The Ascent To Calvary, Giovanni Lanfranco (Terenzo, 1582 - Rome, 1647)

Roman school of the seventeenth century
Giovanni Lanfranco (Terenzo, 1582 - Rome, 1647) circle
The ascent to Calvary (Christ falls under the cross)

Oil painting on canvas (42 x 49 cm., in frame 58 x 66 cm.)

This small 17th century Roman jewel, depicting the ascent to Calvary of the Passion of Christ, reveals the stylistic characteristics typical of the painting of Giovanni Lanfranco, a pupil of Agostino and Annibale Carracci, one of the most representative artistic personalities of the Roman Baroque.

Our author, inspired by the style and composition of the master, stages with intense realism and calibrated theatricality one of the peaks in the story of the Passion, the moment when Jesus falls exhausted under the weight of the cross, on the way to Calvary.

Despite an intense charge of pathos, the canvas presents an admirable balance in the plastic construction of the scene: Christ is kneeling on the ground, wrapped in a vermilion red robe, the color of martyrdom, and crowned with thorns, with his gaze turned to the Virgin and the disciple John, sharing in his pain.

At the top of the composition, a soldier on horseback who, mercilessly, orders Christ to get up, showing him the path he will have to take to continue his journey, while Simon of Cyrene, in dim light, lifts the cross with a gesture of help.

The canvas is clearly inspired, although it has numerous variations, from the painting by Lanfranco made for the Sacchetti chapel in San Giovanni dei Fiorentini in Rome; our author must necessarily have taken inspiration from it, to respond to some requests given the growing success of the master until his death.