The Entombment of Christ

The extraordinary way in which Bassano freely applied his dense and thick brush strokes of pure colour onto the black background of the painting resulted in it being considered for a long time a study, or draft, associated with a painting of the same theme, with a similar composition, that exists in the Louvre. However, this freedom of brush strokes and the unfinished, non finito, nature of the piece can be considered an important means of expression of Bassano’s final period, which was also used in larger-scale works such as the Christ Crowned with Thorns, from the collection of Christ Church, Oxford University, which was later to earn him praise for his artistic genius and the ease and precision of his painting, departing from academic norms. The MNAA’s Entombment of Christ is essentially a brilliant exercise in exploring the possibilities of the application of paint to reproduce the unstable projection of light on the human body and the fabrics’ texture.