A watershed canvas of second-wave Pre-Raphaelitism, based on the 11th-century Florentine legend of St. John Gualbert, who pardoned his brother's killer on Good Friday, prompting the wooden Christ on a roadside shrine to come alive and embrace him. Burne-Jones broke away from the literal naturalism of early Pre-Raphaelitism (Millais, Hunt), pivoting toward stylized medieval mysticism. The dense, fresco-like gouache technique and elongated, vertical geometry directly anticipated Symbolism and Art Nouveau.