Crucified Christ

Extreme piety was a central feature of the Counter Reformation in the Baroque era. The sustained worship of Christ's sufferings encouraged sculptors to show Christ's dying with all its horrors and to commemorate his sacrificial death for the sins of men: gaping wounds allow an open view of bones and "blood grapes". Thus, the artist insistently portrayed the view of the Counter-Reformation: the "desecration" of the Catholic Church, which it suffered as a result of the Reformation.