A figure in a white veil with folded hands.
Bible in art · Luke
What Our Lord Saw from the Cross (Ce que voyait Notre-Seigneur sur la Croix)
James Tissot · 1886–1894
Brooklyn Museum, New York
Tissot’s most unusual viewpoint: the scene on Golgotha as Jesus would have seen it from the cross. We look down on the open ground below, where a group of women kneel and stand together in white, red and dark mantles, one lying on the ground in grief.
Further back, soldiers, priests on donkeys and a whole crowd sit and stand on the hillside, watching. A rock tomb opens in the slope beyond. Of the crucifixion itself, nothing is shown.
From the text
- “The people stood watching, and the rulers sneered at Him” (Luke 23:35)
- The women who had followed Him from Galilee (Luke 23:49)
The artist’s own
- The whole scene painted from the place of the cross
- Priests riding donkeys among the onlookers
Details
A figure in white
The women
Women in dark mantles kneel together.
On donkeys
Elders ride up on donkeys to watch.
A soldier
A Roman in a red cloak stands guard.
James Tissot, French, 1836–1902. Brooklyn Museum, New York (Purchased by public subscription, 00.159.299) · Opaque watercolor over graphite on gray-green wove paper · Brooklyn Museum (Commons file page, «Permission»): "This image was uploaded by the Brooklyn Museum as a content partnership, and is considered to have no known copyright restrictions by the institutions of the Brooklyn Museum." — "No known copyright restrictions".