The motif of the lone figure of a suffering Christ who seems to be staring directly at the observer, enabling him/her to personally identify with the events of the Passion, arose in the late Middle Ages.
In 1498, Albrecht Dürer depicted the suffering of Christ in the Ecce Homo of his Great Passion, print series in unusually close relation with his self-portrait, leading to a reinterpretation of the motif as a metaphor for the suffering of the artist.