The Image of Christ

For two millennia artists have stuggled to create an image of Christ -- both man and God, human and divine -- although the Gospels and Early Christian texts provide no information about his appearance. This magnificent book explores how the challenge of portraying Christ has been met in paintings, prints, and sculpture from the Early Christian era to the twentieth century.

The authors of the book point out that in the earliest art, Christ is represented principally by symbols and images that have become potent and enduring metaphors, such as the Good Shepherd, the Light, and the Vine. They tell how a concern with Christ's "true likeness" emerged, which was based on miraculous "true" images -- particularly the images that Christ imprinted on the cloth held out to him by Saint Veronica on the way to Calvary. They discuss works focusing on Christ's childhood, which confront the problem of representing the paradox of his dual nature as victim and victor. They analyze the iconography of the Passion, demonstrating how, from a devotional point of view, images of Christ's suffering could induce a sense of sorrow for sin and gratitude to God. Finally, they look at how artists have translated into images the idea that Christ lives on and that the teachings and events of his life continue to have a profound impact.