MOMENT OF TREACHERY

AFTER nearly two years of negotiations, Minneapolis Institute of Arts Director Richard S. Davis this week announced the acquisition of a handsome new Easter gift for Minneapolis: Anthony van Dyck's Betrayal of Christ. Bought for an estimated $135,000 from a Manhattan art dealer, the painting is a blazing work done by the 17th century Flemish painter when he was barely 23. It has long been recognized as one of the century's outstanding religious paintings, is ranked by Director Davis as "a breath of genius."

In the Easter story. Van Dyck chose to depict the high moment of treachery when Judas kisses Jesus, betraying his identity to the onrushing soldiers and servants of Jerusalem's chief priests and elders. For Van Dyck, who was Peter Paul Rubens' favorite pupil, such a scene of action-packed drama was an ideal subject. He gave it all of his young mastery of whirling shapes, lurid lighting and heightened emotion.

Van Dyck gained freshness and spontaneity by painting directly on the canvas after only the barest preliminary sketches. His armed soldiers enter the picture like a torrent, then eddy about the calm figure of Christ.

But in his quick extemporizing, the youthful Van Dyck also left the canvas with some unresolved problems. The yellow robe of Judas, as he turns to betray Jesus, billows stiffly, forming a disconcerting, nostril-like free form; Peter's violent attack against Malchus (one of the high priest's servants) is nearly thrown off the picture at lower left.

Van Dyck himself seems to have been aware of these defects. When Rubens so admired the Betrayal that he asked Van Dyck to make a larger version, Van Dyck repositioned Malchus and remolded Judas' cloak. The results so pleased Philip IV of Spain that, after Rubens' death, he purchased the version, which today hangs in Madrid's Prado Museum.

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