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Overview
The Large Passion is named after the format of the series (39 x 28 cm.). The whole series of twelve woodcuts (eleven scenes and a title page) did not appear till 1511 when Albrecht Dürer published the cycle, together with a title page and a poem by the Benedictine theologian and monk Benedictus Chelidonius. The first seven woodcuts were executed between 1497 and 1500, then the series was completed by five woodcuts in 1510, following Dürer's second visit to Italy (1505-07). The complete edition in book form was published in 1511. After Dürer's death, the series was republished in 1675 and 1690.
The pictures are distinguished by means of their strong emotions, naturalism and human treatment of the subject, thus distancing them from late Gothic depictions of the Passion. Dürer considered the Passion to be the subject most worthy of representation in pictorial art, and he portrayed it five different times - a sixth version remained unfinished owing to his death. The subject, untrammelled by the strange pictorial apparatus of the Apocalypse, allows a clearer expression of form and intention, appropriate for this central Christian story
This is one of Dürer's most dramatic prints as well as one of his earliest major works, and is dated by Larry Silver as 1497-99. As Jesus prays that the cup of martyrdom might pass by him but accepts God's will whatever it might be, a winged angel (top right) offers him the cup to drink, while bottom right, the Apostles John and James sleep soundly; below left, St Peter, who will soon inadvertently betray Jesus, appears to be just awakening. In The Essential Dürer (2011), Silver writes 'it would be difficult not to see [this print] in sculptural terms. The figures stand out against the ground in a way that occurs in actual relief sculpture... by Veit Stoss... Moreover, the vigorous modelling and movement of the draped figures appear very similar in examples of both media. The obvious differences narrow down further when considering that the linear of the woodcut has defined the shape of three-dimensional forms by creating the appearance of reflected light along the edge of a form next to a shaded recess...' (pp. 52-53).
Dr Mark Stocker, Curator Historical International Art December 2016