The Fall under the Cross

Religious themes take an important place in Albrecht Dürer’s art. A vast majority of his works depicts figures of saints or biblical scenes, whilst the paintings perfectly reflect the Christian value system of that time.
Passion themes played an important role in the German art of those times. Before creating The Large Passion Dürer had composed The Small Passion series, and apart from those two most popular cycles the artist created at least three others.
This engraving is an original work – one of eleven included in The Large Passion cycle created between 1498 and 1510. The engraving was made in woodcut technique, which was Dürer’s main field of artistic activity until he took interest in copperplate.
The engraving depicts the scene of the fall under the Cross. Christ can be seen in the central point of the composition. He is surrounded by a crowd of people, with his mother Mary, John the Evangelist and St Veronica handing Jesus a shawl distinguishable in the foreground, while in the background the heads of individual onlookers can be seen. On the other side Dürer depicted a halberdier holding a rope to which Christ was tied.