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[Steven Champeon <schampeo AT hesketh.com>]

on Tue, Jun 22, 2004 at 09:00:29PM -0400, Lyman Green wrote:
> 
> > Which traditional portrayal? The one where he looks like Albrecht Durer?
> > The one where he looks like Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley? The one
> > where he looks like I took too much acid and tried to eat an omelet? The
> > one where /he/ looks like he just took waaay too much speed and tried
> > to dress up like Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island? The black Jesus from the
> > intro to Good Times? etc. etc.
> >
> >
> http://www.beloit.edu/~classics/main/courses/fyi2000/museum/unusual_jesus/
> >
> http://trinitywholesale.com/prints/religious/jesus_montage_chirst_child.htm
> >
> > Nobody knows what Jesus looked like. And to test anyone's capabilities
> > on whether they recognize someone who NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THEY LOOKED LIKE
> > is kinda stupid. IMHO.
> 
> Now you're just being silly.

s/silly/pedantic, but indisputably correct/ :)

> Sure, all of the things you're saying above are true. 

Yeah.

> Nevertheless, there are several widely recognized "styles" of
> portraits of Jesus.

...some of which I named above. Many, if not all, are such obvious and
pathetic projections of the artist's sense of self that it's almost
embarrassing to see people praying to them. Never mind the various
changes Mary's gone through over the years, as tastes have changed (from
fat to thin to demure to strong, etc. etc. etc.) - ol' J's got as many
faces as, well, as a Hindu deity.

> This happened to be what I call the "white hippie Jesus." 

:) It may help if you think of him as the "mid-1500s German painter Jesus";
the "white hippie Jesus" is the spitting image of Albrecht Durer:

 http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2002/Parkhurst/parkhurst9.asp

...who produced many prints, including the well-known "Rhinoceros", also
a near-complete fabrication based on word of mouth accounts, but who was
most famous for producing a series of religious-themed prints based on the
stories of the gospels. His Jesus is, well, awfully familiar.

 http://www.mystudios.com/art/northern/durer/durer-christ.html
 http://www.relewis.com/durer_flagellationsm.html

And I don't think he's painting himself as looking like Jesus; I think
it's pretty clear that he's painting Jesus using himself as a model. If
you go back any further, all the Jesuses (Jesii?) look the same, vaguely
empty of expression, iconic, early Christian period - characterized by
a flatness and commonality and loss of individuality that it took Europe
ten centuries to regain. Beginning, indeed, at around the time of Durer
and the Protestant Reformation in Germany, and the Italian Renaissance.

Nothing suggests that Jesus had long hair, or that his hair was brown,
or that he was white, or that he had anything but black eyes, or that
his hair was wavy or straight, etc. But that's what we think of when we
are prompted - because Durer painted/printed him that way. If anything,
you can look at all of the icons and mosaics, etc. previous to Durer's
extremely popular rendition and find he was portrayed with straight, dark
(possibly brown) hair and the same vacant, almond eyes found in most
other icons.

> I've always thought it was a really stupid picture, not even close
> to accurate to what Jesus might have looked like.  Nevertheless, I do not
> think I'm going too far off base (raised Catholic till age 18, plenty of
> Catholic and ecumenical Christian dogma burned into my brain over those
> years) when I say that many, many people would recognize this as a picture
> of Jesus.

Sure - unless they'd been brought up to think of Jesus as black, or blond,
or dark-haired rather than brown-haired, etc. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not surprised that more kids
recognized a consistent image they see every day on TV over a widely
divergent image whose form may not be known to them in that manner. I'd
be surprised if they had any trouble recognizing Ronald with his
striping reversed, or with blue lips, or with yellow shoes instead of
brown.

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