The Mocking of Christ

Blindfolded and bound, Christ is shoved down and beaten as his tormentors crowd in, fists raised, jeering at him to prophesy who struck him (Matthew 26:67-68); at the lower left, pipers play to mock the spectacle. Grunewald wants none of the Italian beauty being perfected to the south - his color is harsh, his faces brutal, his cruelty unsoftened, all of it aimed at the suffering of body and spirit. This early panel already points toward the harrowing Isenheim Altarpiece to come. Against the serene Raphaels elsewhere in this collection, it marks the opposite pole of the age: agony set against grace.