ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO
(b. 1423, Castagno, d. 1457, Firenze)

Crucifixion

c. 1455
Fresco, 270 x 347 cm
Sant'Apollonia, Florence

In the summer of 1455, the painter is back in Florence, where he executed another fresco in the church of Santissima Annunziata: a depiction of Lazarus together with Martha and Mary Magdalene, unfortunately destroyed. This fresco must also have been characterized by the same heightened realism visible in the other paintings in the church, and which we come across also in another work dating from this same period, the Crucifixion Andrea painted for the convent of Santa Maria degli Angeli, today in Sant'Apollonia.

The composition is basically identical to the first Crucifixion that Andrea had painted several years earlier for this same convent, but the later work lays greater stress on realistic details. The Christ figure, for instance, is no longer the same dignified Masaccesque man he was in the first fresco: here he is shown with harsh features, almost more like a suffering peasant.