The Judgment of the Sanhedrin: He is Guilty!

The Judgment of the Sanhedrin: He is Guilty!, painted in 1892 and now in the Tretyakov Gallery, depicts the trial of Jesus before the Jewish high council — the night hearing described in Matthew 26 and Mark 14 in which the high priest asks if Jesus is the Messiah and tears his garment at the answer. Ge had already treated this subject area in What is Truth? (1890), showing Pilate confronting Christ; this canvas presents the earlier interrogation before the Jewish authorities. The dramatic title — with its exclamation mark — underlines the accusatory shout that follows the condemnation. As with all Ge's late religious work, the subject was painted in close conversation with Tolstoy, whose interpretation of the Gospels emphasised the revolutionary moral content over the theological framework. The Tretyakov Gallery holds this alongside the other late Passion canvases.

Oil on canvas in the late manner. The night-court setting — a lamplit chamber — creates the same constrained, artificial light that Ge exploited in The Last Supper. Christ's figure would be isolated and composed against the agitation of the accusers. The rough, summary handling of the surrounding figures contrasts with the slightly more resolved treatment of the central confrontation, directing the viewer's moral and visual attention.