Crucifixion

Jacopo Bassano took his name from Bassano del Grappa, the small town on the Venetian mainland where he spent almost his whole career, well away from the grand studios of Venice itself. That distance let him develop a plainer, more rural manner, full of ordinary faces, working animals and honest daylight. This large Crucifixion comes from the 1550s, from Jacopo and the busy family workshop around him, and it repeats a composition he had worked out earlier that is now lost. The Bucharest canvas is its own version, with the landscape altered and two extra figures added to the mourners gathered at the foot of the cross. It hangs among the Italian paintings in the National Museum of Art of Romania, the collection built up by the country's royal family.