El Greco (1541-1614)
Cristo abrazado a la cruz (Christ Carrying the Cross)
c.1577–1587
Oil on canvas, 105 x 79 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
During his long career in Spain, El Greco produced numerous paintings of Christ carrying the cross. The Lehman canvas, arguably his earliest version of the subject, is not a narrative scene: no other figures are represented and the setting is not recognizable. Instead, it is a devotional image of haunting immediacy and resonant with pathos. Christ’s willing sacrifice for mankind is expressed through his gentle embrace of the cross and his heavenward gaze. (MET)