Crucifixion

Luis Tristan (1580-1624)

• CE00024
• 1624
• Oil on canvas

This work is a masterful example executed by whom would be the main follower of El Greco’s workshop, both the lengthening of the proportions and the violence of the chiaroscuro as well as the model of the face derive from El Greco. Luis Tristan knew how to endow his work with a personality of its own, thus consecrating himself as the only painter from the Greco's workshop whose personality has transcended in the history of art.

The figure of Christ, with his head raised and his body more or less contorted, was a success in the Toledo of the early 17th century. The artistic environment in which it was created relates this painting to works executed by Orrente and Ribalta. Also its baroque iconography, with drops of blood falling from his arms, recalls the so-called Sanguis Christi, the Christ who pours blood from his body to wash away the sins of humanity. The tibia and the skull appear in this painting, the latter symbol of the hill of Golgotha ​​and related to the Skull of Adam at the foot of the cross. The whole scene takes place surrounded by a reddish and stormy sky that would represent the darkness and storms that followed the death of Christ, and in between the clouds, the sun and the moon can be seen.