Big-nosed Jesus and God as a second-rate Santa: the worst Christian art | Art and design | The Guardian
The middle aged balding infant Jesus
“… Instead, Kermani does something both refreshingly cheeky and philosophically instructive. As he wonders what Christian art says about Christianity, he meditates on works ranging from Old Masters (Leonardo, Caravaggio, Dürer) to the present day (Gerhard Richter’s stained-glass window recently installed in the great gothic cathedral of Cologne, with its colours randomly generated by computer).
Teasingly and sometimes caustically, his book teems with passages in which he looks with an outsider’s eye, wondering about the weirdness he sees. Did the Lazarus of Rembrandt’s painting really want Jesus to bring him back to life? Don’t Jesus and Mary, in El Greco’s Christ Taking Leave of His Mother, look like young lovers? Why do so many depictions of the crucifixion glorify pain?”
Hilarious 😀
My Mazamet 
Here’s a question for ya: do people with longer noses have a better sense of smell? We know that there are more odor receptors in a long dog’s snout, does the same apply to humans? Do babies with tiny noses not detect odors as well as a long nosed old man?
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I had to look that up… apparently size does *not* matter in this case 🙂
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Excellent article. I remember, as a child, the first time I went into a Catholic church and being utterly revolted and disturbed by the bleeding hearts and utterly gruesome crucifixion scene statues and tableaux
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The long nose is characteristic of the Byzantine period in all painting. Notice the baby Jesus looks like a small adult which was how children were depicted until other artists introduced painting of children more realistically by increasing the size of the head to the proportion of the body which is a child’s form with cherub like faces. . Comiso de Medici commissioned Gozzoli to paint himself in as won of the adorers of Christ in
“The Procession of the Magi ” naturally in high ornate Florentine clothing to illustrate de Medici wealth and power in “Biblical” proportions. I think other de Medici family were painted in as part of the procession. It is all part of the anthropomorphism of the early church to Medieval times creating God and God themes in the image of man and same attributes given to God in Old Testament Hebrew thought.
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Yes all the above is exactly right. The painting in of wealthy patrons was, of course , quite usual in royal, historical , classical and allegorical paintings also
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Yes, but oooops. I wrote “won” instead of “one” in comment. Why is it after attentive proof read you catch the error as soon as you hit publish ? Well such is the case for me.
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Yes, I’ve seen many of these paintings in museum collections. So strange. Maybe the artist is trying to depict Jesus as everyman. Then again, maybe the artist was insane or had a mother complex 😉
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An interesting article which I will read again at a more sensible time, almost midnight not being the best time for my tired brain to appreciate things. That ghastly nutwood figure will probably give me bad dreams.
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The book itself is a fantastic idea. It shows how culture-specific certain things are. In Spain the Nazarenes during holy week are a totally normal sight, in the American south, I imagine people might feel differently…
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Reading some of the comments here I realised that art can sometimes be a truer depiction of history than, well, history.
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The funny thing for me is that however much I reject the religion, I still love all of the accompanying stuff: the art, the iconery, the churches…that old baby Jesus! 😀
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I’m the same. I love the theatre of religion and how emotionally charged the art is – even as a total atheist.
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If an artist’s main or only patron was the church either directly or indirectly, then religious art was what was produced, asnd religious art as required by the doctrine in favour at the time.
In respect of culture specificity, I saw a procession while in Guatemala City.
While the Immaculate Conception had a proper platform, complete with at least eighty sturdy chaps to carry it, the rest of the saints were pushed along on what looked like wheelie bins, nothing strange to local eyes, but for me it looked more like going to hell in a handcart.
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Art is an expression of the artist. Michelangelo pained and sculpted historic figures with the faces of his sponsors for flattery of the man paying the bills and more. (He also ridiculed them to no end in the details.) Michelangelo, being gay, painted and sculpted women by using young male models and then slapping breasts upon them with slightly altered pubes. Did this make his women look strange? Absolutely, but Michelangelo was portraying beauty … as he saw it. So, one cannot always look at art and interpret it out of context.
Did the baby Jesus look like a middle-aged man because the man sponsoring that painting happened to look just like that? Or was he mocking a local man for his pretensions? Or … ?
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Worst Christian art? http://www.cracked.com/article_19947_the-11-most-unintentionally-hilarious-religious-paintings.html
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I’m not as deep as you are Pink, I’m more shallow or maybe more practical, prolly both I guess. I can’t get enthused about any religious art outside of being in a Cathedral or Mosque. If I am inside of a Cathedral or Mosque I enjoy it, marvel at it, but religious art displayed outside a religious building doesn’t do anything for me.
With some exceptions, like Michaelangelo’s David. I guess that is religious art but I don’t perceive it to be religious, I enjoy the sculpture without attributing any religious connotation to it.
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Deep? Is that code for unhinged? 🙂
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No, not unhinged. I really meant deep.
See you go deep & think of existential questions not related to any political issue. I can go deep too, but there has to be a practical basis for me to question something, for me to dig deeper and ferret out a position based on facts/evidence. You question existential things just because you are curious. Not everybody does that Pinky.
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