Christ of the Cross 1859

Johann Koler painted this image of the crucifixion with oils sometime in the 19th century. It depicts Christ on the cross with his followers mourning at the foot of the cross. Koler was an Estonian painter whose career began in the milieu of the Russian Imperial Academy of Arts. From the mid-1860s he became a prominent figure in the Estonian national awakening movement, using his art to encourage a sense of shared identity in his homeland. Koler here offers a relatively traditional, even conservative, rendering of the crucifixion as a symbol of Christian identity. The work makes few explicit gestures towards contemporary political concerns, but we might consider it in light of wider debates about the purpose of art in the formation of national identity. By consulting historical sources we can contextualize and gain a better understanding of the social and cultural forces that shaped this artwork. In doing so, we recognize that art is not created in a vacuum, but is deeply intertwined with the institutions and power structures of its time.