The Ascension (L'Ascension)

As Christ ascends to heaven, several witnesses shade their eyes from the blinding view overhead. According to Tissot, the Ascension completes the “original idea of Creation,” which was “redemption through Christ”; now humanity, too, is permitted to share in divine glory. “The cloud which ‘received Christ from sight’ is like the curtain which falls at the close of a drama,” he comments.

In the foreground of the image, Christ’s two footprints remain pressed into the earth as proof of his presence on earth—and in heaven.