Jesus' Crucifixion In Art

The painting is in oils on canvas and its dimensions are 157 x 210 cm. It is owned by the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid. Ribera painted two other known canvases of the same subject. One is in the San Martino Museum and the other is in the National Gallery, London.

The work is part of a transition period in which the artist, without leaving the shadows of tenebrism, began to experiment with brighter coloring inspired by the work of artists such as Rubens and van Dyck.

The body of Christ is framed horizontally in the foreground of the composition. On the right, John the Apostle supports the subject's back while the grieving Mary Magdalene kisses Christ's feet. In the center is Mary with a face ravaged by pain looking to the sky and placing her hands together in prayer. At the upper right, the face of Joseph of Arimathea emerges from the darkness, veiled by the chiaroscuro technique.

Metsu, who like Vermeer was Catholic, borrowed the youth’s pose from the Pietà. In the final phase of his career (he died at 38), he painted large religious scenes. One of them is this dark, phantasmagorial crucifixion that pales in comparison to his genre paintings.