La Mise au tombeau

Caravaggio painted this around 1603 for a new chapel in a Roman church of Saint Philip Neri's oratory, and he built it around the exact spot where a priest would stand at the altar. As the priest lifted the host and said the words over Christ's body, the congregation would see, right behind him, this same body being lowered onto the cold stone. So the picture was made to line up with the Mass. The mourners tumble down a steep diagonal toward the slab, and the corner of that stone juts straight out toward you, as if the whole weight were about to slide off the altar into the room. It was admired at once. Rubens, Fragonard and later Cézanne all made copies, and the version here is Caravaggio's own.