De geseling van Christus

Jan Polack painted this Flagellation of Christ around 1490 in Munich. Polack's vigorous, emotionally charged Passion scenes were produced for churches throughout Bavaria. The Flagellation, showing Christ scourged at the column, was a standard subject in Passion cycles that Polack rendered with his characteristic dramatic intensity. This work belongs to the High Renaissance, when the innovations of the preceding century were synthesized into works of monumental clarity and ideal beauty. The period's defining aesthetic — balanced composition, idealized figures, unified atmospheric space — was developed above all in Florence and Rome before spreading across Italy and Europe.

Oil on panel with Polack's energetic figure drawing and dramatic narrative approach. The violent scene is rendered with the emotional directness characteristic of Bavarian late Gothic painting.