Agnolo Bronzino

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This is a very dark panting full of deep rich colour, reds and browns of various hues by contrast the skin of the crucified Jesus stands out in the foreground. The main focus of the painting is Jesus and the artist has used the brighter colour to draw the viewers eye to his body. The people all around are in various attitudes of sadness and grief, one, his mother, is looking to heaven. The two other crucifed men by contrast have been painted in darker colours and they can only be glimsped in the background one is being taken down already dead and the other two are contorted in what looks like agony still alive. Christ himself has no mark upon him almost as though he has already been transformed and resurrected. This must be a deliberate action on Bronzinos part as he was obsessed with getting every detail right in his paintings from the clothes people wore to the buildings in the background. The Deposition would carry a message to the contemporary viewers that we cannot see today. But this does not mean we cannot enjoy the painting for its own sake.