Crucifixion
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Authors
Giovan Angelo Del Maino
Date
Type
Image
Language
Keyword
Crucifixion , Mary , St. John the Evangelist , Crucifix , St. Mary Magdalene , Mary Cleophas
Alternative Title
Abstract
This group of almost life-sized painted wood sculptures, currently housed in the seventeenth-century Altare del Crocifisso in Como Cathedral, was originally erected in 1515 on another altar in the same basilica, surrounded by paintings of the Passion (now lost). The mourners below the cross, with their dramatic gestures, mouths open in lament, complex drapery, and cascading waves of hair, have been attributed on the basis of style to Giovan Angelo Del Maino. Some scholars argue that he is also the author of the crucifix, also made of painted wood but with actual human hair and beard, whereas others think that the crucifix was created slightly earlier, at the end of the fifteenth century. The sculptures were restored in 1996, and the polychromy is generally well-preserved, including the splendidly complexly gilded and painted textiles of the mourners (likely carried out with a combination of techniques: gold leaf, shell gold, sgraffito, etc.). Casciaro (2000) suggested that the paint surface of the crucifix looks later, but when these photographs were taken in 2018, the sculpture seemed to have undergone restoration, as the paint looks different from that in the photographs in Casciaro's book. The mourners each are profoundly moved by Christ's sacrifice, but in different ways. Mary, the ultimate exemplar of compassion, sinks down and backward, her head rolling back and mouth open, as if fainting or in a trance, as she is supported by Mary Cleophas. Her upper right arm is extended away from her body, as if she had held her arms open like Christ's, suffering along with him, before being overcome. Mary Magdalene, kneels at the foot of the cross, her mouth indecorously open wide, showing her teeth, in a scream, her brow furrowed. Her bared arm and long, unbound dishevelled waves of hair suggest the passionate emotional distress of the woman who was assumed to have been a prostitute, forgiven her sins because she loved so much. The long hair would remind devotees that the Magdalene was thought to have annointed Christ's feet and dried them with her hair. Her broad gesture with her arms is almost masculine in its force and directness. St. John the Evangelist has similar curling hair and expressive hands, one clutching his chest in introspective grief, the other gesturing downwards, perhaps initially at worshippers below. (It is not clear how these figures were initially arranged. John is likely on the correct side of the Cross, as he looks upward at Christ, but perhaps was originally further forward, in front and to the right of the Magdalene, which would make more sense of the gesture of his right hand. This dramatic tableau of life-sized, naturalistic polychrome sculptures is the sort of devotional work that became popular in northern Italy from the Cinquecento through to the nineteenth century, particularly in Sacri Monti ("Holy Mountain" pilgrimage sites). Photograph(s) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Description
Cathedral, Como
Citation
Raffaele Casciaro, La scultura lignea lombarda del Rinascimento (Milan: Skira, 2000), 161-5, cat. 125, pp. 331-2; Paolo Venturoli, "Famiglia Del Maino," in Studi sulla scultura lignea lombarda tra quattro e cinquecento (Turin: Umberto Allemandi & C., 2005), 58-9; "Altare del Crocifisso nella Cattedrale di Como," included in the collection: Artisti, architetti, artigiani nella Cattedrale di Como: Seicento anni di opere raccontano la continuità della fede, l'evoluzione dell'arte, il corso della storia (Como: Maspero Fontana e C. S.p.A.-Cermenate, 1996).