He hangs on the cross.
Bible in art · John
The Passion: The Crucifixion
Lucas van Leyden · 1521
The Cleveland Museum of Art
The tenth plate of Lucas van Leyden’s Passion of 1521. In so small a space he keeps the cross upright in the middle, with mourners at one side and soldiers at the other.
Jesus hangs on the cross under the sign “INRI”. His mother and John stand at the left. At the right, soldiers watch and point, and a sponge rises on a stick. A skull lies at the foot of the cross.
From the text
- The notice on the cross: “JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS” (John 19:19)
- “Woman, here is your son” (John 19:26)
- A sponge with sour wine lifted to His mouth (John 19:29)
The artist’s own
- A skull and bone at the foot of the cross — painters of the time put them there after an old tradition that Adam was buried at Golgotha
- “INRI” — the first letters of the Latin notice
Details
Jesus
Mary and John
His mother and the disciple stand at the left.
The sponge
A sponge on a stick.
The skull
A skull at the foot of the cross.
Lucas van Leyden, Netherlandish, 1494–about 1533. The Cleveland Museum of Art (Dudley P. Allen Fund, 1923.55.10) · Engraving · Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access: Collection API record "share_license_status": "CC0" (Creative Commons Zero, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).