There are surely few more shocking artistic accounts of Christ’s flagellation than this image by the Mexican artist Juan Correa. Painted in the 1670s, Correa portrays Jesus on his hands and knees, pitifully reaching for his clothes after his bloody whipping at a column, the punishment handed down by Pontius Pilate as the usual prelude to crucifixion under Roman law.
Yet, clearly this is no ordinary beating, the violence of the act being so terrible that the whip and the thorny twigs lie broken on the floor, with remnants of these instruments of torture appear embedded in Christ’s lacerated back. A scene so shocking that the five angels helplessly witnessing the event are reduced to copious tears.
The Arts of Golden Age Spain and the Hispanic World 