Cleveland Museum of Art

The Passion: The Flagellation

Date

c. 1480

Medium

engraving

Culture

Germany

Department

Prints

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Martin Schongauer's series of the Passion of Christ was his largest set of engravings, made around 1480, and extensively copied across Europe. It consists of twelve prints detailing the suffering of Christ in the last days of his life. Schongauer's version focuses on crowded scenes, grotesque physiognomies of Christ's tormentors, and great pathos in the compositions. Here, Jesus is bound to the column by one persecutor while three others are about to flagellate him with a set of different scourges. A fourth, to the left, prepares the crown of thorns. The assorted and detailed set of grisly scourges included in this scene was likely meant to elicit a deep meditation on Christ's physical suffering from the viewer.

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