Flagellation of Christ (Piero della Francesca)
The Flagellation of Christ (probably 1468–1470) is a painting by Piero della Francesca in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche in Urbino, Italy. Called by one writer an "enigmatic little painting,"[1] the composition is complex and unusual, and its iconography has been the subject of widely differing theories. Kenneth Clark called The Flagellation "the greatest small painting in the world".
Flagellation of Christ
probably 1468–1470
58.4 cm × 81.5 cm (23.0 in × 32.1 in)
Description[edit]
The theme of the picture is the Flagellation of Christ by the Romans during his Passion. The biblical event takes place in an open gallery in the middle distance, while three figures in the foreground on the right-hand side apparently pay no attention to the event unfolding behind them. The panel is much admired for its use of linear perspective and the air of stillness that pervades the work, and it has been given the epithet "the Greatest Small Painting in the World" by the art historian Kenneth Clark.[2]
The painting is signed under the seated emperor OPVS PETRI DE BVRGO S[AN]C[T]I SEPVLCRI – "the work of Piero of Borgo Santo Sepolcro" (his town).
The Flagellation is particularly admired for the realistic rendering of the hall in which the flagellation scene is situated in relation to the size of the figures and for the geometrical order of the composition. The portrait of the bearded man at the front is considered unusually intense for Piero's time.
Influence[edit]
The painting's restraint and formal purity strongly appealed when Piero was first "discovered," especially to admirers of cubist and abstract art. It has been held in especially high regard by art historians, with Frederick Hartt describing it as Piero's "most nearly perfect achievement and the ultimate realisation of the ideals of the second Renaissance period".
The painting is referred to in Len Deighton's 1978 novel, SS-GB.