| First Station | |
| Artist: | Barnett Newman |
| Year: | 1958 |
| Medium: | Magna on canvas |
| Height Metric: | 197.8 |
| Width Metric: | 153.7 |
| Height Imperial: | 77 7/8 |
| Width Imperial: | 60 1/2 |
| Museum: | National Gallery of Art |
| City: | Washington, D.C. |
| Fourteenth Station | |
| Artist: | Barnett Newman |
| Year: | 1965/1966 |
| Medium: | Acrylic and Duco on canvas |
| Height Metric: | 198.1 |
| Width Metric: | 152.2 |
| Height Imperial: | 78 |
| Width Imperial: | 59 15/16 |
| Museum: | National Gallery of Art |
| City: | Washington, D.C. |
The Stations of the Cross / Lema Sabachthani is a series of fifteen abstract expressionist paintings created between 1958 and 1966 by Barnett Newman, often considered to be his greatest work.[1] It consists of fourteen paintings, each named after one of Jesus's fourteen Stations, followed by a coda, Be II. Unlike most depictions of the Stations of the Cross, Newman did not intend for this to be a narrative journey of Jesus's suffering. Rather, it was intended to evoke the central question of the Passion, lema sabachthani (why have you forsaken me?).[2] The secular, Jewish Newman used this central theme of Christian theology to probe the human condition rather than towards its historical purpose of devotion or worship.[3]
The series has been seen as a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust.[4]