The Crucifixion

The largest scene from the back of Duccio's Maesta shows the Crucifixion, the event told in all four Gospels - the three crosses against gold with Christ between the two thieves and angels wheeling in grief overhead. On the left the Virgin faints into the arms of the holy women; on the right a dense, agitated crowd of soldiers and elders presses forward, one already turning toward belief. Duccio splits the panel between sorrow and tumult and threads it with the streaming red and blue of the mourners' robes - Sienese drama at its most concentrated.