“Christ on the Cross” will give to those capable of feeling the impression of a great, artistic experience. The mystical tragedy, from which a world-religion draws its emotion, is presented with the simplicity and suppressed pain with which a father reports to his son the tragic death of the mother. All subsidiary work that might prove distracting is avoided. No thieves, no Captain Longinus, no Roman legionaries, no fanatical spectators; not one of the aids in men or things with which the classics of painting are wont to complicate the event of Calvary, with the object of making it more impressive. Nothing save the life-sized figure of the Saviour, who has ended His sufferings, and Mary, who leans against the Cross so as not to break down altogether. On the face of the corpse the peace of consummation has sunk; unutterable grief wastes that of the Mother. The form floats in a soft, unearthly light; on the latter expressive shadows strive. The repose of the dead Christ, which would appear painless and almost cheerful were it not that a slight trait of suffering was fixed around the mouth, dawns like a consolation over the dark despair which fills the soul of the living mother. If she suffers humanly, as a mother, so that she would fain die of woe, still redemption and exaltation also arise for her from the act of salvation. If one has ever heard Palestrina’s “Stabat Mater,” it re-echoes in his soul at the sight of Carrière’s picture. It has issued from the same deep emotion as the tear-soaked _terzine_ of Jacopone da Todi and Palestrina’s sobbing hymn. Carrière abandons himself to his feelings with the same earnestness as the Franciscan friar and the choirmaster of St Peter’s. It is hard for me to admit that he shares their pious belief. I assume that the Mother’s grief has, in the main, inspired him. This strong feeling has, doubtless, made him susceptible of the sacredness of the symbolism in the death on the Cross; through the human he will have raised himself to an inkling of the superhuman. Let us not forget that Carrière is the painter of that “Motherhood,” the gem of the Luxembourg Museum, which depicts a young mother with a child on her lap and another beside her, revelling in the sight of her little ones—her treasures—with adorable tenderness in look and mien, in the pose of her body and the movement of her arms. Carrière has a wonderfully deep feeling for maternal love, in joy as in sorrow. Unconsciously and involuntarily, he has conceived his subject not with the spirit of a believing Christian, but with the broken heart of Mary. He might confidently have called his “Christ on the Cross,” too, “Maternity,” like his masterpiece in the Luxembourg; the one is a companion-picture of the other; the tragedy of maternal love, according to its idyl.[4]