Ecce Homo

Near the end of his life, around 1500, Mantegna stripped this scene down to faces. Ecce Homo — behold the man — is the moment Pilate shows the beaten Christ to a crowd calling for his death. Most painters set it on a balcony above a square. Mantegna throws out the architecture and shoves the crowd right up against us, so the jeering heads press in on Christ from both sides. In the top corners he painted little curling papers carrying the crowd's shouts: crucify him, take him away. Christ wears the crown of thorns and looks down and past everyone, a rope already looped around his neck.