In 1511, Dürer printed the Small Passion and worked to finish an engraved version that he would publish the following year (also hanging on this wall). Within his Passion oeuvre, perhaps no two cycles demonstrate the formal, narrative, and emotive variety as clearly as these two. The Engraved Passion is relatively limited in scope, comprising fifteen scenes, while the Small Passion is positively expansive, depicting thirty-six episodes. The engraved cycle foregrounds the psychological dimension of the Passion and encourages the viewer to linger on each scene. The more rugged woodcut Passion, on the other hand, propels the viewer through the cycle, creating a "reading" experience commensurate with the dizzying physical trials the scenes present. Where one is refined, the other is raw; where one quiet, the other loud; where one lyric, the other epic; and so on. It is as if Dürer were trying to create definitive versions of the Passion in two media that clearly have different pictorial potentials.

The amount of detail a woodcut can produce, especially on such a small scale, is limited by the technology of the medium. Because of this, the Small Passion does not depend on detail for its force. Rather, Dürer attended to the dynamic between, more than within, individual images. This made for clear, legible compositions and interdependent imagery, making the Small Passion a visual page-turner.