icon for Home page
icon for Kid's Home page
icon for Digital Collection
icon for Activities
icon for Turns Exhibit
icon for In the Classroom
icon for Chronologies
icon for My Collection

Things To Do
Dress Up | 1st Person | African American Map | Now Read This | Magic Lens | In the Round | Tool Videos | Architecture | e-Postcards | Chronologies | Turns Activities

Send an E-Postcard of:
Deposition from the Cross

front
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
Contact us for information about using this image.

This painted sketch was made by Augustus Vincent Tack (1870-1949) some time before 1939 and was hung above the altar at the Church of Saint James in South Deerfield, Massachusetts. As a religious object, it is loaded with Christian symbolism. It depicts the time just after Jesus' death. He is being lowered from the cross by a small group of supporters, clustered in the central frame, come to reclaim the body. The painting idealizes them since they have risked their safety just by being identified as Jesus' followers. To the left are the people of Palestine, rendered here as either indifferent or hostile; to the right, a centurion (Roman soldier) represents the authority that ultimately sentenced Jesus to death. Above the drawing are words drawn from the Roman Catholic church's Good Friday liturgy. During this ritual, known as the Adoration of the Cross, the scene pictured is reenacted. Tack included key phrases from the ritual here: on the painting's upper edge, in Greek, is "Holy Immortal, O Holy God," while running along the bottom, in Latin, "O my people, what have I done to thee? or wherein have I afflicted thee? Answer me."

 

top of page

Share this image with a friend.
Simply enter their e-mail address below and we'll send them this image in an e-mail greeting, along with a link to see the image on our site.

To E-Mail Address *
From E-Mail Address *
From Name
Message

* = Required


button for Side by Side Viewingbutton for Glossarybutton for Printing Helpbutton for How to Read Old Documents

 

Home | Online Collection | Things To Do | Turns Exhibit | Classroom | Chronologies | My Collection
About This Site | Site Index | Site Search | Feedback