Preparations for the Crucifixion

This loving and poignant devotional painting, ‘Preparations for the Crucifixion,’ was created in the mid-16th century by the Spanish Renaissance artist Luis de Vargas (c. 1502-1568). The carving depicts a very particular and tranquil scene just before Christ is executed. In the painting, Christ is resting on the cross, which he was crucified on, lying on the ground. He is sitting with his head in his hands, lost in thought, waiting for his executioners. The depiction of the Virgin and Child with Christ seated on the cross in quiet repose, with no nails on Christ, no lifting or hoisting to place Christ on the cross, was not often seen in European Renaissance art and is predominantly seen in the devotional art of Spain. Additionally, there are preparatory executioners and soldiers around Christ, preparing the tools for their executions, punching holes in the wood, preparing the instruments of martyrdom, and mounted Roman soldiers and onlookers are present. There is also an unidentified dark Spanish man, kneeling in court dress and praying in the lower right. This introspective narrative, his nearness to Christ suggests, was chosen for his private devotion, to be used for his own spiritual meditation. One of the most significant artists who introduced the 16th-century Andalusian stage with Italian High Renaissance and Mannerist visual vocabulary. Vargas studied and worked in Rome and central Italy for almost 20 years, and developed a sculptural monumentality influenced by Michelangelo, Sebastiano del Piombo, and Perino del Vaga. Upon his return to Seville around 1550, Vargas fused the intricacy of his composition with the Italian precision of anatomy and the austere piety and highly charged emotions that were demanded by Sevillian and Castilian patrons. The period leading up to the Crucifixion is a transitional one in the art of mid-16th-century Spain, linking the draughtsmanship tradition of Rome and the religious realism characteristic of the region later dubbed Sevillian art by masters such as Francisco Pacheco and Diego Velázquez.