1480
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Christ on the Cross is a 1480 by Martin Schongauer, a Renaissance work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a thin, suffering Christ on a cross, with two mourners on the left and two soldiers on the right. The soldiers look straight at you, pointing up at Christ. Schongauer made this as an engraving—tiny lines cut into metal that could be printed again and again. That’s why the details are so sharp: every wrinkle in the fabric, every thorn in the crown. It was a way to spread the image far and wide in the 1400s. Look up *sfumato* to see how later artists softened edges like these.
Martin Schongauer engraved several variations of the Crucifixion, often inspired by fifteenth-century Netherlandish paintings of the same subject. Here, the thin and emaciated body of Christ hangs at the top of a central cross. On the left, saint John the Evangelist supports the fainting Virgin Mary. On the right, the Roman Centurion and the spear-bearing soldier Longinus (who would later stab Christ to make sure he was dead) look sorrowfully at the viewer and gesture toward Christ. The development of early printing methods during the fifteenth century offered more people personal devotional…
According to tradition, both the Roman Centurion and the spear-bearer Longinus, seen here to the right of the cross, converted to Christianity at the time of Crucifixion.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Martin Schongauer, also known as Martin Schön or Hübsch Martin by his contemporaries, was an Alsatian engraver and painter.
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