Descent from the Cross
Max Beckmann, 1917
Image not available: work still under copyright
Max Beckmann painted this work in 1917, shortly after his harsh years serving in the German Army during the First World War, an experience that reshaped his approach to painting in the following years. The canvas takes up a traditional subject, the taking down of Jesus of Nazareth from the cross, but treats it very differently from customary depictions. Beckmann drew in particular on German Renaissance painters such as Matthias Grünewald and Hans Holbein, and it has been suggested that the picture may answer a challenge from the curator Gustav Hartmann, who wanted something as forceful as ancient German art.
At the centre sits an oversized body of Christ, pale and stiff with rigor mortis, marked by bruises and sores, with pools of coagulated blood around the stigmata. His outstretched arms still recall the crucifixion. The composition mixes several viewpoints and distorted figures: a darkened sun appears at the upper left, while two women, reduced in scale, kneel at the lower right. Two men lower the body, and their ladder extends beyond the edge of the painting, as if pointing towards Heaven.
- Painter
- Max Beckmann
- Date
- 1917
- Medium
- oil paint, canvas
- Dimensions
- 151 × 129 cm
- Museum
- "degenerate art" collection
- Genre
- religious art
- Depicts
- Descent from the Cross, Jesus Christ