Crown of Thorns

Today I will tell you about the work called "Crown of Thorns" by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, painted in 1603. In the paintings he painted during this period, it can be seen that his attitude towards religion gained serious realism.


Mary, Jesus and the Apostles are not only the types you can encounter in daily life, but they also begin to turn into cowards and sinners. We do not know how he defended these works, which attracted serious reaction from the church, at that time, but the fact that he did this so frequently shows us that he did not care about either the church or the people.

Caravaggio was aggressive in every aspect of life. This aggression was visualized magnificently in his paintings. He was a gang leader, a cruel con artist.


He was getting into fights, stabbing people and terrorizing the back streets of Rome. This curiosity for violence would increase day by day and cause him to become a murderer. In his work titled "Crown of Thorns", painted in 1603, Caravaggio takes us to the moment when Jesus' persecutors put a crown of thorns on him and mock him as the "Last King of the Jews". The painter, a pioneer of Baroque art, magnificently applies the shadow-light contrast, one of the strongest features of this period, to increase the dramatic and instantaneous effect of the scene. This technique makes the scene very lively and active. The light falls on the figures as if filtered through a slit. There is even shading work on forehead wrinkles.

Caravaggio wants you to watch this torture of Jesus more closely. A constantly moving torture scene... Right next to us, a crown of thorns is placed on Jesus' head before his crucifixion. Look at how much pain Jesus was in.
She looks at her torturer, almost begging him to stop. These looks pleading for mercy attracted serious reaction from the Romans and the Vatican in 1603.


Caravaggio shows us what a different painter he is, not only with the new perspective he brings to the scenes, but also with this bold and provocative language. The scene is so immediate that we see Jesus' mouth open. Is he going to say something? Or did he just say it? It's as if they were stuck in a split second before our eyes in a dark environment.


Jesus is about to make a benediction sign with one hand. Or must have just done it. However, this eye contact he makes with his torturer is also quite thought-provoking. She may be either begging for mercy from this man, or asking God for mercy for her tormentor. What we encounter more frequently is that the scenes of Jesus' passion are usually during the daytime and crowd scenes are generally used. However, the fact that Jesus is alone with his torturers here, in a dark environment, shows us that his loneliness and suffering are not just physical.

Although this different expression attracted a lot of reaction at first, painters who called themselves Caravaggio in Europe for 100 years would respect and follow his anarchist and different perspective.

Thank you for reading, I wish everyone a happy new year, stay with art.