As you will recall, this blog sometimes addresses non-political topics on the weekend. Our subjects today are art, religion, and race. Although this post will not focus on Barack Obama or the Reverend Wright, one of Wright's stated beliefs does relate to our present topic.
As you know, Wright refers to Jesus as "a black man." Was he?
The question was once of some practical importance to me. A few years ago, I was asked to create a series of historically accurate religious paintings. My partner in this scheme thought that he could market prints of these works. Although hardly a church-goer myself, I have always loved the religious art of the Renaissance, and enjoyed the idea of diving into those waters.Unfortunately, said partner showed some signs of becoming a tad... Hmmm. How to put this charitably? Let's just say that his eccentricity level began to exceed my comfort level. Also, to be frank, a painting of this sort takes a ton of work -- with no guarantee of recompense. Not a very motivating situation.
Thus, the project ended before the completion of the first image -- a Pieta, reproduced here in four variants. (Click on each to enlarge.) Although painted in Photoshop, the work was done in a rather traditional fashion. No models, no photographic reference of any kind -- just color applied to drawings done from imagination.
Since the goal, at first, was historical accuracy, an obvious question presented itself: What did Jesus and Mary look like, physically, ethnically?
The art world doesn't need another fancifully honkified Jesus. On the other hand, Wright's notion of a Mighty Black Jesus also seems absurd: Gallilee is not in Africa. The gospels do say that Jesus spent time in Africa -- presumably in Alexandria, which had a massive Jewish community -- but he was not born there.
The gospels give no physical description of either Jesus or Mary, although the Apocalypse makes a (perhaps metaphorical) reference to Jesus having bronze skin and wooly hair.
The Marian visionaries in Kibeho, Rwanda (a recent, Church-approved apparition) tell us that Mary is a beautiful black lady. Saint Juan Diego, an Indian who encountered Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1531, saw her as an Indian like himself. Bernadette Soubirous, a pretty 14 year old girl in the Pyrenees, saw a pretty teenaged French girl.Obviously, supernatural "evidence" couldn't help. In the end, the only logical answer was to make the characters in this drama look like modern Palestinians -- with bronzed skin, woolly hair, and Semitic features.
Over the course of painting, historicism started to seep out of the thing. Mother Mary would have been in her mid-to-late 40s, and she would have aged poorly, given the harsh conditions of her era and place. Artists depicting the crucifixion have always fudged her age. She looks about 20 in Michelangelo's Pieta -- a problem he explained away by declaring that virgins keep longer!
(Michelangelo's Mary is also some seven feet tall, even though women of that era tended to be around five feet. At least I got that part right.)
In the Middle Ages, blue and red became associated with the Virgin's costume, but -- intent on a warm color scheme -- I turned to an older artistic tradition which associated her with red and purple. That tradition stems from the once-popular Protoevangelion of James, which refers to her sewing red and purple cloth at the time of the Annunciation.
After doing a great deal of research into the costume of First Century Judea, I tossed out most of what I learned. The rough, thick cloth worn at that time is no fun to paint. Renaissance and late Medieval artists tended to wrap everyone in silk and other thin, texture-free materials, because they loved getting lost in the intricate, expressive folds. Perhaps I should repaint Mary's costume more realistically -- the folds defy gravity in order to reflect her inner turmoil. But that factor seems to have a psychological rightness.Actually, I never did find the correct overall color scheme, and the background underwent several reworkings. The result still looks all wrong. This might one day turn into a decent painting, if I can figure out how to solve the problems.
Until then, I give you this work-in-progress to demonstrate how one artist confronted the question of what he looked like. This painting does not give the Wright answer...but do you think it is the right answer?
22 comments:
I have always figured this one a no-brainer. Surely Jesus would have looked like the current indigenous population of the area for three reasons.
1) Generally indigenous populations are not eliminated, they are assimilated. DNA evidence suggest that the population of the british isles remains between 65-90% the aboriginal population despite repeated waves of invaders and immigrants. Peripheral regions like Scotland, Wales and Ireland are in the higher ranges, while england is in the lower range. There are simple reasons why this should be so. Generally, invaders dont kill women, they enslave and rape them. Thats 50% of your DNA preserved already. Secondly invader populations generally are small compared to the indigenous population so even where they totally eliminate the original culture they probably dont eliminate the DNA.
