Next week is Easter week!  To celebrate and educate, let’s look at five famous depictions of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth (although the Wikipedia article on this notes that artistic images of crucifixions actually predate his lifetime.)

Crucifixion with the Virgins, Saints and Angels (1502-3) by Raphael

Raphael’s one of the greatest artists of the Italian Renaissance (only marginally outshone by his Ninja Turtle counterpart). This altarpiece is one of his early works, revealing the influence of his master Perugino in its slightly stiff composition, counterbalanced by the artist’s realistic depiction of the human body and perspective. Attendant at the cross are (from left to right) the Virgin Mary, St Jerome, Mary Magdalene and a rather feminine-looking St John the Evangelist.

Crucifixion (1617) by Pieter Brueghel the Younger

The Northern Renaissance in Germany and the Netherlands is every bit as fascinating as the Italian Renaissance, as it came about in the context of the Protestant Reformation and wars for independence – i.e. there was a rejection of centralised power in favour of a less hierarchical vision of the community. We see this reflected in this work by Pieter Brueghel the Younger (his father is the more famous one) where the image of Jesus is reduced to a mere Where’s Wally character amidst the heaving throng.

White Crucifixion (1938) by Marc Chagall

Chagall was one of the early modernists, a celebrated character in Parisian art circles, known for his bold use of colour and his fusion of various movements (Cubism, Fauvism, Symbolism, Surrealism) to birth his own unique style. He was also Jewish, and smart enough to realise that something bad was going down for the Jews of Europe in the 1930s. His Jesus wears a Jewish prayer shawl as a loincloth, while a soldier with a swastika on his armband burns down a synagogue in the background.

Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) (1954) by Salvador Dali

Dali, the great Surrealist artist known for his crazy moustache and melting clocks, was not actually a religious man. However, he was fascinated with religious iconography, especially the Catholicism of his native Spain, and thus tried to fuse antique and futuristic notions of the sublime in this painting. Here, Jesus is seen crucified on the net of a hypercube: a four-dimensional mathematical object.  (A clearer image of a hypercube may be viewed here.)

Piss Christ by Andres Serrano (1987)

This is one of the most controversial art works in history: a photograph of a cheap plastic icon of Jesus on the cross immersed in what the artist describes as his own urine. It’s part of a series of images of religious icons (referencing Serrano’s own staunchly Roman Catholic upbringing) he photographed in milk, blood and urine. Though variously condemned as blasphemous – and even hysterically vandalised – the work has also been described as a commentary on what we, as a society, have done to the legacy of Jesus.

Next month is Vesak Day! Shall we talk about famous Buddhas then?