1518
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Descent from the Cross is a 1518 by Ugo da Carpi, a Renaissance work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see men lowering Christ’s body from the cross while others watch in the shadows. This print is one of the first times the technique called chiaroscuro—using light and dark blocks to build depth—was used in Italy. The design is based on a drawing by Raphael, but Ugo da Carpi cut the woodblocks himself. To see how the same light-and-shadow trick works in paintings, look up the technique chiaroscuro.
Ugo da Carpi was influential in the development of the chiaroscuro woodcut in Italy. The term chiaroscuro combines the Italian words chiaro (light) and scuro (dark). Invented to emulate drawings with light and dark pigments on tinted paper, the printing technique uses multiple woodblocks to layer different tones of color. The Descent from the Cross is one of the earliest chiaroscuro woodcuts by Ugo da Carpi. This print credits Raphael with its design: it was inspired by one of Raphael's now-lost drawings for a scene of Deposition that he should have painted in Loggie Vaticane. In a…
This three-block chiaroscuro woodcut is known in two states. These differ for a small detail: the inscription with Raphael's name in the lower margin of the frame, and Ugo's name inscribed in the light tone block inside the small board at lower right, as seen in the CMA example.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Ugo da Carpi (c. 1450–1480 – c. 1523–1532) was an Italian printmaker active between 1502 and 1532 in the cities of Venice, Rome and Bologna. He is known for his technical and stylistic contributions to the chiaroscuro…
See the richer artist page
