"Crucify Him"

At the beginning of his career, Ivan Glazunov created the iconic painting “Crucify him!” to capture the moment of Christ’s betrayal to the death penalty. On the canvas is Christ, in a bloody robe and a crown of thorns. In silent solitude, he confronts a roaring crowd of Jews and Roman guards. The governor said, “What evil has he done? But they shouted even more strongly: let him be crucified.” Pilate, seeing that nothing helped, but the confusion was increasing, took water and washed his hands before the people, and said, “I am innocent in the blood of this Righteous One; you look.” And, answering, all the people said, “His blood is on us and on our children” (Matt 27: 23-25).

There are many paintings on this topic, but none of them show an explicit confrontation between Jesus Christ and the people of Israel. In this art, Christ stands high above the crowd; he is alone; there is no one nearby, Pontius Pilate, the Roman soldiers are far away. The people around are agitated, their mouths are open in screaming, and their hands are reaching out to Christ. It seems that if left alone with the crowd, people will pounce Him with waving sticks and commit an unjust judgment. That is why such interpretations are needed to awaken the conscience of people. It is easy to look for the guilty somewhere out there, but it is difficult to ask from oneself – where would you be if Christ were judged today? In the crowd of those who persecute Him, or with Him on the platform of judgment, and then in torment on the cross? Canvas “Crucify Him!” Christ, tormented, in a crown of thorns and torn robe, asks: “What will you choose – the path of Truth or the path of betrayal?”

Pilate shows the people the already beaten, as if punished, Christ, saying “Behold the Man!,” claiming that He is not a king, and therefore, innocent. When the chief priests and ministers saw Him, they cried out, “Crucify, crucify Him!” Pilate says to them, “Take him you, and crucify him; for I find no fault in Him.” The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to our law, He must die, because He made Himself the Son of God.” Pilate, hearing this word, was more afraid (John 19: 6-8). After that, Pilate, suspecting that this accused’s case was more complicated than the Jews had presented to him, took Jesus to the praetorium (his residence) and tried to find out where from did Jesus come. But He did not answer.

The scroll in Pilate’s hands is a letter from his wife Claudia Procula, in which she asks not to put Christ to death, “do nothing to the Righteous One, because now in my sleep I suffered a lot for Him” (Matt 27:19). It further strengthened the procurator’s conviction that Christ must be released. But the crowd, incited by the high priests, shouted, “If you let Him go, you are not a friend to Caesar” (John 19:12), the ruler of the Roman Empire, and the procurator yielded, fearing that he would be accused of conniving at the state criminal.