The Deposition from the Cross

The dead Christ is carried away in a slow, weightless spiral of mourners, the swooning Virgin falling back above, the whole crowd suspended in a shallow, groundless space without cross or setting - only bodies and acid, luminous color: rose, sky-blue, sea-green, citrus. Pontormo drains away the solid, balanced world of the High Renaissance and leaves anxiety, ambiguity, and exquisite strangeness, the founding spirit of Florentine Mannerism. His pupil Bronzino, whose own Deposition is also in this collection, would cool this fever into polished elegance. Painted for the Capponi Chapel, it remains one of the most haunting altarpieces of the century.