2) The scriptures suggest that the peoples of the region were closely related. So even if Jews were pushed out and Arabs moved in, (Isaac vs Ishmael) they probably looked alike. Frankly we could equally pick Sephardic Jews as just as good a model for Jesus. Ashkenazis clearly less so. Its hard to think the Ashkenazis had anything to do with the region originally. Seems more likely that they hail from the Khazar empire.
3) Historical description from various roman commentators. They had less of an axe to grind. If we believe one of them then Jesus would have been around 5ft and a hunchback. But pretty swarthy with it.
Harry
Thanks for this. I appreciated the science, which seems to indicate that the painting's depiction can't be too far wrong.
I've mentioned the "hunchbacked Jesus" text before. But in this case, I didn't dare...
I once asked a Jewish acquaintance why -- if Jews don't intermarry or proselytize -- the Falashas are black. His response was witty and hilarious -- and now I wish I could remember it!
Do you have any proof that this man you're talking about, Jesus, really existed ?
Ah. Joseph. I said before that I would regret responding to you, and I did. And after finally finding your response to me, I truly do regret having ever commented. I’ll put in my last two cents worth here because I have again lost that original thread.
There is just no other way to put it than you completely missed my point. You focus on my issue about Wilentz, ignoring the fact that he is your only source. And you suggest someone, even you, will be looking into this, but why would I trust that you would publish results that don’t meet with your anti-Obama agenda when you have clearly dispensed with objectivity?
Regardless of this and other picayune points you bring up, you just completely ignored the overarching purpose of what I was trying to get across. I showed my words to several people, and then your response, and that conclusion was unanimous; you missed the point. More than missing the point, you appeared to ignore it. If you claim to expect everyone equally to behave, then how do you deal with Jean Vajean or Uncle Tom, Dilawar or James Byrd?
Your rigidity is breathtaking, and your inability to grasp nuance in the human condition jaw-dropping. There are more things to consider than your sense of how other people ought to behave, like walking in their shoes.
And *that* my friend, was a large part of my real point. You cannot seem to see beyond your agenda here, so I – and apparently a number of others – feel there is no real discourse, no real discussion. It’s more like talking to a wall.
It’s become beyond disturbing to watch, though from glancing through this week’s posts you seem to have toned it down a little. Someone with as much talent and knowledge as you possess (really nice post today, though the slurs to Wright were unnecessary and distracting) is so valuable, but you’re just pissing it away being pissed. Hard to figure who you’re so pissed at, but I highly suspect it goes deeper than Obama and Wright, and even deeper than Kos or trannies or progs.
All that venom and nastiness is about you, dude. Your hostility diminishes your message and your credibility. Your rudeness will never persuade anyone to consider your arguments, so why do you bother? (And I’ll pass on hearing “your side” of the story regarding Dr. Elsewhere. I’ve never seen any sign of that from the doctor, but personal attacks on others seem to come pretty naturally to you. Besides, like I said, I already regret even responding to you, so why would I want to beat my head against your wall in emails??)
But whatever. You stew all you want to in your nastiness and feed into the venom that will jeopardize our chance at ridding ourselves of this curse of Republican corruption, no matter who carries the nomination (and you never seem to notice that I’m not the Obama supporter you toss into some huge trash heap with anyone who questions your accusations. But, whatever). Your inability to see how you have become the very cultish creature you have been reviling for so long exposes more about you than your inability to be objective and maintain a clear head.
Me, I’m going to stick with doing what I can to recover what’s left of our democracy, no matter who wins the nomination, and for that matter, the election. It’s important to hold our politicians’ feet to the fire, but I’ll avoid the sort of screed (your word) and reckless passions that end with burning them at the stake.
You’ve annoyed me right outa here.
I like your painting. Didn't know you were so talented.
When I was a kid my family had a large book on World Religions done by Life Magazine.
In it was a picture of Jesus as East Asian with a Chinese landscape behind him.
I think the point being that Jesus is adopted by diverse cultures as their own. I see nothing wrong with Wright claiming Jesus was black.
You might solve the drape and fold, and the background, problems by including the sense of the Logos and whirlwind. Renoir's Dance at Bougival beautifully displays arrested motion in the dancer's skirt.
Of course "bronze skin" and "wooly hair" are metaphorical - in English. Check the original; maybe the "wooly" means something like 'of a lamb'. Yeah, that leads to other code mysteries.
Here's a man of Lebanese heritage, who may serve as a model or prototype if you look at him when he was 40 years younger:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23830011#23830011
Do you suppose in a thousand years people will argue whether the image in the Shroud of Turin is either Ralph Nader or Albert Gore?
