The Crucifixion of Christ

Tiepolo was about 29 when he painted this for the parish church of Burano, an island of fishermen and lace-makers out across the Venetian lagoon. He was just then moving into the work that made his name, the frescoes for the archbishop's palace at Udine on the mainland, ordered by a Venetian patriarch who had noticed him. The Burano canvas is large, and the crucifixion is not quite its centre. The crosses stand back among soldiers and horses, high up and half turned away. What holds the foreground is the Virgin, collapsed and being carried by the women around her, given the scale a ceiling painter would normally save for the main event. It is still in the church on the island, where a restoration brought the colour back.