Petrus Christus, Pietro Ghrista in italiano arcaico, (Baarle-Hertog, 1410 circa – Bruges, 1475 circa) è stato un pittore fiammingo. Appartenne alla cosiddetta "seconda generazione" della pittura fiamminga, dopo la prima dei fondatori Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden e Robert Campin.
Biografia
Le notizie sulla sua vita sono scarse: non si conosce neanche quale fosse il suo vero nome (quello di Petrus Christus è stato dedotto dalla sua firma, petr. XPI). Il catalogo delle sue opere, che conta circa quaranta pezzi, è stato ricostruito in base agli otto dipinti pervenutici, datati tra 1446 e il 1457, che recano la sua firma.
Le prime tracce documentali risalgono al 7 luglio 1444, quando acquistò la cittadinanza di Bruges insieme alla moglie; nel 1454 lavorò per il conte d'Estampes e quattro anni dopo, 1458, risultava iscritto alla confraternita della Madonna dell'Albero Secco, una delle più prestigiose associazioni del tempo, che contava tra i suoi membri anche i duchi di Borgogna e i banchieri italiani attivi a Bruges (Arnolfini, Portinari).
Viene ritenuto l'erede spirituale dell'arte di Jan van Eyck, del quale potrebbe essere stato allievo, visto che dimostra di aver bene imparato dal maestro la lezione dello spazio, del volume e dell'ambiente, ma la sua maniera denuncia l'influenza di altri grandi artisti fiamminghi del suo tempo: Dirk Bouts, Robert Campin e Rogier van der Weyden. Una suggestiva ipotesi lo vuole autore del completamento di una madonna di van Eyck lasciata incompiuta con la sua morte, oggi alla Frick Collection di New York.
Alcuni ipotizzano anche un viaggio di Christus in Italia: egli fu il primo artista fiammingo ad adottare la costruzione spaziale geometrica e razionale della prospettiva a punto di fuga unico; numerosi suoi clienti erano dopotutto italiani, molti dei quali toscani, ed essi avrebbero potuto spingerlo a venire incontro ai loro gusti.
Dalle analogie artistiche tra Petrus Christus e Antonello da Messina è stato ipotizzato un contatto tra l'artista siciliano e il fiammingo, del quale è stata forse trovata una prova documentaria nei presumibili nomi dei due che compaiono tra i salariati per la partecipazione a una medesima battaglia. D'altra parte, una citazione iconografica di Petrus Christus si ritrova anche nella Deposizione di Colantonio, che di Antonello fu maestro.
Passata la metà del XV secolo i suoi dipinti assumono un tono monumentale, ispirato alle grandi opere di van der Weyden. In qualità di pittore civico della città di Bruges eseguì anche numerose opere effimere, come apparati cerimoniali e decorazioni varie, come quelle per il matrimonio tra Carlo il Temerario e Margherita di York (1468).
Petrus Christus (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈpeː.trʏs ˈkrɪs.tʏs, ˈxrɪs-]; c. 1410/1420 – 1475/1476) was an Early Netherlandish painter active in Bruges from 1444, where, along with Hans Memling, he became the leading painter after the death of Jan van Eyck. He was influenced by van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden and is noted for his innovations with linear perspective and a meticulous technique which seems derived from miniatures and manuscript illumination. Today, some 30 works are confidently attributed to him. The best known include the Portrait of a Carthusian (1446) and Portrait of a Young Girl (c. 1470); both are highly innovative in the presentation of the figure against detailed, rather than flat, backgrounds.
For the period between the death of Jan van Eyck in 1441 and Hans Memling establishing himself in the city in the mid-1460s, Christus was the leading painter in Bruges, which was then the leading Netherlandish centre of painting.
Christus was an anonymous figure for centuries, his importance not established until the work of modern art historians. Giorgio Vasari barely mentions him in his biographies of painters, written in the Renaissance, and near contemporary records merely list him amongst many others. In the early to mid-nineteenth century, Gustav Waagen (who identified him French-style as "Pierre Christophsen") and Johann David Passavant were important in establishing Christus's biographical details and in attributing works to him.
