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Christ Carrying the Cross on his way to his crucifixion is an episode included in all four Gospels, and a very common subject in art, especially in the fourteen Stations of the Cross, sets of which are now found in almost all Catholic churches. However the subject occurs in many other contexts, including single works and cycles of the Life of Christ or the Passion of Christ. Alternative names include the Procession to Calvary, Road to Calvary and Way to Calvary, Calvary or Golgotha being the site of the crucifixion outside Jerusalem. The actual route taken is defined by tradition as the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, although the specific path of this route has varied over the centuries and continues to be the subject of debate.
Contents
In popular devotions
The fully elaborated traditional account of the episode is demonstrated in the Stations of the Cross, where it is divided into a number of incidents, which between them account for most sculptural depictions:
- Pilate sentences Christ
- Jesus is given His cross
- Jesus falls the first time
- Jesus meets His Mother
- Simon of Cyrene carries the cross
- Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
- Jesus falls the second time
- Jesus meets the daughters of Jerusalem
- Jesus falls the third time
Ten through fourteen cover the rest of the Passion.
It is also one of the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, and the meeting with Mary the fourth of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin. The procession is still re-enacted in a number of annual Good Friday processions in Catholic countries, some of which include actors playing the leading persons and a cross. On the Via Dolorosa such events occur all year round.
History of the depiction
Until around 1100, Simon of Cyrene was more often shown actually carrying the cross than Jesus, and from this time the number of other figures typically included in the scene increases. In Byzantine depictions, Jesus typically walks with his hands bound, and a soldier leading him holding the rope, as Simon carries the cross. In some early depictions, Jesus and Simon carry the cross together. In the later Middle Ages, probably influenced by Passion plays, a large crowd of figures may surround Jesus, displaying a great variety of feelings, from contempt to grief. This development culminates in the large landscape of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Procession to Calvary (Vienna). Although in early and Eastern depictions the cross is not always represented as a heavy burden, and may be held free of the ground by either Simon or Jesus, by the later Middle Ages the cross is always clearly difficult to carry, and the base is dragged along the ground, in line with the increased emphasis in the period of emphasizing the sufferings of the Passion. From this period Jesus usually wears his Crown of Thorns, which he did not earlier.
An early example of a type of devotional image showing Jesus alone is a small panel by Barna da Siena of 1330-1350 in the Frick Collection. These continued through the Renaissance and Baroque period, with a "close-up" half length composition first appearing in Northern Italy around 1490. Somewhat in contrast to most andachtsbilder, the suffering of Christ is often less graphically depicted in these than in larger scenes where he is mobbed by a hostile crowd. As triptychs became popular, the scene often occurs as the left-hand wing to a central Crucifixion, with an Entombment or Resurrection on the right-hand wing.
From around 1500, the subject became used for single piece altarpieces in Italy, usually showing either the meeting with Veronica or the Swoon of the Virgin or spasimo, when the Virgin swoons, faints, or at least falls to her knees, both fairly recent and rather controversial introductions, without scriptural authority.
Works
Individual works with articles include the following (apart from a large number of cycles featuring the scene):