Black and grey realism tattoo across a man's back showing a crucifixion scene with angels and an INRI inscription, with sleeve tattoos on both upper arms.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Crucifixion back piece with angels and sleeves

Realism · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A large back piece shows Christ on a crucifix at the centre, with a gothic-style frame and the inscription INRI above. Two angels sit on the arms of the cross, and a crowd of figures stands on a hill to the lower left. Smooth shading and fine detail are used throughout, with sleeve tattoos continuing down both arms.

Realism Back Shoulder Upper arm Forearm Cross Angel Hill Sleeve Figure Wing

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Wren, the scaffolding came down on Tuesday and the Dean has stopped pacing the nave, so you can tell Mum I am finally sleeping in a bed that doesn't rock. The last three weeks were spent on the north gable, cutting the lettering above the rood. Hollis made me chisel back the first I because it stood a finger too tall, and I cried in the sacristy over a bit of Portland stone, which I will never admit to anyone but you.

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The angels were the easy part, or so I thought. Two of them sit on the arms of the cross, one with a torch turned down, one with a wing folded like a shut book. They took me four evenings each. The hill is harder. Ruth roughed out the crowd at the lower left, forty figures no taller than my thumb, and I had to make every one of them lean a different way, as though they were arguing about what they had just seen. Nobody in the pews will ever count them. I know they are there.

On the last night I stayed late with the lamp on its hook. Eli, the new lad, asked me which way the figure on the cross should look, up at the vault or down at the floor where people walk. I told him down. People who come in to pray should have to walk under that gaze, I said, and I surprised myself by meaning it.

When I left, the lamp was still burning on its hook and the stone under my palm was warm from the day's sun through the clerestory. I did not put it out. Somebody should be able to read the letters when they come in tomorrow, and I suppose that is what I am telling you. Love, Agnes.