The Crowning with Thorns (Caravaggio)

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The Crowning with Thorns
Caravaggio, c. 1602/1604 or 1607
Oil on canvas
127 × 165,5 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

The Crowning with Thorns is a painting by the Italian master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Exectued probably in 1602/1604 or possibly around 1607, it is now located in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

According to Caravaggio's biographer Giovanni Bellori a Crowning with Thorns was made for Caravaggio's patron Vincenzo Giustiniani, and this painting can be traced convincingly to the Giustiniani collection. An attribution to Giustiniani would place it in the period prior to 1606, when Caravaggio fled Rome, but Peter Robb dates it to 1607, when the artist was in Naples.

The theme of pain and sadism is certainly central to the work. John Gash points to the way the two torturers ram the crown down with the butts of their staffs, "a rhythmic and sadistic hammering." (Actually Gash believes that the torturer on the left is about to bring his stick down on the near, visible side of Christ's head, but this seems physically impossible). Robb mentions that the painting is about "how ... to give pain and feel pain, and how close pain and pleasure sometimes were, how voluptuous suffering could be on a golden afternoon." For Robb, however, the problem with the painting is "that recurrent bugbear of Christian art, the slack and passive figure of Christ, ... sitting out a hair shampoo at the barber's...".

Caravaggio's patron Vincenzo Giustiniani was an intellectual as well as a collector, and late in life he wrote a paper about art, identifying twelve grades of accomplishment. In the highest class he put just two names, Caravaggio and Annibale Carracci, as artists capable of combining realism and style in the most accomplished manner. This Crowning with Thorns illustrates what Giustiniani meant: the cruelty of the two torturers is depicted with acutely observed reality as they hammer home the thorns, as is the bored slouch of the official leaning on the rail as he oversees the death of God. While Christ, despite what Robb says, is suffering real pain with patient endurance; all depicted within a classical composition of contrasting and intersecting horizontals and diagonals.

[edit] References

Gash, John (2003). Caravaggio. ISBN 1-904449-22-0.
Robb, Peter (1998). M. ISBN 0-312-27474-2.

v • d • e Caravaggio

List of works

1593-1594	Boy Peeling Fruit (c. 1592) • Self Portrait as Bacchus (Il Bacchino malato) (c. 1593) • Boy with a Basket of Fruit • The Fortune Teller (Buona ventura) (c. 1594) • Cardsharps (I bari) (c. 1594)

1595-1599 (the Del Monte paintings)	The Musicians (c. 1595) • Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy (c. 1595) • Saint Francis in Meditation (c. 1595) • Boy Bitten by a Lizard (c. 1596) • Apollo the Lute Player (c. 1596) • The Lute Player (c. 1596) • Bacchus (c. 1596) • Penitent Magdalene (c. 1597) • Rest on the Flight into Egypt (c. 1597) • Medusa (c. 1597) • Portrait of a Courtesan (Fillide Melandroni) (c. 1597) • Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto (c. 1597) • The Fortune Teller (c. 1597-98) • Saint Catherine of Alexandria (c.1598) • The Sacrifice of Isaac (Princeton version) (c. 1598) • John the Baptist (c. 1598) • Martha and Mary Magdalene (c. 1598) • Portrait of Maffeo Barberini (1598) • Basket of Fruit (c. 1599) • Judith Beheading Holofernes (c. 1599) • David and Goliath (c. 1599) • Narcissus (c. 1599) • Boy Bitten by a Lizard (c. 1600)

1600-1606 (Most Famous Painter in Rome)	The Calling of Saint Matthew (1599 - 1600) • The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew (1599 - 1600) • The Conversion of Saint Paul (1600) • The Crucifixion of Saint Peter (1601) • The Conversion of Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus (1601) • Supper at Emmaus (London) (1601) • The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew • Amor Victorious (1602) • Saint Matthew and the Angel (1602) • The Inspiration of Saint Matthew (1602) • John the Baptist (Capitoline) (1602) • John the Baptist (Pamphilij) (c. 1602) • The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (c. 1602) • The Taking of Christ (1602) • Saint Francis in Meditation {Cappuccini) (c. 1603) • The Entombment (c. 1603) • The Sacrifice of Isaac (1603) • Madonna of Loreto (Madonna dei Pellegrini, Pilgrims' Madonna) (c. 1604) • John the Baptist (Kansas City) (1604) • John the Baptist (Palazzo Corsini) (1604) • The Crowning with Thorns (Prato) (1604) • The Death of the Virgin (1604) • Christ on the Mount of Olives (1605) • Ecce Homo (c. 1605) • Saint Jerome in Meditation (c. 1605) • Saint Jerome Writing (Borghese) (c. 1605) • Portrait of Pope Paul V (1605) • Still Life with Fruit on a Stone Ledge (1605) • Madonna and Child with St. Anne (Madonna de Palafrenieri, Grooms' Madonna) (1606)

1606-1608 Naples and Malta	Mary Magdalen in Ecstasy (1606) • Saint Francis in Prayer (Cremona) (1606) • Supper at Emmaus (Milan) (1606) • The Seven Works of Mercy (1606) • The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew (1607) • David with the Head of Goliath (Vienna) (1607) • Madonna of the Rosary (1607) • The Crowning with Thorns (Vienna) (1607) • The Flagellation of Christ (c. 1607) • Christ at the Column (c. 1607) • Salome with the Head of John the Baptist (London) (c. 1607) • Saint Jerome Writing (Valletta) (1607) • Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and his Page (1607-1608) • Portrait of Fra Antionio Martelli (1608) • The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (1608) • Sleeping Cupid (1608) • John the Baptist (John the Baptist at the Fountain) (1608)

1608-1610 Sicily and Naples	The Annunciation (1608) • Burial of St. Lucy (1608) • The Raising of Lazarus (1609) • Adoration of the Shepherds (1609) • Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence (1609) • Salome with the Head of John the Baptist (Madrid) (1609) • Denial of Saint Peter (1610) • John the Baptist (Borghese) (1610) • The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula (1610) • David with the Head of Goliath (1610)

Works attributed to Caravaggio	Still Life with Flowers and Fruit • John the Baptist (Reclining) (1610) • The Tooth Puller (1607 - 1609) • John the Baptist (Basel) • Boy Peeling a Fruit (c. 1593) • Holy Family with St. John the Baptist • Cardsharps (pre-1594)