The Taking of Christ

In the dark garden of Gethsemane, betrayal unfolds in a single frozen second. Caravaggio painted this scene around 1602, showing Judas pressing forward to kiss Jesus and mark him for the soldiers. Jesus keeps his hands folded and his eyes cast down, quietly accepting what comes, while armored guards lunge in from the right, their polished metal catching the light. To the left, a man throws his arms up in alarm and seems ready to bolt, his open mouth adding a burst of noise to the crowded, jostling group.

The Italian master was famous for his handling of light, a technique known as tenebrism, and this painting shows off that skill beautifully. A sharp beam falls across the tangle of faces and hands, and everything else sinks into deep shadow, which makes the whole moment feel raw and immediate. Over on the far right, a figure lifts a lantern to peer at the scene, and many believe this curious onlooker is Caravaggio himself, quietly writing his own face into the drama.

The painting has a wild history of its own. It was considered lost for hundreds of years, known only through copies, until the early 1990s when it turned up in a Jesuit house in Dublin. It had been hanging there for ages, dismissed as the work of a minor painter, until experts realized what it truly was. The picture now stays on long term loan at the National Gallery of Ireland.