2024-04-23
In contemporary art the viewer can often find echoes of current events. What may surprise many, the phenomenon of "responding" to current events also occurred in medieval art. A good example are medieval mystical crucifixes, on which one can see skin lesions characteristic for the plague, which decimated Europe at that time.
Mystical crucifixes can be considered some of the most shocking images of Christ Crucified in history. In these depictions, Jesus is frequently shown on a forked cross (a cross shape similar to the Latin letter Y) as a dead, suffering man. The Saviour's head usually falls inertly to the side, a strong sagging of the body can be seen. The whole body is emaciated; in addition to the marks of torment, these sculptures show furrows and symptoms of diseases common at the time, including plague. Ribs are emphasised, arms are strongly stretched. The whole creates a shocking image of pain and humanity.
The most likely type of mystical crucifix (or crucifixus dolorosus, Sorrowful Crucifixion) developed in the Lower Rhineland at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries. The oldest surviving object can be considered to be a sculpture from the Church of the Virgin Mary on the Capitol in Cologne. It is possible that this sculpture was made before 1304. The trend of depicting suffering radiated from Germany to Silesia and further to Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland. In Poland, an example of such representation can be seen in the National Museum in Warsaw, there is a mystical crucifix from the Corpus Christi church in Wrocław.
Sculptures of the Sorrowful Crucifixion type carry great power of expression. They were intended to help the faithful in prayer and in experiencing the death of Jesus. One of the visual means of intensifying the impression of pain was undoubtedly the use of a Y-shaped cross - the viewer may get the impression that the Saviour's body is being "torn apart". In the symbolic sphere, this shape may have referred to the Old Testament tree of life (a prefiguration of the crucified Messiah).