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Lot Essay
The present work belongs to a series of paintings executed during the 1980s in homage to the German Expressionists. Their lineage is evident in the painting's rough, almost crude, treatment of the figure and the highly-keyed color of its palette. Like the other works from this series, Die Kreuztragung references and ultimately subverts Christian iconography and historical painting. The figure in the composition is Christ carrying the cross to the hill Golgotha. He is identified by the gold aura that is his halo symbolizing divinity and by the wooden cross on his shoulders.
Baselitz chose to depict Christ as an isolated figure apart from the throng of people usually seen surrounding him during this particular scene from the Passion. He intensifies the dramatic moment of Christ's anguished suffering by using agitated brushstrokes and jarring, intensely hued colors. By depicting the scene upside-down, Baselitz successfully reinvigorates the traditional rendering of this story. As Andreas Franzke observed, "These devices are clearly employed to counter the naive, story-telling associations of the motifs, with their burden of traditional iconography." (A. Franzke, Georg Baselitz, Munich, 1989, p. 195.)
Fig. 1 Albrecht Dürer, Bearing of the Cross, circa 1498-99
Baselitz chose to depict Christ as an isolated figure apart from the throng of people usually seen surrounding him during this particular scene from the Passion. He intensifies the dramatic moment of Christ's anguished suffering by using agitated brushstrokes and jarring, intensely hued colors. By depicting the scene upside-down, Baselitz successfully reinvigorates the traditional rendering of this story. As Andreas Franzke observed, "These devices are clearly employed to counter the naive, story-telling associations of the motifs, with their burden of traditional iconography." (A. Franzke, Georg Baselitz, Munich, 1989, p. 195.)
Fig. 1 Albrecht Dürer, Bearing of the Cross, circa 1498-99