Christ décloué de la croix

Burgundy
2nd half of 12th Century
The Louvre

As is sometimes the case, the wood of a crucifix has proven less durable than the corpus.

The style of this corpus is somewhat transitional. As in Romanesque crucifixes, the arms bend only slightly and the skirt in its original state must have been somewhat elaborate, reaching as it does to below the knees. But otherwise the sensibility is Gothic: Jesus is clearly dead, with closed eyes and a head slumped onto the right shoulder, an object for the viewer's meditation on the pathos of his death.

Modern crucifixes in the West usually picture the two feet as affixed by only one nail. In this and many other medieval works each foot is nailed separately to the cross.

Read more about Crosses and Crucifixes