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Ecce Homo

Albrecht Dürer

1515

From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art

Renaissance Renaissance

Dominant colour

Ecce Homo is a 1515 by Albrecht Dürer, a Renaissance work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.

Who painted this?: Albrecht Dürer
When & what style?: 1515 · Renaissance
Where can I see it?: Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

You see a dramatic scene of Christ being presented to the people. The artist used a burin on a copperplate to create detailed textures and tonal areas. This technique allowed for a high level of detail and emotion in the scene. Check out the technique of chiaroscuro to learn more about how artists like Albrecht Dürer created dramatic effects with light and dark.

The story of this work

Overview

This scene of the presentation of Christ to the people, or ecce homo (“behold the man”) from the Engraved Passion series exemplifies Albrecht Dürer’s instinct for the graphic possibilities of the engraved line. Working with a burin on a copperplate, he crossed lines at different angles and varied the thickness of the lines to create dramatic tonal areas and highly descriptive textures. In this closely cropped composition, the focus on Christ’s clenched and pained body as he stands in judgment before a crowd contrasts with the disinterest emanating from the man standing calmly before him.

Read the full account in the museum source.