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Pietro Lorenzetti, 'Deposition from the Cross', 1319-20

 


Pietro Lorenzetti created his emotionally charged Deposition from the Cross for the south transept of the Lower Church at Assisi. It is a space which likely brought together all the great early Renaissance artists - Cimabue, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Giotto and Simone Martini. However, this depiction of Christ's contorted, heavy, elongated, emaciated form being lowered from the cross above, is surely one of the most memorable frescoes in the space. Not only have the pressed together faces of mother and son subsequently become symbolic of Lorenzetti's oeuvre itself, but the fresco brings together a sense of naturalism as perpetuated by Giotto, and an intense emotionality that would have surely inspired the devotional onlookers of the fourteenth century. 

Sitting within the wider narrative of Christ's life, Lorenzetti's Deposition is arranged towards the left hand side of the south transept, yet the faces of Christ and his mother still remain at the painting's epicentre, or devotional heart, balanced perhaps by the stark linearity of the cross. Mary's face shows deep sorrow and suffering through her arched, Byzantine-style eyebrows, in contrast to the peaceful face of Christ, eyes closed, almost as though he is simply sleeping. The elongated hands of Mary grasp at her son's hair, as she desperately tries to bring him closer, to meld their faces into one. With the loss of the ultramarine blue along Mary's mantle, this closeness is only more keenly felt, as the grey colours of skin and now cloth blend together. Meanwhile, a lack of surroundings and background mean that all attention is focused on the devotional event before a viewer's eye, enhancing the force of the Christological moment depicted. This enables us to appreciate the individuality of each figure, and how they contribute to the fresco as an overall whole, from the figure of Mary Magdalen who throws herself at Christ's feet, the red of her cloak almost acting as a reminder of the blood of his sacrifice, to the crowd of mourners surrounding Christ, and the figure who removes the nails from the Redeemer's feet, bracing his right leg close to the cross and using two hands to illustrate the brutal force of the action. 

Lorenzetti's fresco therefore becomes an ingenious portrayal of human emotion, depicting a cast of characters who each respond to suffering in a slightly different way, perhaps so a viewer can more keenly relate to their plight. The artist draws on the naturalism of previous fresco decoration to achieve this effect, especially prominent at the Arena Chapel, where Giotto used a variety of figures at different levels - some leaning, some bending forward and others facing away from the viewer - which Lorenzetti then incorporated into the scheme at Assisi. The body of Christ, elongated and stretched across the wall, is the connecting factor in this web of holy figures, all defined by their solid gold haloes. But fundamentally, the softness, combined with the powerful emotional impact of the two heads pressed together, makes this a truly unique Deposition, in a way which was never repeated. 

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