In Henry Ossawa Tanner’s painting The Savior, all this commotion is relegated to outside the picture plane, as the focus is put on a silent, haggard, praying Christ, portrayed as an ordinary man of Jewish ancestry. Rendered in loose, expressive brushstrokes, the waist-up profile portrait does not overspiritualize its subject, as religious portraits at the time were wont to do. Instead, Christ’s face is filled with a sense of deep, personal struggle but also raw determination, and his bowed posture underscores both his dejection and his humility. To ground the figure in reality, Tanner uses a restricted palette of mottled browns and beiges, the colors of the earth.