When Faith Becomes Pain Painted in 1872 by Ivan Kramskoi, Christ in the Desert is one of the most powerful works of Russian realism. It shows Jesus sitting alone at dawn, in a cold and silent expanse of sand. Exhausted, his gaze lowered, he faces not a visible enemy, but his own temptation — that of despair and doubt. Kramskoi worked on this theme for a long time. An earlier version, painted in 1867, did not satisfy him: he wanted to convey not divine glory, but the inner struggle of a man on th