Crucifixion

The crucified Christ towers over two groups of figures in this work from the years 1303-1305. Angels swarm around him with a great variety of reactions of grief and pain. Mary Magdalene has fallen at his feet; her cloak has slipped unnoticed from her shoulders and her delicately painted, superb head of hair is now her only adornment. His mother, the Virgin Mary, collapses in a faint, while on the other side the soldiers fight over Christ's mantle. The centurion has recognized Christ and is attempting to point him out to the others. 

Some of the most dramatic parts in this Crucifixion and the following Lamentation are played by the small angelic spirits, who appear to have the lower part of their bodies hidden by clouds — a much more effective solution than Giotto devised for the angelic spirits in his earlier fresco for the Lower Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi, whose bodies are merely truncated. These small beings communicate their almost savage desperation through an extraordinary variety of attitudes and facial expressions not given to their human counterparts.