Christ carrying the Cross

Titian painted this over something else. Underneath is an Ecce Homo, Christ holding a reed, which he had put on the same canvas earlier and then covered, a habit of his late years. Some of the reworking is visible without any equipment at all. The fingers of both men shifted while he was working and the changes show through the paint. What he settled on is a close-up of a kind he almost never used, two heads brought right up to the surface on either side of the diagonal of the cross. Simon of Cyrene has been pulled out of the crowd to carry it. Christ, the rope still around his neck, turns his reddened eyes on whoever is standing in front of the picture.