Crucifixion

Tempera On Panel* - 1487
By: Carlo Crivelli (1430/35 - 1495) Italian Painter, Venetian School, Early Renaissance


Art Institute Chicago USA

* Tempera painting, painting executed with pigment ground in a water-miscible medium. The word tempera originally came from the verb temper, “to bring to a desired consistency.” Dry pigments are made usable by “tempering” them with a binding and adhesive vehicle. Such painting was distinguished from fresco painting, the colours for which contained no binder. Eventually, after the rise of oil painting, the word gained its present meaning. (Source: Britannica Online)

Description

In this altarpiece, the face of Christ is more vivid because in the back there is a blue sky, that could be the heaven, the message is that the cross is the link between the terrestrial and the celestial worlds.

Christ is dead, on his left there is a suffering Mary, only the pray can reduce her pain.

On the right there is a  saint who look at Christ, it seems to me that he is speaking to him.

The location is the Golgotha, where Christ and Adam were buried, represented by the skull at the bottom of the cross.

The city in the background is Jerusalem.

On the side of Mary we see a green vegetation, but not on the opposite side, where is rocky and dry, there is no sign of life.

On both left the trees are without foliages.

The meaning of the trees are that the wood has been used to built the cross of Christ or they have been planted for the knowledge of the good and evil.