Faces of Christ

I had the opportunity to attend a Relief Society Meeting last night where a docent from the Phoenix Art Museum came to talk to us about the Faces of Christ through the history of art. It was a very fascinating meeting. Some of the things I learned from this meeting include:

• Christ was born into a society where there were no graven images, so while he was alive on this earth, no one painted, sculpted, or sketched his image. In fact, the first picture of him as a man was on a fresco in a catacomb. It was of a shepherd with short hair and no beard. It was painted 300 years after he died.
• I mentioned the first picture of Christ as a man was on a fresco. Before that, people would paint symbols, like a fish, a sheep, or a cross, to represent Jesus Christ. No one dared paint his image for many centuries later because of the 'no graven images' tradition in his culture.
• Once people started painting or sculpting his image, they would do so in their own perspective. You can really tell when Christ was painted by a German vs a Chinese vs an American, for example, because he looked like someone in those cultures. It was interesting to see each of these paintings and how different they all were. I think it wasn't until 1000 years or more after Christ died that someone finally used a Jew to be a model for a painting of Christ.
  
• After a while, people started painting Christ as what he was known for. So there are pictures of him as a teacher (always with his hand extended with a finger pointing out to symbolize he is teaching something). There are other pictures of him as a merciful person (with a sympathetic face and gestures) or as a judge (with a stern face and hard gestures). He was also painted as a strong physical person to represent a strong holy person. He was also represented in many pictures as the Light of the World, often those around him are illuminated by him, or the light in the picture is radiating from Christ.
  
• We saw pictures of his birth, his life, his Atonement, his Crucifixion, and his Resurrection. Every artist told his story in such a beautiful way.
  
• Most of the images we saw were paintings, but we also saw stained glass, sculptures, mosaics, pencil sketches, and others that I am clearly forgetting. Christ was represented in all mediums.
• Often, when an artist paints someone with his back turned, the artist wants you, as a viewer of the art, to step into the painting and take the place as that person. So the famous painting where Christ is talking to the rich person asking him to give all of his riches to the poor and the follow Him is a great example. The rich man's back is turned to us, so it is inviting us to ask ourselves if we can give up our 'riches' (whatever that may be) for Christ.
  

All in all, it was a very interesting and fascinating presentation! I am very glad I took time out from my busy schedule to be there and to learn more about Christ through many different artists' eyes.