The painting shows Christ half length, emerging from a stark black background. Cloaked in a dark red robe, Christ carries the cross on his left shoulder, his elongated and mannered hands clutching at the horizontal beam, illustrating the extensive weight of the load he bears. Christ looks down to his right, away from the viewer, with an expression of pain and suffering. His eyelids are heavy, and a single tear falls down his cheek, his lips are slightly parted as though crying out in anguish; his forehead is marked with the bruised skin piercings, stained with beads of crimson droplets of blood, that denote where the crown of thorns once rested upon his head.
The painting may be compared with several paintings by Morales with the same subject: the best versions in terms of quality remain in Spain, the first in Osuna (Colegiata de Osuna) and the second in Valencia (Museo del Patriarca). The version in Valencia was painted for Juan de Ribera, who became one of Morales's main patrons after having his portrait painted in 1564 (Madrid, Museo del Prado), when he was Bishop of Badajoz (1562-68). All three paintings are very personal responses to a famous prototype, very well-known and admired in Spain, by the Venetian painter Sebastiano del Piombo.
Morales's rendering of the subject responds to the religiosity of Ribera, a profoundly felt devotion inspired by great mystics like Luis de Granada. Spanish patrons favored dramatically concentrated images, stripped of accessory features that establishes an intimate relationship between the worshipper and the object of devotion. Images of the suffering Christ were well suited to this purpose, and various contemporary sources reveal the empathy they aroused.
Text: J. Paul Getty Trust, CC BY 4.0.
