Strange Christ: Part 2
Ideal Christ
The image of Christ is powerful. If artist Andres Serrano had submerged a toy airplane in his own urine instead of an effigy of Christ, very few people would care. But it is Christ, our Christ, the one we hold close to our chest and near to our hearts. This Christ is the one Christians meld into tiny golden emblems to hang from a metal chain around their neck. He is also the Christ the public inserts into pop culture as a comedic relief in television shows and movies. The controversial mural by Cosmo Sarson, Breakdancing Jesus (fig. 6), depicts Jesus donning only a braided headband and groin cloth while breakdancing on the Vatican’s marble floor in front of applauding Catholic cardinals. In this representation, Christ is relevant, uncomplicated, and entertaining. Both the Christian church and the world at large feel ownership over the image of Christ. The Christian church feels ownership that stems from a desire to manage how Jesus is perceived, operating as if they have assumed the role of Christ’s public relations, ensuring that his ideal image remains unchanged and unmarred throughout the centuries. Meanwhile, the irreligious world wants to keep Jesus as a pleasant archetype, acquiescing that if his image is going to be around, it is preferred that it remains palatable and innocuous. Due to this, the history of the image of Christ is complicated.
Figure 6. Cosmo Sarson, Breakdancing Jesus, 2013
In the first century, early Christians were against portraits or likenesses of living things because, according to the Pentateuch, God had explicitly commanded, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” They believed that to create a sculpture or a painting that looked like something on earth or in the heavens above was participating in the act of idolatry. The Early Christians were permissive of narrative content, and they were also permissive of symbols, but the focus of their hostility was towards the portrait. One of the earliest works depicting Christ is a narrative relief and appears on the sarcophagus of Roman leader Junius Bassus in 359 C.E. Scholars believe that Junius converted to Christianity shortly before his death, and the images of Jesus can be seen in the bottom center of Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem (fig. 7).
Tertullian, one of many early Christian authors, believed that “the Devil sent artists out into the world,” and Hippolytus echoed, “if a man is a sculptor or a painter, then he should be exhorted not to make idols. If he does not abstain…he is to be expelled.” Clement of Alexandria warned people of the dangers of admiring art and implored them not to be “captivated by art as if it were the truth itself.” Clement also went on to declare that earthly images could not compare to the virtuosity and holiness of God the Creator, meaning that any attempt at recreating God or the earth he created would be offensive and blasphemous. Towards the end of the fourth century, Asterius of Amasia exhorted not to paint Christ, stating “sufficient for Him is the degradation of becoming a man, to which He voluntarily subjected Himself for our sake.” With these sentiments from the Early Church, it comes as less of a surprise that some the first century images created of Jesus Christ were not used for worship but were instead created outside of the church as a portrait which depicted a famous man and was often displayed beside other notable philosophers of the time. In these portraits, the holiness Christ and the perceived offense of this ministry was removed, since his image assumed the role of a musing philosopher.
Figure 7. Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, marble, 359 C.E., Treasury, St. Peter’s Basilica
Over the centuries, as the rules around reproducing the image of Christ loosened, the Christian church persevered in their responsibility and ownership of Christ. The aesthetic preferences of the image of Christ were shaped by Classical ideals of beauty which seemed to embody Christ’s flawless purity more accurately. In his essay The Case for a Broken Beauty, E. John Walford, Professor of Art History at Wheaton College, discusses how Christianization of the Roman Empire with their “Greek notions of beauty, truth, and goodness were recast into terms that appeared to fit well with Christian faith and practice.” The ideal image of Christ transformed to that of Classical notions of beauty, purity, and grace, which were free from imperfections and blemishes. In 1550, Giorgio Vasari claims that perfect beauty manifests in mastery of the artist’s technique. In his essay Lives of Painters, Sculptors and Architects, Vasari states that the “rare painter” Andrea del Sarto created works which were free from errors. The evidence of such accuracy continues as Vasari shares the technique of Antonio da Correggio in his ability to paint hair in detail, making them appear to be “more beautiful than real hair.” His description of complete perfection in art seems to culminate in his examination of Michelangelo Buonarroti. To Vasari, Michelangelo achieved “a grace more graceful, and a much more absolute perfection…that it is not possible to see anything better.”
In 1755, Johann Winckelmann, having steeped himself in the Vasari tradition, believed that the only path to greatness lay in the imitation of the ancients. Originating from Vasari’s idea of freedom and grace within structure, Winckelmann found greatness in something beyond nature, namely the philosophy of beauty, which comes from images created by the mind alone. Winckelmann set a new expectation on artists, imploring them to impart their soul into the medium of their art. For Winckelmann, like Vasari, accuracy was still esteemed but it was not as supreme as the inclusion of the soul in the creative and sculpting process. This ideology allowed Winckelmann to extend grace to young artists of his time, and even to artists of the past. He understood that if great art needed to be both accurate and injected with the artist’s soul, it would have to mature at the rate in which humanity matures.
White Christ
In the twentieth century, the most prevalent and idealized image of Christ resembled a European, White man. In their book The Color of Christ, historians Edward Blum and Paul Harvey discuss the history of Christ’s image in America. During the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. implored Americans to look beyond the color of Christ’s skin, and their own, and focus instead on the content of one’s character. But the image of a White Christ was deep-set, partly, as Blum and Harvey suggest, because the introduction of a White Jesus in churches happened in Sunday School for children who were also witnessing the adults around them believing that this representation of Jesus was the truth. In pre-Civil War America, slave-owners used images of a White Jesus in bible lessons to reiterate their connection as masters and legitimize their own station over Black slaves.
