It’s as fascinating to compare artists’ interpretation of the resurrection of Christ as those of the crucifiction; though, as I pointed out in my post on Rogier ven der Wyden’s Miraflores Altarpiece, the resurrection has been much less frequently depicted in the history of art, despite its importance as a Christian observance.

Here, in a polyptych (multi-panel) for Santi Nazaro e Celso in Brescia, the great Venetian painter Tiziano Vecellio, commonly known as Titian, has applied his mastery to a heroic depiction of Christ, almost appearing to physically stand on the clouds above Brescia, the town in which the painting resides (at the request of Titian’s patron, who is depicted in the lower left panel).

The foreground figures of those witnessing the event are cast in shadow, their reactions downplayed in relation to the figure of Christ against a dramatic sky.

It’s interesting to compare this work to Ruben’s similarly heroic triptych, Albrecht Altdorfer’s wonderfully dramatic sky and Matthias Gruenwald’s stunningly presented event, all of which make the reaction of the observers a major component of the drama.

My favorite panel in this work, however, is Titian’s portrayal of the Archangel Gabriel (image above, bottom).

I know little about illustrator Jon Sullivan, except that he has done numerous science fiction and fantasy themed illustrations and covers for companies like TSR and Tor.

His scenes of dragons, aliens, warriors, beasts and the landscapes of strange worlds are ablaze with fiery electric color, brilliant lights, arcs of electricity and the neon glow of futuristic technology.

Sullivan uses lots of contrasting complimentary colors to punch up the intensity of his hues, along with juxtapositions of sharp value contrasts. In some images he also utilizes a limited palette with the attention drawn to limited passages of one or two high chroma colors.

Everything is in the service of drama and the suggestion of epic struggles, which is part fo the great fun in this kind of fantasy illustration.

The galleries on his site are unfortunately a bit awkward to navigate. There are several galleries of thumbnails that can be clicked on for larger images. Some of them reward subsequent clicks with larger images or detail crops, while others return you to the thumbnails, and some of them return you to a different thumbnail page than the one from which you first accessed the image, making it difficult to systematically look through the images.

There is also a Flickr set of his illustrations, and a smaller gallery accompanying an article on io9.

Armand Baltazar is a concept artist, illustrator and gallery artist based in California.

Originally from Chicago, he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, Northern Illinois University and after a time working in advertising, went on to to earn a second BFA in illustration from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

His animation concept art credits include Prince of Egypt, The Road to Eldorado, Sinbad, Shark Tale and Flushed Away.

His online portfolio is divided into sections for animation, illustration and fine art. In the latter two you will find examples of a rough textured painterly stye that is a wonderful counterpoint to his more refined concept and illustration pieces.

His gallery paintings include figure painting and drawings as well as subjects like farm machinery and trains.