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Matthias Grünewald (artist) German, c. 1475/1480 - 1528 The Small Crucifixion, c. 1511/1520 oil on panel Overall: 61.3 x 46 cm (24 1/8 x 18 1/8 in.) framed: 74.4 x 59 x 2.5 cm (29 5/16 x 23 1/4 x 1 in.) Samuel H. Kress Collection 1961.9.19 On View |
Matthias Grünewald's Small Crucifixion is a masterful example of that artist's ability to translate his deep spiritual faith into pictorial form. Each individual, according to Grünewald, must reexperience within himself not only the boundless joy of Christ's triumphs but also the searing pains of his Crucifixion.
In order to communicate this mystical belief, Grünewald resorted to a mixture of ghastly realism and coloristic expressiveness. Silhouetted against a greenish-blue sky and illuminated by an undefined light source, Christ's haggard and emaciated frame sags limply on the cross. The details -- the twisted and gnarled feet and hands, the crown of thorns, the agonized look upon Jesus' face, and the ragged loincloth -- bear strident witness to physical suffering and emotional torment. This abject mood is intensified by the anguished expressions and demonstrative gestures of John the Evangelist, the Virgin Mary, and the kneeling Mary Magdalene.
Grünewald's dissonant, eerie colors were also rooted in biblical fact. The murky sky, for instance, corresponds to Saint Luke's description of "a darkness over all the earth." Grünewald, who himself witnessed a full eclipse in 1502, has recreated here the dark and rich tonalities associated with such natural phenomena.
Today, only twenty paintings by Grünewald are extant, and The Small Crucifixion is the only one of them in America.