Along with colonialism came its less overt companion paternalism, defined as the practice of restricting the capabilities and responsibilities of others to aid them in the belief that it is in their best interest. Paternalism is often inextricable with varied humanitarian efforts which provide aid and resources to countries around the world. Steve Corbett, Assistant Professor of Community Development at Covenant College, discusses the idea of paternalism in his book, When Helping Hurts. Corbett explains that the problem with paternalism is that it stems from the mindset that the figures in their self-appointed roles of authority feel that they know what is best for all, based on their own personal experiences. He expresses how poverty alleviation is more complex than it first appears, and that it “is reflective of a god-complex to assume that we have all the knowledge and that we always know what is best.” He continues to discuss how the passion to help is wonderful, and that it has a great potential to advance the gospel and kingdom of God, but he implores the Christian church and non-profit humanitarian organizations to exhibit “humility, caution, and an open ear.” Vanessa Beecroft confessed that Black Christ and White Madonna with Twins are blatant commentary on the “double-face of the humanitarian effort.” Being confronted with a mostly naked Sudanese young man in Black Christ makes the viewer uncomfortable due to the acknowledgement of beliefs rooted in paternalism. It is a constructed perception which interprets this image of an African man on a bare floor with nothing more than a garment around his groin as a man who is in need, assuming based on preconceived notions that he is uneducated, unemployed, or malnourished, and incapable of caring for himself without the aid of others who donate money and resources. To encounter this image through a paternalistic point of view, feelings of discomfort arise as his body represents that of Christ. The internal struggle exists between a desire to pity him because of this assumption that he has or is less wrestles with the powerful imagery of his body as Christ on the cross. As a viewer of this work of art, there is a call to recognize that we are just as human as he—no better, no less—and all humans are unworthy of the sacrifice Christ made, yet the Savior made it anyway.
Art theorist Amelia Jones begins her 2002 essay with a quote from nineteenth-century art critic John Ruskin that states, “every man knows where and how beauty gives him pleasure.” This statement incites an ardent response from Jones as she criticizes the highly debatable book The Invisible Dragon by Dave Hickey. According to Jones, Ruskin and Hickey have invited themselves into the universal conversation of aesthetics and beauty as self-entitled arbiters of taste, borne from their “imperialistic and exclusionary logic of cultural value.” This thought-distortion steeped in ethnocentrism has determined how the idea of beauty has been communicated to the world for centuries. As Jones states in her essay, Hickey believes that beauty is innately understood by the one who is viewing it, as if it were hardwired in the brain of certain individuals who alone had the unique gift and capacity to behold, admire, and define it. If this were true, it would mean the beholder of beauty is correct in their judgement, and it implies that those excluded from this group are incorrect in their perception.
Figure 8. Ronald Harrison, The Black Christ, acrylic on canvas, 1962
In 1962, artist Ronald Harrison was arrested for painting The Black Christ (fig. 8), which was eventually banned in his native country of South Africa. In this work, Harrison depicted Albert Luthuli, the African National Congress leader, on the cross surrounded by Hendrick Verwoerd and John Vorster, prominent leaders of the apartheid. Verwoerd and Vorster are depicted as Roman soldiers, and one uses a spear to pierce Christ under his rib. This painting caused great controversy for its double interpretation; challenging both the injustice of the apartheid and the popular notion that Jesus was White. Dr. Vince Bantu, church historian and professor at Fuller Theological Seminary states that “all theology is contextual; it is impossible to interpret the Scriptures or speak about God apart from one’s historical-cultural context.” The perceived ownership over the image of Christ has changed hands over the centuries, however, most of it remains in what Bantu refers to as Eurocentric Christian identity politics. According to Bantu, the ideal image of Christ was created and is sustained by White culture. He goes on to explain, “the common assumption is that theological and ministerial production emerging from the dominant White culture should be seen as normative, free from the situatedness of cultural specificity.” There is a comfortable assumption at play that the image of Christ, the church, and Christian culture originates from a Eurocentric identity.
Christianity is one of the major world religions that began with an Israeli-born man, but it has been white-washed and trimmed down to something more palatable and comfortable to think about. It is difficult for many to imagine Christ hailing from the Middle East, a geographical region known for its cultural and political unrest. Yet, this same Christ died on the cross so that all people of the world who desired to know God could enter the kingdom of heaven; the darkness which separated them from God was swept away in the moment of his death. However, Bantu observes, “the tendency for Western culture to act as the barometer of Christian orthodoxy is a trend that reaches back to the Romanization of Christianity.” Although Christ was neither White nor Black, he invites all people to take on a portion of his identity, to grow to be like him, representing his heterogeneous, multi-faceted nature. Even in this variety of representations, he is recognizable. David Morgan, Professor of Religious Studies at Duke University, expresses this phenomenon in his book, Visual Piety. Morgan explains that a Black, White, or Asian interpretation of Christ “do not impair the recognizability of the image, for the strong visual tradition of modern devotional illustrations persists….” The manifestation of Jesus on earth is unconventional, presenting as an array of ethnicities, yet no matter the interpretation his presence is recognizable.