The Haunting Power of Christ’s Most Unusual Depiction

The painting that left Dostoevsky “stunned”

The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb (1521–22) by Hans Holbein the Younger. Oil and tempera on linden wood. 30.5 × 200 cm. Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland. Image source

What do we see in this painting?

Set within a claustrophobic stone tomb, the painting shows Jesus Christ after he was crucified, laid out flat on a platform shrouded with a white sheet.

Above the body on the frame, the inscription reads “IESVS·NAZARENVS·REX·IVDÆORVM” (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews).

Depicted in a strictly side-on view, Hans Holbein’s painting has a graphic intensity that, on the surface at least, removes any glimmer of divinity from Christ’s lifeless body.

Detail of ‘The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb’ (1521–22) by Hans Holbein the Younger. Oil and tempera on linden wood. 30.5 × 200 cm. Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland. Image source

With the exception of his execution wounds — the punctures in his hands and feet, the gaping lance wound in his side — everything else about Christ’s plight has been omitted. We see no cross, no mourners, none of the usual emotional outpouring common to this theme in art, nor any hint of what is to come next.

The narrative of the Crucifixion has been stripped down to this: flesh and bones given license to grow cold and begin to decompose, an emaciated body with lesions and lacerations that have dried hard, and a…