My prior Art posts can be found HERE.
How do we move away from being a civilization that produces art that causes comments like, “my five year old could make this,” back to being one that creates beauty and inspires deep questions? We must reject modernity and embrace tradition. To embrace tradition, we must first learn about it..
Let’s study art history together.
The Crowning with Thorns
| Artist | Caravaggio |
|---|---|
| Year | c. 1602/1604 or 1607 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 127 cm × 165.5 cm (50 in × 65.2 in) |
| Location | Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
This is one of the most famous depictions of the Crowning of Thorns in art history. It was commissioned by Vincenzo Giustiniani and there is some historical debate about when the painting was completed.
The painting is a somber look at one of the events from the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Using his customary focus on shadow and light to highlight his message, the painter portrays an innocent Jesus and the sadism of his Roman torturers. Caravaggio also includes a Roman soldier on the left who seems almost bored with what is happening. The painting really focuses on Christ’s exposed neck, which thus portrays Him in some respects as prey (a lamb) to the wolves around him. It’s powerful.
The bored soldier is depicted in armor that is not historically accurate, but rather is more in line with what might be worn in the painter’s own time. This sends a subtle message to the audience that though the hostircal Romans did this, it is also we who did this.
(more via wiki)
The Crowning with Thorns is a painting by the Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Made probably in 1602/1604 or possibly around 1607, it is now located in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. It was bought in Rome by the Imperial ambassador, Baron Ludwig von Lebzelter in 1809, but did not arrive in Vienna until 1816.
History
According to Caravaggio’s biographer Giovanni Bellori, The Crowning with Thorns was made for Caravaggio’s patron Vincenzo Giustiniani and can be traced convincingly to the Giustiniani collection. An attribution to Giustiniani would place it in the period before 1606, when Caravaggio fled Rome, but Peter Robb dates it to 1607, when the artist was in Naples.
The painting depicts a crown of thorns being forced onto the head of Jesus before his crucifixion to mock his claim to authority. The twisted body of Christ was influenced by the Belvedere Torso. The painting was designed as a supraporte to be hung over a doorway.
Style
Caravaggio’s patron Vincenzo Giustiniani was an intellectual as well as a collector, and late in life he wrote a paper about art in which he identified twelve grades of accomplishment. In the highest class he named just two artists, Caravaggio and Annibale Carracci, as those capable of combining realism and style in the most accomplished manner. This Crowning with Thorns illustrates what Giustiniani meant: the cruelty of the two torturers hammering home the thorns is depicted as acutely observed reality, as is the bored slouch of the official leaning on the rail as he oversees the death of God; meanwhile Christ is suffering real pain with patient endurance; all depicted within a classical composition of contrasting and intersecting horizontals and diagonals.
The theme of pain and sadism is central to the work.
For more on Caravaggio, I highly recommend the following video:
