Ecce Homo (Matsys)

Pilate presents the scourged Christ to the mob - Ecce Homo, 'Behold the Man' (John 19:5) - bound, crowned with thorns, his eyes lowered in inward suffering, while jeering tormentors with snarling, deformed faces press in at the right. Matsys sharpens the old contrast of serene victim and ugly persecutors with his gift for the grotesque, the same caricaturing eye behind his Ugly Duchess, also in this collection. The distorted faces make cruelty visible, a physiognomy of sin. It is the Northern counterpart to the mocking and Passion scenes by Bosch and Grunewald gathered here.