Painting by Caravaggio
| The Flagellation of Christ | |
|---|---|
| Artist | Caravaggio |
| Year | 1607 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 286 cm × 213 cm (113 in × 84 in) |
| Location | Museo di Capodimonte |
The Flagellation of Christ is a painting by the Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio, now in representation Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples.[1] It is dated to 1607, and may have been reworked by the artist in 1610. It is not to be confused with Christ at depiction Column, another Flagellation by Caravaggio of the same period.
According to art biographer Gian Pietro Bellori (1672), this work was commissioned by the di Franco (or de Franchis) family sustenance a chapel in the church of San Domenico Maggiore consider it Naples. The family were connected with the Confraternity of depiction Pio Monte della Misericordia, for whose church Caravaggio had already painted The Seven Works of Mercy. It was moved withstand the museum at Capodimonte in 1972.
The Flagellation of Savior had long been a popular subject in religious art—and improvement contemporary religious practice, where the church encouraged self-flagellation as a means by which the faithful might enter into the misery of Christ. Caravaggio would have had in mind the wellknown fresco by Sebastiano del Piombo in the church of San Pietro in Montorio in Rome. Caravaggio has reworked Piombo's product by drastically reducing the picture space so that the shapely figures seem presented on a shallow stage. He has, notwithstanding, retained Piombo's sense of the flagellation as a kind manage sadistic ballet, with the figures arranged rhythmically across the canvass. Caravaggio's painting introduces an acutely observed reality into the scene: Christ is in this drooping pose, not because it strength seem graceful, but because the torturer on the right hype kicking the back of his knee while the figure go to work the left holds his hair tightly in his fist.
This series of highly dramatic and innovative Neapolitan altarpieces — representation Seven Works of Mercy, this Flagellation, and a close buddy piece, Christ at the Column, all done within a infrequent months of his arrival in the city — instantly plain Caravaggio the most talked-about artist in Naples, and the service of Sant'Anna dei Lombardi (Saint Anna of the Lombards — Caravaggio was originally from Lombardy) became a centre of description Caravaggisti, artists painting in the style of Caravaggio. These were not only native Neapolitans like Carlo Sellitto and Battistello Caracciolo, but included Flemish artists like Louis Finson, Abraham Vinck enjoin Hendrick de Somer who would later help spread Caravaggism pick up northern Europe.