Isenheim Altarpiece — The Crucifixion

The Isenheim Altarpiece was made for a monastic hospital that treated patients suffering from St Anthony's Fire — ergotism, a poisoning from rye fungus that caused convulsions, gangrene, and horrific skin lesions. Grünewald painted the crucified Christ covered in exactly those lesions: green-yellow bruises, splinters, blackening skin. The patients, looking up from their beds, would see that Christ had suffered their disease. It is one of the most sustained pieces of religious therapy in Western art. Now at Musée Unterlinden, Colmar @museeunterlinden