"The Way of the Cross"

Ryder was sometimes viewed by succeeding American painters as prophetically linking tradition to Modernism, and this painting feels saturated with both traditional religious sentiment and a Modernist interest in abstraction. It is a striking juxtaposition of light and dark, an almost chalice-like rendering of luminosity.  Joseph's gesture towards the extraordinarily small cross on the dark ground takes on a powerful poignancy. In this way, the painting tells us a great deal about Ryder's interest in what we might see by looking into his paintings deeply enough. The tonal layers over a largely monochromatic underbody create this sense of a surface to be peered into for illumination. His colors are never clean and always feel like there is something beyond them, the presence of that strange light saturating everything. 

The space between Joseph and Mary feels just tense, her pregnancy no longer worldly, Joseph's gesture almost sad in its acknowledgment that his young wife is no longer his alone.