The Crucifixion

This panoramic engraving of Christ’s crucifixion at Golgotha was executed by the Italian painter and draughtsman Agostino Carracci. The image is based on Tintoretto’s forty-foot long mural at the Scuola di San Rocco in Venice, whose massive dimensions Agostino translated into three engraved plates, printed on three different sheets of paper, in the present work.

According to one biography of Agostino, the artist supposedly asked Tintoretto’s permission to reproduce his mural, after seeing the work during a trip he made to Venice between the years 1587 and 1589. Other accounts contradict this claim, suggesting that Agostino worked on the reproduction without consulting Tintoretto. Regardless of particulars involved in this engraving’s production, the finished product is a testament to Agostino’s accomplishment as a reproductive engraver.

Agostino made only small changes to Tintoretto’s original composition, and included most elements from the original work: the flurry of soldiers, executioners, and mourners that surround the crucified Christ; the soldier who offers Christ a sponge dipped in vinegar; the mounted figure in the left background, who wields a lance with which he would later pierce Christ in the side; and the group of figures in the right foreground who play dice for Jesus’s clothing.

According to the Gospel of Luke, a penitent and an impenitent thief were both crucified at Christ’s sides, where the former acknowledged Christ as the saviour, while the latter mocked him. To the penitent thief, Chris promised a place in paradise. Though Tintoretto and Agostino included depictions of both of these figures, they did not show either thief as mounted on a raised cross, as they did Christ. To the left of the image, a group of soldiers are in the process of raising the penitent thief’s cross into position, while to the right, the impenitent thief is bound to a cross that still lies horizontally on the ground, as a figure digs a hole for it in the foreground.

Viewed simultaneously, these three crucifixions allow the viewer to more fully imagine the different stages in the process of Christ’s own crucifixion. And with the thieves’ crosses not yet raised, the figure of Christ remains one of the highest points and the focus of the composition, highlighted by the radiant light that emanates from him, offsetting the dark sky in the background. As in Tintoretto’s mural, the taut ropes pulling up the cross of the penitent thief, the ladder on the ground, the gestures of the onlookers, and the upturned gazes of the group of mourning figures immediately below him, all direct attention towards the crucified Christ at the center of the image.

Though Agostino retained these compositional elements of Tintoretto’s mural, his engraving style changes the work’s overall effect to some extent. By this point in his engraving career, Agostino had developed an almost formulaic approach to making graphic reproductions of paintings. The somewhat harsh outlines and the sharp juxtapositions of lights and darks in this engraving produce a much crisper image, compared to the atmospheric effects and subtle lines of Tintoretto’s mural.

Despite the differences between Agostino’s reproduction and the original, several different accounts attest to Tintoretto’s admiration of the engraving. According to one account, Tintoretto was so impressed by Agostino’s rendition of his mural that he offered to serve as godfather to Agostino’s son. In others, Tintoretto supposedly deemed the engraving a match or an improvement to his own work. Whatever Tintoretto’s opinions on the engraving, Renaissance viewers who were familiar with the artist’s mural would have enjoyed comparing the original work with Agostino’s adaptation of it, to examine the similarities and differences between the two. As did viewers of Tintoretto’s mural, viewers of this print would have used it as a visual reminder of Christ’s suffering and death on the cross.