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Christ Falling on the Way to Calvary (Raphael)
Encyclopedia
Christ Falling on the Way to Calvary, also known as Sicilia's Spasimo, is a painting of the Italian
High Renaissance
master Raphael
, circa 1516-1517. It is housed in the Museo del Prado
of Madrid
.
As an altarpiece it is not the usual image of the Virgin and Christ child, but an episode from a narrative. It depicts Jesus on a road called cavalry and the moment when he slipped while carrying his cross to Golgotha and his mother suffers a spasm of agony, hence its is called “Lo Spasimo”. All the emotion of the painting is densely crammed into the foreground and the background is similar to that of a stage set with distant groups of people and crosses. The man on the left in the foreground is similar to a figure in Raphael’s painting “The Judgement of Solomon” in the stanze, except reversed. Simon of Cyrene lifts Christ’s cross momentarily and looks sternly at the guards. The four Mary’s are depicted on the right side of the painting and towering on either side of the composition are the guards.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
High Renaissance
High Renaissance
The expression High Renaissance, in art history, is a periodizing convention used to denote the apogee of the visual arts in the Italian Renaissance...
master Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
, circa 1516-1517. It is housed in the Museo del Prado
Museo del Prado
The Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
of Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
.
As an altarpiece it is not the usual image of the Virgin and Christ child, but an episode from a narrative. It depicts Jesus on a road called cavalry and the moment when he slipped while carrying his cross to Golgotha and his mother suffers a spasm of agony, hence its is called “Lo Spasimo”. All the emotion of the painting is densely crammed into the foreground and the background is similar to that of a stage set with distant groups of people and crosses. The man on the left in the foreground is similar to a figure in Raphael’s painting “The Judgement of Solomon” in the stanze, except reversed. Simon of Cyrene lifts Christ’s cross momentarily and looks sternly at the guards. The four Mary’s are depicted on the right side of the painting and towering on either side of the composition are the guards.