"Now I suppose that the question should be, why would the cloth be so very much larger on the ivory than in other images?"
That is just the sort of question I'd love to time-travel in order to find a response to... There are many details in medieval art that send me into fits of wonderment. Here's a bit of a non-scientific, undocumented, totally personal answer to your query based solely on first impressions and a bit of steady gazing.
The short answer is: it's pretty that way.
The image is a study in flowing parallels and symmetry. Note that the folds of the oversized blindfold follow the position of Christ's hands and the folds of his garment. Of interest also are the positions of the tormentors' bodies. The guy on the left will have to swing around to land a blow on Christ's body and he has to turn his head slightly to see his victim. But the artist apparently wanted both guys to be facing in the same direction with the same arm raised, bodies in roughly the same position. Only their feet and heads are situated differently. As an aside, I'll note that the guy on the left looks very much like the traditional image of Jesus himself. That struck me at once.
There may well be some additional, more theologically-based motives at work here. I'll leave those to the theologians to ferret out. |