[1] This work belongs to a group of religious paintings where Corinth took inspiration by the episodes of the crucifixion and the Passion of Christ.

The painting depicts a crucifixion scene, with the body of Jesus Christ in the center, slightly moved to the left edge.

According to Sonja de Puinef, the body of the suffering Christ "dominates and breaks up" the composition "with his hands protruding above the picture frame".

On the right side there is another figure, who is holding a sponge on a long staff, a branch of hyssop, who according to the Gospel of John, was soaked in vinegar.

While there are three other people at the left of the crucified Jesus, the landscape is indistinctly depicted on the right, and only a single person appears in the lower section.

The horizon line is shown at the chest height of the crucified Jeus, above that there is the sky, and in the third section between the outstretched arms, the sun is depicted with accentuated rays of sunlight.

The sky, the lake, and the sun are all permeated with red, creating an impression of twilight.ref>Sonja de Puinef, "Der rote Christus", in Ulrike Lorenz, Marie-Amélie zu Salm-Salm, Hans-Werner Schmiedt (coordinators), Lovis Corinth und die Geburt der Moderne, Kerber, Bielefeld, 2008 (German) The crucifixion scene depicted corresponds in its basic features to the way it is described in the Gospel of John.

According to Bärnreuther, Corinth chose the expressionist style because of his “insight into the limits of naturalistic representation, which must fail where it is about the intangible, not immediately accessible to the senses.”[4] Bärnreuther also recognizes in the style of representation an “aesthetic of the ugly” that goes “beyond aesthetic limits” and “in which the brutality of the abstraction in the figure, the arbitrariness in the coloring of the omnipresent red that violates all rules of good taste and, last but not least, the violent application of paint in the thick patches and the maltreating treatment with palette knife and brush” represent an “attack on perception.” Sonja de Puinef places the picture in the context of the political situation in Germany, and in Corinth's personal situation, in 1922.

According to de Puinef, "his Christ with uncertain facial features is undoubtedly also a projection of the suffering of the artist himself and, beyond him, of an entire nation."