In light of Good Friday, I’m reposting “Paintings of the Crucifixion,” originally published on Burnside last year.
A couple years ago there was an exhibit called Spanish Painting from El Greco to Picasso: Time, Truth, and History at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The exhibit paired old masters with modern painters, according to theme: knights, ghosts, ladies, bodegones, landscapes of fire, and so forth. It was an impressive collection of artwork that spoke to how Truth transcends time.
Frank Lloyd Wright designed the museum in such a way that museum-goers wind their way up through exhibits as opposed to being sectioned off, floor by floor, and consequently there are heightened feelings of momentum and progress as one climbs closer to the top of the museum. At the pinnacle of the museum during the Spanish Painting exhibit there was a section devoted entirely to paintings of the Crucifixion.
It is probably the most intense and haunting collection of artwork I have ever witnessed. I have seen many paintings of the Crucifixion over the years, but standing in an entire room of them is overwhelming. I felt uncomfortable. I felt sick. I left trying to push it out of my mind.
You can read the rest and see visuals here.
Stephanie Nikolopoulos 
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