The Crucifixion
Francisco de Zurbarán (Spanish, 1598–1664)
1627
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 290.3 × 165.5 cm (114 5/16 × 65 3/16 in.); Framed: 339.1 × 212.1 × 14 cm (133 3/8 × 83 1/2 × 5 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Spain
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Robert A. Waller Memorial Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
In 1626 the Dominican monastery of San Pablo el Real in Seville, Spain, commissioned the young Francisco de Zurbarán to execute a cycle of paintings including The Crucifixion. This work was installed in a dimly lit space in the monastery and was visible to visitors through a grill. Early commentators remarked on its powerful illusion of three-dimensionality, as though it was a sculpture rather than a painting. The dramatically illuminated figure of Christ, set against a dark, empty background, appears outside of time and place, both idealized in its quiet beauty and humanized by the individualized face and insistent realism.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
