The Crucifixion
Carlo Crivelli
1482–1492
- Medium
- Tempera on panel
- Dimensions
- 75 × 55.2 cm (29 9/16 × 21 3/4 in.); Framed: 91.4 × 72.1 × 10.2 cm (36 × 28 3/8 × 4 in.)
- Genre
- painting
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Styles
Tags
religionpainting15th centurypaintChicago World's FairsJesusCentury of ProgressMourningplant materialwindboatsdesertsdeathpanel paintingpainting (image making)crucifixionspainting techniquesItalianplantsVirgin MarySaintsRenaissancewood (plant material)Christian subjectsreligiousworld's fairsbiblicalorganic materialrockspanel (wood)european paintingChristianitytempera
About
Carlo Crivelli’s vivid style married the beautiful with the grotesque. Here, the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist gaze in anguish at Jesus on the cross. Crivelli enhanced the scene’s morbidness by depicting Jesus emaciated and puffy-eyed, his mouth agape, with blood dripping from his wounds. As subtle hints toward his eventual victory over death, wind animates his loincloth and inflates the sail of a boat in the distance, while verdant plants shoot up from cracks in the rocky, arid terrain.
