The torture of the Savior

The artist is Egorov

For the purity of style, classicism, clarity of the composition of the works of Alexei Egorov, contemporaries called the artist "Russian Raphael". This work was preceded by numerous preparatory drawings and sketches. The work is included in the passionate cycle based on the final parts of the gospel, telling about the last days of the earthly life of Jesus Christ, His sacrificial death and suffering (passions) on the cross: from the secret party with the disciples to "Provisions in the coffin" and "Resurrection". Composition "The torture of the Savior" Extremely concise. The artist put forward a group of Christ and executioners to the forefront: a similar construction and tonal solution make a picture similar to a bas -relief, which is typical for painting of high classicism. Contemporaries perceived the picture as a standard of academic art. Professor of anatomy and. AT. Buyalsky, who loved to demonstrate anatomical errors on statues and paintings to his students, spoke about Egorov’s work: “Here is the only picture in which there is not a single mistake”.

In 1814, the picture was exhibited at an exhibition at the Imperial Academy of Arts, in 1820 at the initiative of the President of the Academy A. N. Olenina was bought from an artist. Since 1850 it was exhibited in the halls of the Russian School of Painting of the Imperial Hermitage. In the same year, the famous engraver f. And. Jordan appealed to the Council of the Academy of Arts with a request to allow him to engrave this picture, which he attributed to the “remarkable new creations in art”.