The Crucifixion is the subject of three different paintings by the Italian Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 master Antonello da Messina

Antonello da Messina

Antonello da Messina, properly Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio was an Italian painter from Messina, Sicily, active during the Italian Renaissance...

; the first two were completed around 1454/1455, the third in 1475. They are housed in the Brukenthal National Museum

Brukenthal National Museum

The Brukenthal National Museum is a museum, erected in the late of 15th century in Sibiu, Romania, housed in the palace of Samuel von Brukenthal — who was Habsburg governor of Transylvania and who established its first collections around 1790...

 (Sibiu

Sibiu

Sibiu is a city in Transylvania, Romania with a population of 154,548. Located some 282 km north-west of Bucharest, the city straddles the Cibin River, a tributary of the river Olt...

, Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

); the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Antwerp (Antwerp, Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

) and in the National Gallery (London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, UK), respectively.

The Sibiu Crucifixion

An early work appearing to be influenced by the Flemish school

Early Netherlandish painting

Early Netherlandish painting refers to the work of artists active in the Low Countries during the 15th- and early 16th-century Northern renaissance, especially in the flourishing Burgundian cities of Bruges and Ghent...

, the Sibiu Crucifixion was formerly attributed to an unknown 14th century German painter. A symbolic view of Messina is depicted in the background, probably an allusion to Jerusalem as requested by the unknown client, in a typical fashion of the time.

The Antwerp Crucifixion

The Antwerp Crucifixion represents Christ crucified between two evil-doers, with Mary

Mary (mother of Jesus)

Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...

 and John the Evangelist

John the Evangelist

Saint John the Evangelist is the conventional name for the author of the Gospel of John...

 seated on the ground. The work shows a landscape typical of the Flemish school in the lower part; the well devised spatial disposition of the crosses in the upper half demonstrates a full knowledge of the innovative method of perspective

Perspective (graphical)

Perspective in the graphic arts, such as drawing, is an approximate representation, on a flat surface , of an image as it is seen by the eye...

 known to Italian art of the period. The Italian scholar Roberto Longhi asserted that the upper part was added several years later.

The London Crucifixion

Belonging to a later phase, the London Crucifixion is one of the few paintings signed and dated by Antonello: "1475/antonellus messaneus/me pinxit". The geometrical composition is divided in two parts by the cross and the lake in the background, with the Virgin on the left and St. John on the right.