The Crucifixion of Christ

Christ is raised at the center of a vast, teeming canvas while around him a whole world labors at the work of execution - one thief being roped to his cross and hauled upright, another's cross still being dug in, soldiers, horsemen, and mourners swirling through the dust. Tintoretto fills more than twelve meters of wall with restless diagonals and sudden shafts of light, pulling the eye in every direction at once. Painted for the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice, it is the climax of his great cycle there. Few treatments of the subject match its sheer dramatic scale and energy.