Christ in Limbo

Benvenuto di Giovanni

National Gallery of Art

A haloed man with his back to us approaches a crowd gathered in a crate-like box unexpectedly set into a rocky landscape in this square painting. The central man, Jesus, is covered with a white cloth across one shoulder and both hips, and he carries a white banner marked with a red cross. He is barefoot as he steps on the opening to the box, which is hinged along the bottom edge. The door has crushed a wild-haired demon with red-colored skin against the pebble-strewn ground below. More than two dozen men and women of all ages are crowded into the box, their round faces tipped back and looking toward Jesus. All the people have pale skin. Jesus reaches out his left hand to hold the wrist of a man with a long white beard and hair, who kneels to the left. This kneeling man wears a dark, fur-like garment, and a hoe is hooked across his bent knee. Jesus holds the hand of a second man, who also kneels, to our right. This man wears a canary-yellow robe edged in blue, and he grips Jesus’s wrist with his second hand. A man wearing a purple toga over another fur-like garment stands behind. The box-like structure is set within a massive, striated boulder. More rocky cliffs rise to each side of the central form, and the sky above is sapphire blue.