This late medieval genre breaks out of the narrative chronology of the Passion to present the bloodied body of Christ to the viewer's gaze. The Man of Sorrows may be seen as at left with his mother and St. John the Evangelist, or with those two and additional saints (example), or alone (example). Images that present the head alone (example) are called "Ecce Homo," "Behold the Man," the words spoken by Pilate after he had Jesus scourged.
At left, 15th-century engraving
Other images:
15th-century
stained
glass
In a polyptych
of the Virgin, 1449Menu