Passio domini nostri Jesu Christi..., Urs Graf; Daniel Agricola

Exhibition Label:
"Giorgio Vasari and Court Culture in Late Renaissance Italy," Sep-2012, Sally Cornelison and Susan Earle
In 1512 Urs Graf became a citizen of Basel, where this book was published, and for three years he remained the most sought-after book illustrator in that city. In comparison to the considerably larger images in the earlier Strasbourg passio, the compositions of Graf’s twenty-one unsigned woodcuts in this Passion text have fewer figures and their settings are cursorily depicted. In the Christ Carrying the Cross shown here a single soldier whips Christ as Simon of Cyrene helps to carry the cross; St. Veronica stands before Jerusalem’s gate, where she displays the imprint of Christ’s face on her veil. The pious images Graf produced for books like this one stand in sharp contrast to the artist’s violent personality, for he was jailed on more than one occasion for beating his wife and consorting with prostitutes, and in 1518 he fled Basel after being accused of attempted murder.