The Agony in the Garden (Christ on the Mount of Olives)

The Cavaliere d'Arpino was one of the most important artists in Italy in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, painting at the Vatican and for numerous Roman palaces and churches. In the late 1590s, he was knighted by Pope Clement VIII for his decorations in the church of San Giovanni in Laterano, and went on to design the mosaics for the dome of Saint Peter's Basilica, as well as completing many other projects, in oil and fresco, in and around Rome.

In this painting, Christ is visited in a blaze of heavenly light by an angel bearing a cross-a portent of his pending crucifixion -while the apostles James, John, and Peter slumber peacefully in the foreground, surrounded by delicate foliage. Under a silvery crescent moon, the tiny figures of Judas, gesturing toward the disciples and Christ, and helmeted soldiers bearing halberds and lanterns approach from a shadowy distance to make their arrest.

While the artist made numerous versions of this subject and composition, the Oberlin painting is regarded as the finest. The nocturnal setting, complex composition, and studied attention to figures and poses in this painting make this one of his most moving works. As a young artist, Caravaggio studied in Cesari's Roman workshop, and although the size of this painting and scale of its figures are vastly removed from those of works by Caravaggio, the moody treatment of light and shadows here demonstrate parallels between the artists' conceptions of chiaroscuro, the use of light and shadow to create three-dimensional form.