Crowning with Thorns

Christ's scourging, ordered by Pontius Pilate the governor of Judaea, just before he was led away to be crucified, is mentioned very briefly by all the evangelists. They say simply that Pilate had Jesus flogged. Nevertheless this bare statement has produced a rich harvest in art, perhaps because of the attention it received from later Christian writers. Among other things they speculated about the number of strokes the Savior was likely to have received, which ranged from forty, prescribed by Jewish law, to over five thousand according to St Bridget of Sweden. It was customary to depict Christ bound to a column, perhaps in the colonnade that formed part of Pilate's praetorium, or judgment hall. During the Middle Ages the house of Pilate was, like the Holy Sepulchre, venerated as one of the sacred places of Jerusalem, though some doubt existed as to its exact location. A style of architecture, believed to be derived from it, featuring a colonnade of thin Corinthian columns, became an established tradition in early Italian Renaissance painting. The figure of Christ, apart from certain medieval examples that show him fully clothed, is usually naked except for a loincloth. Artists were presented with the technical problem of showing him receiving the strokes on his back - the usual place - while at the same time leaving his face visible to the spectator. Early Renaissance painting generally overcame this by having him stand full face, bound by the wrists to a very narrow column so that his figure was hardly obscured. Otherwise he stands in front of the column, his hands bound behind his back, and seems to be receiving the strokes on the front of the body. The soldiers who administer the punishment are usually two or three in number. They use birches or thong whips. One sits nearby tying a fresh bundle. Pilate may be present, enthroned on the seat of judgment and perhaps wearing a laurel crown, the Roman emblem of his authority. More rarely a crowd of soldiers and Jewish elders are looking on.

Christ after the Flagellation. The theme occurs first in Italian painting of the early 16th cent. and seems later to have had particular appeal for artists of 17th cent. Spain. Christ is shown at the moment of being untied from the column, or he is alone, still bound, and lies slumped and exhausted at its foot. Or he drags himself along the ground to gather up his clothes. Others may be present: the Virgin, John the Evangelist or other saints.