Ecce Homo is a painting by the Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...

 (1571-1610). It is housed in the Palazzo Rosso

Palazzo Rosso (Genoa)

Palazzo Rosso is an historical palace of Genoa, northern Italy.Situated in Via Garibaldi, it is one of the most important picture galleries of the city, along with the galleries of Palazzo Bianco and Palazzo Doria Tursi....

, Genoa

Genoa

Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

.

Background

According to Giambatista Cardi, the nephew of the Florentine artist Cigoli

Cigoli

Lodovico Cardi , also known as Cigoli, was an Italian painter and architect of the late Mannerist and early Baroque period, trained and active in his early career in Florence, and spending the last nine years of his life in Rome.Lodovico Cardi was born at Villa Castelvecchio di Cigoli, in Tuscany,...

, Cardinal Massimo

Massimo

Massimo is the name of a Roman princely family of great age; which by its own tradition descends from the ancient Maximi of republican Rome and from Quintus Fabius Maximus , called Cunctator...

 Massimi commissioned paintings on the theme of Ecce Homo from three artists, Cigoli, Caravaggio

Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...

, and Domenico Passignano

Domenico Passignano

Domenico Passignano , born Cresti or Crespi, was an Italian painter of a late-Renaissance or Contra-Maniera style that emerged in Florence towards the end of the 16th century.- Biography :...

, without informing the artists of the multiple commissions. Cardi claimed the cardinal liked Cigoli's version best.

The scene is taken the Gospel of John

Gospel of John

The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...

 (John 19): Pontius Pilate

Pontius Pilate

Pontius Pilatus , known in the English-speaking world as Pontius Pilate , was the fifth Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, from AD 26–36. He is best known as the judge at Jesus' trial and the man who authorized the crucifixion of Jesus...

 displays Christ

Christ

Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...

 to the crowd with the words, "Ecce homo!" ("Behold the man" - the man the crowd wishes to crucify). Caravaggio's version of the scene combined Pilate's display with the earlier moment of Christ, already crowned with thorns, mockingly robed like a king by his tormentors. Massimi already possessed a Crowning with Thorns (The Crowning with Thorns I) by Caravaggio, and Ecce Homo may have been intended as a companion piece.

Style

Stylistically, the painting displays characteristics of Caravaggio's mature Roman-period style. The forms are visible close-up and modelled by dramatic light, the absence of depth or background, and the psychological realism of, the torturer, who seems to mix sadism with pity. Pilate, in keeping with tradition, is shown as a rather neutral and perhaps almost sympathetic figure.

Carravagio

The contract for Ecce Homo was signed on 25 June 1605, with the painting to be delivered in August. Whether Caravaggio met his deadline is uncertain, as by July he was arrested for attacking the house of two women, Laura della Vecchia and her daughter, Isabella. Friends stood bail for him, but on 29 July he was in far more serious trouble for assaulting the notary Mariano Pasqualone over a well-known courtesan Lena and Caravaggio's model who is referred to by Pasqualone in the police complaint as "Michelangelo's (i.e. Caravaggio's) girl". Consequently, Caravaggio fled to Genoa until the end of August. He continued to be in trouble with the law throughout the year, with a complaint against him in September for throwing stones at his landlady's house, and a mysterious incident in October in which he was wounded in the throat and ear (Caravaggio claimed he had fallen on his own sword). In May 1606 he fled Rome again after killing Ranuccio Tomassoni in a duel, and he was not settled in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

until the latter part of that year.

Cigoli

Cigoli's Ecce Homo was not painted until 1607, and clearly attempts to mimic Caravaggio's style, suggesting that Massimi had not yet received his Caravaggio and was turning elsewhere. It is instructive to compare the two paintings: Caravaggio, unlike Cigoli, has dropped the convention of showing Christ's torturer as a grotesque, and has shown Pilate dressed as a 17th century official.