The Elevation of the Cross (also called The Raising of the Cross) is a painting by the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, completed in 1610-1611.
Rubens painted The Elevation of the Cross after returning to Flanders from Italy. The work shows a clear influence of Italian Renaissance and Baroque artists such as Caravaggio, Tintoretto, Michelangelo. The central panel illustrates a tension between the multitude of finely muscled men attempting to lift the cross and the seemingly unbearable weight of Christ on the cross.
The painting is located at the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp, Belgium, along with other Rubens works. Under Napoleon's rule, the emperor took the painting, along with Rubens' The Descent from the Cross, to Paris. The paintings were returned to the cathedral in the late 1800s.
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