–11, Jacob tells his sons: The sceptre will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he to whom it belongs shall come and the obedience of the nations shall be his.
[23] Another biblical theme linked to the winepress referenced by commentators was the allegory of the "Vineyard of God" or "True Vine", found in Isaiah 27:2–5, John 15:1 and Matthew 21:33–45, understood as a metaphor for the church.
The typical image from the late-medieval period onwards sacrifices a realistic treatment of winepress technology for the needs of an immediately recognisable visual metaphor, and one including a human figure in an unnatural place in the centre of the composition.
The place where Christ stands in most compositions would in reality be occupied by various pieces of the mechanism, in particular a plate or disk to press on the grapes, which would be in a smaller circular wooden "basket" like a straight-sided barrel, but with gaps between the staves to allow the juice to escape, and various bulky weights and spacing blocks of wood to transmit the pressure from the beam down to the plate.
[30] Satan is: The motif of Christ coming in judgement as treader of the winepress is found in the lyrics of German Protestant baroque cantatas in the 18th century.
Revelation 19:15, where Christ returns as the victor treading his enemies) is traditionally connected in Protestant exposition with a Messianic interpretation of Old Testament passages such as "Who is this that comes from Edom, in crimsoned garments from Bozrah" (Isaiah 63:1–3).
