Rouault, Georges, Miserere Study, 1922

Miserere, the ancient word for imploring divine mercy, is a vast fresco of the human condition imagined by Georges Rouault. The artist makes misery, in the sense of both indigence and baseness, the common thread running through the human race. Christ is omnipresent in this work. Both human and divine, he is mankind’s clearest link with God and the hope of mercy.

The work was extremely long and tedious for the artist, as can be seen from the various states(see catalog raisonné). The first plates were designed as early as 1914. Printing took place from 1922 to 1927, under the close supervision of Georges Rouault, before Miserere was finally published in 1948.

The Christ depicted, tired and silent, seems very human. But this is not an immediate portrait of his face, but rather that of the cloth Veronica handed to Jesus on the way to the cross, on which his face was imprinted.