The Crucifixion

The Crucifixion refers to a special service held in Catholic churches on the evening of Good Friday to commemorate Jesus’s death. During the service, a set of candles were extinguished one by one, leaving the church in total darkness to mirror the moment after the Crucifixion, when “darkness overspread the earth until the ninth hour” (Luke 23:44). Doré placed Mount Calvary in the background of this dark canvas theatrically lit by flashes of lightning, and focused instead on the reactions of the people and their expressions of fear and despair.