Christ Carrying the Cross

The makeshift name of Monogrammist DR refers to an anonymous master at work at the end of the sixteenth century. The monogram DR and the year 1591 are inscribed bottom right. This picture entitled Christ Carrying the Cross was inspired by the famous panel of the same name by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, which is at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in…

The makeshift name of Monogrammist DR refers to an anonymous master at work at the end of the sixteenth century. The monogram DR and the year 1591 are inscribed bottom right. This picture entitled Christ Carrying the Cross was inspired by the famous panel of the same name by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, which is at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The scene is set in a landscape shaped like a heart. We already see landscapes with human shapes in the work of Jheronimus Bosch. However it is not always easy to uncover their symbolic meaning. In the centre we see Christ stumbling under the weight of his cross, while on the right the good and bad murderers are being taken to Golgotha in a cart. The city in the distance is supposed to be Jerusalem. However, the soldiers’ clothing and that of the priests and the good and bad murderers place the scene in the Netherlands of the sixteenth century. Here the religious theme of the carrying of the cross has produced a picture that alludes to the practices of the Inquisition.