Life
Christus was born in Baarle, near Antwerp and Breda. Long considered a student of and successor to Jan van Eyck, his paintings have sometimes been confused with those of van Eyck. At the death of van Eyck in 1441, it is thought that Christus took over his master's workshop. Christus purchased his Bruges citizenship in 1444, exactly three years after van Eyck's death, taking advantage of a decree set down by Philip the Good allowing in men indebted to him after the Bruges Revolt of 1436–38. Had he been an active pupil in van Eyck's Bruges workshop in 1441, he would have received his citizenship automatically after the customary period of one year and one day. Christus may have been van Eyck's successor in the Bruges school, but perhaps not his pupil. Recent research reveals that Christus, long seen only in his predecessor's light, was an independent painter whose work shows just as much influence from, among others, Dirk Bouts, Robert Campin and Rogier van der Weyden.
It is unknown whether Christus visited Italy, and brought style and technical accomplishments of the Northern European painters directly to Antonello da Messina and other Italian artists, but it is known that his paintings were purchased by Italians from the large community of foreign merchants in Bruges. Indeed, nearly half of his paintings were commissioned by Italians, or have a provenance from Italy or Spain, or were soon copied in those countries.
A document testifying to the presence of a "Piero da Bruggia" (Petrus from Bruges?) in Milan may suggest that he visited that city at the same time as Antonello, and the two artists may even have met. This might account for the remarkable similarities between the Portrait of a Man attributed to Christus in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and many of Antonello's portraits, including the supposed self-portrait in the National Gallery in London. It would also explain how Italian painters learned about oil painting and how Northern painters learned about linear perspective. Antonello, along with Giovanni Bellini, was one of the first Italian painters to use oil paint like his Netherlandish contemporaries. Further, Christus' Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints Francis and Jerome in Frankfurt, seemingly dated 1457 (the third digit is illegible), is the first known Northern picture to demonstrate accurate linear perspective.
In 1462, Christus and his wife, Gaudicine, enrolled at the Confraternity of the Dry Tree, from which his Madonna of the Dry Tree may derive its name. He was made a member of the Guild of Saint Luke and made dean of the guild in 1471. Bruges listed him dead in 1473, though the Metropolitan Museum of Art says he died in 1475 or 1476.
Works
Christus produced at least six signed and dated works, which form the basis for any other attributions to him. These are: the Portrait of Edward Grymeston (on loan to the National Gallery, London, 1446), the Portrait of a Carthusian (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1446), the so-called St. Eligius in His Shop (Metropolitan Museum of Art Robert Lehman Collection, New York, 1449), the Virgin Nursing the Child (now in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, 1449), the so-called "Berlin Altar Wings" with the Annunciation, Nativity, and Last Judgment (Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 1452), and the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints Jerome and Francis (Stadelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1457?). In addition, a pair of panels in the Groeningemuseum in Bruges (showing the Annunciation and Nativity) bears a date of 1452, but its authenticity is suspect.
The composition of a Lamentation, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, seems so closely inspired a marble relief by Antonello Gagini in the cathedral at Palermo that it has been suggested that the picture may have been painted for an Italian client. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has five of the thirty paintings usually attributed to him.
A late work, the reserved Portrait of a Young Girl (c. 1470, Berlin) belongs among the masterworks of Early Netherlandish painting, marking a new development in Netherlandish portraiture. It no longer shows the sitter in front of a neutral background, but in a concrete space defined by the background wall panels. Christus had already perfected this format in his two portraits of 1446. The unknown woman, whose exquisite clothing suggests that she might come from France, radiates an aura of discretion and of nobility, while appearing slightly unreal in the elegant stylization of her form.
The Portrait of a Carthusian is the earliest known example of panel painting with a trompe-l'œil fly.
Petrus Christus - Portrait of a Young Woman Created: circa 1470
Edward Grimston was a diplomat in the service of Henry VI, King of England. He holds a chain of linked SSs, a Lancastrian device, in his hands. On the wall of the room behind him are two shields with his coats of arms.
Petrus christus, ritratto d'uomo con falcone Created: between 1445 and 1450 date 
Saint Eloi Orfèvre (couple bourgeois chez un orfèvre) 1449
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