The Deposition from the Cross

Step into a small chapel just off the Ponte Vecchio in Florence and you meet a Deposition unlike any before it. There is no cross, no ladder, almost no ground. A cluster of figures in shifting pink, ice-blue, and pale green seem to hold Christ's body aloft while barely touching the floor. Pontormo painted this between 1525 and 1528, a generation after Leonardo and Raphael had settled what a balanced, natural scene should look like. He undid all of it. The colors don't fall into real shadow, and the crowded bodies press together without weight. One young man at the bottom carries Christ almost on tiptoe, looking back over his shoulder at us.