King Solomon said "I am black, but comely oh ye daughters of jerUSAlem" (while it may be a metaphore, the king was known to get down with the Ethiopian Queen of Sheeba)
Oddly enough, David, his pa, the poet warrior king, was said to have red hair. But that comes from the Hebrew word "Admoni" which commonly is referred to as 'ruddy.' But 'Adama' the root word, is Hebrew for "earth" (same root for Adam who was allegedly made of mud).
So it might just as easily be seen that the black & beutiful solomon's daddy had a complexion a little, er, mudlike.
If you ask me, Jesus (if he existed.. and certainly Banus the Essene Master, and subject of lengthy interviews by Josephus) must have been of a cafe-au-lait complexion. Kinda like Anwar Sadat.
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...and about that Khazaria thing-- while I personally believe that's where I came from (being a Polish [anti-zionist] Jew), it is hard to argue that all Ashkenazi Jews come from there.. just think about it, Khazarian Jews showed up in Europe sometime after 1016 AD, by which point there were Jews in Greece, Iberia, Italy (well, Hispania from the 3rd century-- and all of Gaul from the 5th century on.... And while intermarrying may not have been allowed, ye olde testament is full of stories and rules on how to marry a 'shiksa' (sorry), so long as she converted, it would be cool. So, there was a lot of gene pool swapping, and blue-eyed Jews can come from that, just as easily as the hordes of Huns-turned-Yiddish who escaped the falling Khazar empire...
H, I did look at pictures of Lebanese. After all, the only Aramaic speakers left in the world are in scattered prts of Lebanon and Syria. I was also thinking of a fellow I once met who lives near the Great Pyramid.
Also, while researching a Magdalene (this might have been the second in the series), I looked up Egyptian beauty contest winners. Now THAT was fun.
I can't use Renoir as any kind of a model! This is not an Impressionist painting, and Impressionist solutions simply won't work. The Ren stuff made a huge impact on me when I was a kid, and that was what I hoped to recapture.
Gee...about half the reason I posted this thing was the hope that someone would tell me which background colors work better.
Hint. Hint. Hint.
Did I give you the impression I meant for you to use Renoir or his painting as "a model", or even a reference? Was it my bad writing?
(pause)
Headline: "Obama was the first to play the race card"
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20080330_Obama_was_the_first_to_play_the_race_card.html
In his book about his father, Jean Renoir says his father told him never to cut his fingernails too short or he'll lose a very precious sense of touch.
I definitely prefer the first background, both color and form.
Thanks, anon. Anyone else...?
H: I should mention that Renoir is one artist whose works do not reproduce well. When you see "The Boating Party" in the paint, you're stunned to learn that those muddy gray passages (in prints) are actually small, thick strokes of pure color. I'd love to see the "Dance at Bougival," but fear I never shall.
We do have, here in L.A., a portrait of young Jean done by his dad. Truth be told, it's not very good, and LACMA does not display it prominently. (Jean is dressed as a huntsman, even though he hated hunting -- this may have inspired the most famous scene in "Rules of the Game".) But even in this case, the best reproductions do not match the colors of the original.
Imagine if Michelangelo had the possibility of asking reader of his blog to help him choose between 4 different background variations.
The first one is the most interesting. The "artificial" aura behind the virgin's head is kinda cheezy, but in the first image, the same effect is achieved without artifice.
What resolution are you working in ?
anon, thanks. You may be right about the cheese factor.
"Imagine if Michelangelo had the possibility of asking reader of his blog to help him choose between 4 different background variations."
If Michelangelo coulda, he woulda. I probably would have told him to drop the parade of nude hunks behind "The Holy Family." And he would have been right and I would have been wrong.
The original is 18 X 24 at 300 dpi. File size varies depending on how many layers are active; it sometimes reaches half a gig. I'm not sure how far the piece can be enlarged without an obvious loss of resolution.
I prefer the last one, especially as I imagine it at 18x24. It's eerily beautiful. The first is very pretty but nothing new. In the last, the crimson cuts blossom into tortured Mary because of the pallor of the background.
I think that Mary's face is all wrong...too young and too European looking.
There is an Iranian born actress called "Shoele Agha Dashloo" (not sure about the spelling) who played Mary in a movie a year or two ago (can't think of the name of the movie). I thought she was the best Mary I had ever seen. Something about her face that captured pain, beauty and resignation all at once (the costumes were pretty good too).
If you can't figure out what movie I am talking about, try "The House of Fog and Sand" which she was also in (that one should be easier to find since it was nominated for an Oscar).
