"What is Truth?" Christ and Pilate

Bathed in dazzling sunlight, the well-built Roman governor Pilate stands imposingly.

In stark contrast, standing quietly in deep shadows, is an emaciated Jesus Christ, with disheveled hair and clad in shabby clothes.

This dramatic composition fundamentally overturns the traditional conventions of religious painting, where "light equals good, darkness equals evil."
However, when this painting was first exhibited, the artist Nikolai Ge found himself in the midst of a storm of fierce criticism.