MINNEAPOLIS.- In Germany and the Low Countries, Christ’s Passion was relived many times daily in the minds of the faithful. The Passion was the most highly venerated subject during the fifteenth and much of the sixteenth centuries, a phenomenon characterized by high-strung devotions and empathetic emotionalism. Popular Passion tracts encouraged such meditations by elaborating on Gospel events with wholly invented miseries, designed to intensify people’s empathy for Christ’s suffering.

As demonstrated in this exhibition, drawn from the MIA's permanent collection, printmakers also embellished the Passion, adding new forms of torture, inventive coloring, and other wrenching devices to heighten the drama of Christ’s sacrifice.