La elevación de la cruz

In 1633 Rembrandt was a young man of 26, newly arrived in Amsterdam and suddenly in demand, and he landed the commission that mattered most: a series on the Passion of Christ for Frederik Hendrik, the Prince of Orange and effectively the ruler of the Dutch Republic. This is one of the panels. Soldiers strain to haul the cross upright, Christ's body already nailed to it, lit by a hard raking light against the dark. Look at the man in the blue cap pulling hardest at the center. That is Rembrandt himself, painting his own face among the executioners. It was an old idea, that everyone shares the guilt for the Crucifixion, and he makes it personal by laying his own hands on the wood.