The sunlight is too schmalzy. If it is absolutely wanted, then making it come from the sky above (out of the picture) would be better, as having it come from left or right. The ‘light’ is usually associated with Jesus’ head - a halo of light - and having it come around Mary is a kind of violation that may unconsciously disturb. In any case it is too red and too bright. The clouds are classical Western Art Clouds, they won’t do for any painting that aims for a more ‘accurate’ rendition. The last one (plainer clouds, more Turner like) is the best. My suggestion is to skip any symbolism, or anything glorious, or anything traditional, and to paint a very plain background in earthy/beige/some sky tones, with perhaps hints of ‘real’ scenery in it, such as a building (more research), thus avoiding the whole “backdrop” approach, common is medieval art etc., which functioned to surround the central figures and make them stand out, be more salient. These dramatic figures might even be enhanced by a more humdrum but discrete pictorial approach. That should be done first, as it will make the painting appear different. Next, Mary’s face, as pointed out, needs work. It isn’t right, as said, and it needs more emotion, it should some relate to or reflect the Jesus figure.
Ana - a reader who never posts.
somehow relate, argh.
Ana -- I am so grateful for your response -- and for all the other responses.
The face of Mary looks rather better, or at least more emotional, in the original. You can't see the tears in the online versions.
This is a painting within the Western tradition, so "Western" clouds don't bother me. But I think you're correct -- something is just OFF there, and I haven't been able to fix it.
I wanted to do some buildings int he background, but a couple of thoughts occurred to me. One, I would have to build up the background -- raise the horizon line, in other words -- and one of the things they teach you in Art school is not to place the horizon line near the center.
The other consideration is...I wonder how close Calvary was to Jerusalem?
beeta, all artists in the Western tradition have been incorrigible when it comes to depicting a young Mary at the crucifixion. My ladyfriend, the Art Historian, even wrote a paper on this phenomenon, which she called "The Ageless Tradition."
It even affects moviemakers. In Zeferelli's "Jesus of Nazareth," Olivia Hussey looks just plain adorable throughout the whole miniseries. I blame Zef (or his casting director) for making me think lustful thoughts about the Virgin Mary. Any man who doesn't want to kiss THOSE lips just ain't heterosexual...
Lusting after Mary Ha!
Funny!
Here is the photo (via email) I was telling you about (she is really beautiful and kissable in real life too).
1) Generally indigenous populations are not eliminated, they are assimilated. DNA evidence suggest that the population of the british isles remains between 65-90% the aboriginal population despite repeated waves of invaders and immigrants. Peripheral regions like Scotland, Wales and Ireland are in the higher ranges, while england is in the lower range. There are simple reasons why this should be so. Generally, invaders dont kill women, they enslave and rape them. Thats 50% of your DNA preserved already. Secondly invader populations generally are small compared to the indigenous population so even where they totally eliminate the original culture they probably dont eliminate the DNA.
Err, this is not always true - the conquest of North America by Western Europeans provides a clear counterexample. That said, the conquest of the Levant by Arabs probably followed something more along the model you suggest.
Anyway, asking what Jesus really looked like is a bit like asking what Horus or Mithra really looked like, since if you understand the symbolism in the New Testament you know that Jesus is basically just a representation of the sun as a divine human being.
Off-topic, but Joe, I wonder if you're going to comment on the Efraim Diveroli story at all?
the really really "good news" is that Jesus was resurrected. I do hope (and pray) that you turn your remarkable gift for painting to that elevated and elevating subject.
I like the first picture best, it portrays more depth of field and the variety of colours is beautiful and harmonious..but again..what this story is all about is the mystery of the resurrection and the true Magdalen story is of that kind of phenomenon and she took that story to France and helped establish what is now the underground church that has survived in the various secret societies such as the knights Templars, Rosicrucians, and some as yet unnamed ones.
The pure church has not survived above ground and all that so called "Christianity" is simply religion in it frail and all to often "political" form. Too worldly in other words. The true church will eventually manifest itself as we march closer to the collective destiny of humanity and the soon coming of the dark forces in their attempt to counterfeit and deceive with a fantastic array of phenomenon which will include the notorious "Antichrist," a person that will so bewilder the world with his mock "resurrection" and a return from the dead, as the scriptures describe in the New Testament. (see ll Thessolonians Chapter 2 1-12)
Thanks for yopur inispiring "off topic" and relief from the jaundiced and intense political speculations the world has to offer at the present time.
Holy Moley
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