Christ Justifying his Passion
Ca. 1565.On display elsewhere
This work is an example of an exceptional iconography within the subject matter habitually dedicated to the Passion by the painter, and even within that of the European art of his time as a whole. Although his most frequent subjects were the traditional ones of the Ecce Homo (alone or accompanied by executioners, by Pontius Pilate and an executioner, or by the Virgin and St John), Christ at the Column and the Pietà, some of his works nevertheless dealt with scenes that did not appear in the Gospels but were even more expressive of some of the concerns of his most learned clients. The Man of Sorrows in Minneapolis presents Christ meditating upon his own Passion and death, surrounded by their symbols as he sits on his sepulchre with his cheek resting on his left hand and ponders the causes -the sins of man- and the ends -the salvation of mankind- of his own sacrifice. Before a picture that is an allegory rather than a sacred narrative, the religious attitude of the viewer must have involved intellectual scrutiny as much as purely empathetic sentiment.
Although the scene that concerns us here has been identified as a variation on the Gospel (St Matthew and St Luke) description of Christ between the good and the bad thief, or between a repentant and an impenitent sinner, the lack of an episode in the Passion that might be illustrated by this painting nonetheless raises the possibility that it too could be an allegorical image for the purpose of meditation. According to this reading, it would show Christ, already on Golgotha but not yet crucified, and his executioner, in supposed Roman-style dress, with a grim countenance, his hammer in his hand, his brace and pincers hanging at his waist, and the nails in a basket, while Christ points out to him the object of his sacrifice, the soul of the deceased, who kneels in an attitude of prayer, half-covered in an already threadbare shroud, and awaits the supreme gift of eternal salvation at the very moment of the Crucifixion. The cross lies at Christ’s feet, still with no mark on it. The scene would presumably depend on the tradition of images of Jesus with the Arma Christi and the preparations for the Crucifixion, though these have been given an inventive reinterpretation that appears indebted less to the artist himself than to a learned and demanding client.
The horizon line situates us at the height of the kneeling figure, encouraging us to accompany him in prayer. The deceased man raises his eyes in blissful expectation of the salvation of all the dead, past and future, thanks to divine mercy. This identification of the viewer with the soul is in clear consonance with passages from the Libro de la Oración y Meditación (Salamanca, Andrea de Portonaris) of 1554, by Friar Louis of Granada (1504-1588), the Dominican who was in Badajoz in the 1560s after being transferred to the order’s convent there between 1547 and 1550 (Text drawn from Marías, F. in: The Divine Morales, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2015, p. 188).
