ABSTRACT
The representation of the Crucifixion was slow to develop its dominant role in Christian art. This chapter outlines some of the interpretative traditions and considers their diverse and changing influences on the visual arts in the Middle Ages by examining the central Christian image of the Cross in examples taken from various times, media and contexts. It presents examples of the iconography of the Cross that illustrate just some of the ways in which visual images, the written word and the spiritual interpretation of Scripture were closely related in early medieval monastic art. The process of looking at medieval religious images has often been usefully compared with the activity of meditative reading, but images do not offer direct translations of the written word: they present a visual experience. Such images offer a visual counterpart to the work of the early Fathers of the Church, who expounded the mystery of the Cross hidden beneath the outward ‘sign’ of its physical appearance.
