1670 (ca.), Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Christ on the Cross -- Timken Museum of Art (San Diego)
From the museum label: This painting by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo is dark and imposing. From out of a murky background, the figure of Christ emerges. His arms are spread wide apart and the body is clearly ravaged with pain. He gazes upward. A crown of thorns is placed on his brow and a faint suggestion of a halo illuminates the head from behind. At the base of the cross, skeletal remains are scattered among the rocks and barren earth. The skull is an iconographical reference to Adam, whose original sin Christ's own death redeems. We are given direct, privileged access to the final moments of this sacrifice and the artist asks us to contemplate its significance. The work belongs to the last phase of Murillo's successful career as a devotional painter and was painted in Seville, the artist's hometown and an important Spanish art center, sometime between 1660 and 1670.
1670 (ca.), Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Christ on the Cross -- Timken Museum of Art (San Diego)
From the museum label: This painting by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo is dark and imposing. From out of a murky background, the figure of Christ emerges. His arms are spread wide apart and the body is clearly ravaged with pain. He gazes upward. A crown of thorns is placed on his brow and a faint suggestion of a halo illuminates the head from behind. At the base of the cross, skeletal remains are scattered among the rocks and barren earth. The skull is an iconographical reference to Adam, whose original sin Christ's own death redeems. We are given direct, privileged access to the final moments of this sacrifice and the artist asks us to contemplate its significance. The work belongs to the last phase of Murillo's successful career as a devotional painter and was painted in Seville, the artist's hometown and an important Spanish art center, sometime between 1660 and 1670.