History Main / CrucialCross

* ''Film/ThePassionOfTheChrist'' is one of the most violent, unrelenting depiction of Jesus's death in the two millennia of constant artistic reinterpretation, but the film still holds the Cross up as something sacred and beautiful for its role in undermining Satan and all the forces of evil. In fact, the first thing Jesus does upon receiving his Cross is kiss it out of reverence.

* The UrExample of this trope is the Crucifixion and Resurrection of UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}}, especially as described in Literature/TheFourGospels. The horror of his death on the cross was transformed by the belief that he returned to life into hope that all men might escape death and sin in the same way. Since the Gospels never describe the Cross itself as something hopeful, nor do they describe Christians using it as a symbol, St. Paul's reference[[note]]in the book of Galatians[[/note]] to "boasting in the cross" is the actual TropeMaker.

[[caption-width-right:350: The son of God always knows how to make an entrance.]]

Naturally, the Cross is most frequently used in religious {{Art}}, so the mediums most popular for religious purposes (think paintings, sculptures, and architecture) have far more examples of it than more secular mediums like WesternAnimation, VideoGames, and WebComics. You may have noticed those secular mediums are very modern, which is important because a secular media has drastically decreased the usage of the Crucial Cross. Still, visual mediums like {{Film}} can still get good mileage out of the image of the cross, while works that are either entirely [[{{Literature}} in print]] or entirely [[{{Podcast}} in audio]] have to work a little more to incorporate the Cross without appearing unsubtle.

!Examples

* ''The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament'' by Creator/{{Raphael|Sanzio}} subtly includes the cross-image by the arrangement of the Trinity (who overcame death and suffering at the crucifixion) in a vertical line while the saints (who had to die to get to Heaven) make up a horizontal line through the top of that. Together, the cross-image shows all those who overcame the earthly strife seen at the bottom of the painting to find happiness.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* PlayedWith in ''The Crucifixion of Saint Peter'' by Creator/MichelangeloBuonarroti, where St. Peter does maintain his composure and faith in Christ even as the Romans begin his execution on the cross. However, Peter's cross is flipped upside-down to show that Peter, HumbleHero that he is, does not equate his sacrifice with that of UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}}.
* Creator/SalvadorDali's ''Corpus Hypercubus'' portrays Jesus exploding off a four-dimensional cubic cross. The painting portrays Jesus suffering as those in Hiroshima did by Dali's nuclear mystic imagery while showing the victory of Christ's divinity by showing Christ's body without any wounds or blood to mar from his AngelicBeauty.
* ''The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament'' by [[Creator/RaphaelSanzio Raphael]] subtly includes the cross-image by the arrangement of the Trinity (who overcame death and suffering at the crucifixion) in a vertical line while the saints (who had to die to get to Heaven) make up a horizontal line through the top of that. Together, the cross-image shows all those who overcame the earthly strife seen at the bottom of the painting to find happiness.

* One guy took a photo of a crucifix in a jar of piss, bringing us Art/PissChrist. Most people were pretty pissed about treating a symbol of a [[Literature/TheDivineComedy the Love that Moves the Stars]] like toilet paper, but the photographer and at least [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9pAKdkJh-Y one nun]] maintain that it shows the importance of Christ's sacrifice in spite of all the vulgarity and evil that obscures it.
* The altar painting of the Art/SistineChapel places a dark, shadowy land of graves, hellfire, and corpses at the bottom of the painting, all below a cross with Jesus's corpse yet to be taken down. It is only from moving above the Cross do we see what this suffering has been transformed into: a FluffyCloudHeaven where a fully alive Jesus raises all the just dead into glory with his Father as they cling to his Heavenly Cross.