(Matt. 27:27–31; Mark 15:16–20; John 19:2–3)
One of the last
of the series of scenes comprising the Trial of Christ, and the prelude
to the Ecce Homo, after which Christ was led away to be crucified. According
to Mark 'the soldiers took him inside the courtyard [of Pilate's house]
and called together the whole company. They dressed him in purple [according
to Matthew 'a scarlet mantle'], and having plaited a crown of thorns,
placed it on his head. Then they began to salute him with, "Hail, King
of the Jews!" They beat him about the head with a cane and spat upon
him, and then knelt and paid mock homage to him.' The theme has similarities
with the earlier Mocking of Christ before Caiaphas and artists sometimes
combine elements from both. The earlier scene should depict Christ blindfold
with his hands tied, but sometimes it also shows him holding the makeshift
'scepter', which properly belongs only to the 'Crowning'. Christ is
generally enthroned on a dais, the crown of thorns on his head, dressed
in a red or purple robe and holding a reed scepter. Soldiers with clenched
fists are about to strike him or are kneeling in mock homage. A convention
that prevailed widely in Italian painting of the 15th and 16th cents.
Show two soldiers each holding a cane or a staff with which they press
down the crown of thorns, the canes symbolically forming the shape of
a cross. This common feature probably derived from the manner in which
the scene was performed in medieval religious drama. As for the crown
itself, southern artists tend, with greater restraint, to depict the
smaller-thorned plants, in marked contrast to the huge fantastic spines
of the German and Netherlandish painters. The latter may be held in
a soldier's mailed gauntlet, about to be placed on the head of Christ,
or it pierces his brow from which the blood trickles. An influence here
may have been the writings of the 14th cent. Christian mystic St Bridget
of Sweden whose Revelations describe the sufferings of Christ with much
vivid and circumstantial detail. The theme became more widespread in
Christian art from the 14th cent. from the cult of the crown of thorns
as a holy relic, which dates from about this time.
James Hall, Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art, New York: Harper & Row, rev. ed. 1979