The Passion of Christ
34 artworks found
The Passion is a sequence, not a single image: the agony in the garden, the arrest, the mocking, the road to Calvary, the Crucifixion, the deposition, the entombment. Painters treated it as a narrative and expected viewers to know where they had joined it.
Agony in the Garden by El Greco - Framed Canvas
By: El Greco
Angel Holding the Body of Christ by Nikolaos Kallergis - Framed Canvas
By: Nikolaos Kallergis
Christ Carrying the Cross by Sebastiano del Piombo - Framed Canvas
By: Sebastiano del Piombo
Christ Carrying the Cross by Boccaccio Boccaccino - Framed Canvas
By: Boccaccio Boccaccino
Burial of Christ by Carl Bloch - Framed Canvas
By: Carl Bloch
Christ Taking Leave of His Mother by Albrecht Altdorfer - Framed Canvas
By: Albrecht Altdorfer
Christ Crowned with Thorns by Cima da Conegliano - Framed Canvas
By: Cima da Conegliano
Christ Crowned with Thorns by Hendrick ter Brugghen - Framed Canvas
By: Hendrick ter Brugghen
Carrying of the Cross by Jacob Jordaens - Framed Canvas
By: Jacob Jordaens
Christ Crucified by Diego Velázquez - Framed Canvas
By: Diego Velázquez
Christ in Gethsemane by Heinrich Hofmann - Framed Canvas
By: Heinrich Hofmann
Entombment of Christ by Annibale Carracci - Framed Canvas
By: Annibale Carracci
Descent from the Cross by Pedro Machuca - Framed Canvas
By: Pedro Machuca
Lamentation by David Teniers the Younger - Framed Canvas
By: David Teniers the Younger
Lamentation over the Dead Christ by Giovanni Battista Naldini - Framed Canvas
By: Giovanni Battista Naldini
Ecce Homo by Matthias Stom - Framed Canvas
By: Matthias Stom
Ecce Homo by Mihály Munkácsy - Framed Canvas
By: Mihály Munkácsy
Jesus Mocked by the Soldiers by Édouard Manet - Framed Canvas
By: Édouard Manet
Ecce Homo by Philippe de Champaigne - Framed Canvas
By: Philippe de Champaigne
Crucifixion by Josse Lieferinxe - Framed Canvas
By: Josse Lieferinxe
Pietà by William-Adolphe Bouguereau - Framed Canvas
By: William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Gethsemane by Carl Bloch - Framed Canvas
By: Carl Bloch
Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows by Adriaen Isenbrant - Framed Canvas
By: Adriaen Isenbrant
Saint Veronica by Lorenzo Costa - Framed Canvas
By: Lorenzo Costa
The Agony in the Garden by Benvenuto Tisi - Framed Canvas
By: Benvenuto Tisi
The Agony in the Garden by Ambrogio Bergognone - Framed Canvas
By: Ambrogio Bergognone
Mysteries of Christ's Passion by Antonio Campi - Framed Canvas
By: Antonio Campi
The Dead Christ with Angels by Édouard Manet - Matte Canvas
By: Édouard Manet
The Deposition by Bartolomeo Schedoni - Framed Canvas
By: Bartolomeo Schedoni
The Carrying of the Cross by Simone Martini - Framed Canvas
By: Simone Martini
The Disrobing of Christ by El Greco - Matte Canvas
By: El Greco
The Way to Calvary by Jacopo Bassano - Framed Canvas
By: Jacopo Bassano
The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio - Framed Canvas
By: Caravaggio
Virgem dolorosa by Pedro Américo - Matte Canvas
By: Pedro Américo
The Passion as a sequence
The sequence exists physically in most Catholic churches as the Stations of the Cross, and much Passion painting was made for that setting — designed to be walked past in order, each panel needing to be legible in a few seconds from several feet away. That constraint explains the compositional bluntness of many of them, which is a solution rather than a failure.
The Agony in the Garden is where painters had the most freedom, because almost nothing happens in it. Christ prays, the disciples sleep, and the drama is entirely interior. Painters reached for landscape and darkness to carry it: an olive grove at night, a cup or an angel at the edge of vision, the sleeping men rendered with a naturalism that makes the solitude worse.
The Deposition and the Pietà are the emotional centre of the tradition, and they invert the Madonna and Child deliberately. The same two figures, the same arrangement of a mother holding her son, thirty years later. Painters from Giotto onward relied on the viewer feeling the echo without being told, and the strongest versions do almost nothing to help — they simply place the body across the lap and let the earlier picture do the work.