Hand-painted in oil
About this Artwork
Christ carrying the cross
The episode is the road from the judgement to Calvary. The synoptic gospels bring in Simon of Cyrene to take the weight; John has Christ carry it himself. Out of that road came a distinct devotional type in which the crowd falls away entirely and only a bust-length figure and the beam remain — the episode reduced to a face, two hands, and a diagonal of wood.
Where it falls in the sequence
Between the sentence and the Crucifixion. It is the last of the Passion scenes in motion; from the arrival at Calvary onward the cycle is fixed in one place until the entombment.
The record
The catalogue names El Greco, dates the work to 1578, and places it in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. It measures 108 by 78 centimetres, upright and close to half life size — the scale of a devotional picture rather than an altarpiece. The style is classed as Mannerism and late Renaissance and the artist as Spanish; the subject fields class the work as a single male figure and as religious. The measured palette reads as brown.
Sources
9 references- Greco, Nicolás — Getty ULAN
Spanish artist, active late 16th - early 17th century
- El Greco — Wikipedia
Doménikos Theotokópoulos (Greek: Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος, pronounced [ðoˈminikos θeotoˈkopulos]; 1 October 1541 – 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco (Spanish pronunciation: [el ˈɣɾeko]; "The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor
- Greco, El — Getty ULAN
Greek painter, 1541-1614, active in Spain
- Christ Carrying the Cross — Wikidata
description: painting by El Greco; inception: 1580-01-01; dimensions: 105 × 79 cm; collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Christ Carrying the Cross (El Greco, New York) — Wikipedia
Christ Carrying the Cross is an oil painting by El Greco, produced early in his Toledo period circa de 1580. The picture depicts Christ in a moment of personal reflection as he carries the cross to his death, therefore committing the ultima
- metmuseum.org — reference for "Christ Carrying the Cross (El Greco, New York)"
Authoritative source for this work (metmuseum.org).
- doi.org — reference for "Christ Carrying the Cross (El Greco, New York)"
Authoritative source for this work (doi.org).
- academia.edu — reference for "Christ Carrying the Cross (El Greco, New York)"
Authoritative source for this work (academia.edu).
- El Greco - Christ Carrying the Cross - Google Art Project — Wikimedia Commons
High-resolution image of the work, hosted on Wikimedia Commons.
