Christ at the Column (Caravaggio)
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Christ at the Column is a painting by the Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...

, currently housed in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen
The musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen is an art museum in Rouen, northern France. Founded in 1801 by Napoleon I, its current building was built between 1880 and 1888 and completely renovated in 1994...

, Rouen
Rouen
Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...

, France.

This is one of two versions of the Flagellation of Christ
Flagellation of Christ
The Flagellation of Christ, sometimes known as Christ at the Column or the Scourging at the Pillar, is a scene from the Passion of Christ very frequently shown in Christian art, in cycles of the Passion or the larger subject of the Life of Christ. It is the fourth station of the modern alternate...

 by Caravaggio painted late in 1606 or early in 1607, soon after his arrival in Naples. The painting shows the flagellation of Christ following his arrest and trial and before his crucifixion. The scene was traditionally depicted in front of a column, possibly alluding to the judgement hall of Pilate. The snub-nosed torturer on the far right is recognisably the same figure who modelled as one of the torturers in The Flagellation of Christ
The Flagellation of Christ (Caravaggio)
The Flagellation of Christ is a painting by the Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio, now in the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples. It is dated to 1607, and may have been reworked by the artist in 1610...

, and as the executioner in Salome with the Head of John the Baptist.

The most famous treatment of the theme at the time was Sebastiano del Piombo
Sebastiano del Piombo
Sebastiano del Piombo , byname of Sebastiano Luciani, was an Italian Renaissance-Mannerist painter of the early 16th century famous for his combination of the colors of the Venetian school and the monumental forms of the Roman school.- Biography :Sebastiano del Piombo belongs to the painting school...

's 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...

 Flagellation of Christ in the church of San Pietro in Montorio
San Pietro in Montorio
San Pietro in Montorio is a church in Rome, Italy, which includes in its courtyard The Tempietto built by Donato Bramante.-History:...

in Rome. Piombo's Flagellation, much imitated by later artists, shows multiple idealised figures twisting through complex layers of space. Caravaggio has flattened the space, reduced the figures to a minimum, and used light to direct attention to the crucial parts of his composition - Christ's face and torso, the faces of the two torturers, and the hand holding the out-of-frame whip.
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