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9780714839417

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'This little Phaidon series ... has been executed with rare intelligence. The images (well produced) come from all over the world, supreme masterpieces rubbing shoulders with surprising and magnificently chosen obscurities.' (Neil McGregor, Director of the British Museum, World of Interiors)

Phaidon's pocket-size yet chunky book is a compilation of approximately 120 colour reproductions of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, in chronological order commencing with an ivory relief from the fifth century (when images of the crucifixion first appeared) and finishing with Craigie Aitchison's 'The Crucifixion', painted in 1997-98. The images range from the romantic to the harrowingly real. The book carries no unifying text by a specific author, but some of the reproductions are embellished by a brief narrative on the opposite page. Against Lovis Corinth's 'The Large Martyrdom', for example, is written 'the twentieth century once more saw a concentration on the physical horrors of the crucifixion, the emphisis in Lovis Corinth's disturbing image is less on redemption and salvation than man's inhumanity to man'. Salvador Dali's renowned 'Christ of Saint John of the Cross', the crucifixion seen from above, is included and also warrants a short narrative, but there is no narrative attached to paintings by Titian, Goya, Blake, Redon, Ernst and Spencer, to name but a few, nor to the photographic print by Robert Mapplethorpe. This inconsistency can be seen as a flaw, raising the question in the mind of the reader, 'why are some works endowed with narratives and not others?' Furthermore, a reader not familiar with a particular artist would surely welcome some narrative detail, however brief. Containing some powerful and startling paintings, the book is nevertheless ideal to thumb through. (Kirkus UK)

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