[Sidenote: EARLY “PASSION” PICTURES IN BASEL]
The “Arrest in the Garden” (No. 305)[103] is a composition crowded with figures, and is full of movement and noise. In the centre Judas is kissing Christ, who is surrounded by armed men; and on the left Peter, with uplifted sword, has just struck off the ear of Malchus, who, screaming with pain, and flinging one arm over his head, has fallen prone on the ground, while Christ reaches down his hand to heal the wound. Clever use is made of the spears, maces, and other upraised weapons of the soldiery, which are seen against the dark sky. Many of the movements of the figures are awkward and ugly, and the faces of the men who are dragging Christ away are repulsive and exaggerated, but the general effect produced is an impressive one, and the grouping is noteworthy as the work of a youth of seventeen or eighteen.
The picture of the “Handwashing” (306)[104] is the finest of the series, more particularly in the left-hand half of the composition, which represents Pilate in the act of washing his hands in a golden dish. He is clad in dark green, with an ermine cape over his shoulders, and an Eastern turban, and is seated on a throne or daïs with pillars of coloured marbles and an arch filled in with a shell design. Two attendants, one in yellow and black, hold the basin and pour out the water from a golden ewer. On the right, Christ, in dark blue and crowned with thorns, is led forth to execution. In this picture the colour is less crude and violent than in most of the others of the series, and in technical achievement, more particularly in the draughtsmanship of the group of Pilate and his attendants, is somewhat higher.
In the “Scourging” (No. 307) (Pl. 10),[105] Christ, a nude figure, is bound round the waist to a pillar in the prison, his uplifted arms being fastened to an iron ring above his head. His body is scored with wounds from the lashes of his executioners, his head falls in agony upon his shoulder, and one leg is dragged across the other in the extremity of his pain. The action of his torturers is of the utmost violence, and they jeer at him as they rain heavy blows upon his defenceless body. The scene to be depicted was a brutal and ruthless one, and to drive it home to the spectators, Holbein spared no details or efforts to make it as brutal in paint as it was in deed. The agony of Christ is well expressed, and considerable knowledge is displayed in the drawing of the body. The bright garments of the executioners form a striking though harsh contrast to the pale flesh tints of Christ and the stone wall of the cell, through the doorway of which on the right Pilate is gazing at his victim. Though by no means faultless, this picture has qualities, both of expression and of execution, which are remarkable when the age of the painter is remembered, qualities which already give indications, however faint, of the coming greatness of the master. This picture, and the one of the “Last Supper,” are noted in the Amerbach inventory as among Holbein’s first works.