The Dead Christ and the Virgin by Neapolitan follower of Giotto, probably 1330s-40s

The death of Christ became central to European art in the middle ages. It was a mystery that absorbed entire communities in the religion which both bound and ruled them: they marvelled at how God’s own son was born to die as a mortal human. This painting is a highly emotive rendering of the grief that the holy corpse evoked – a grief explicitly depicted here as that which any mother might feel for her child. It’s influenced by Giotto, the Tuscan artist who made art more human, intimate and characterful in the 1300s. But this painter is technically naive in a way that makes it all the more moving and raw.

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/