Calvin Prof Studies Images of Christ

Dec. 10, 2003 == MEDIA ADVISORY

Each year the Christmas season brings numerous images of a baby Jesus. And
often the child depicted there is fair-skinned, blue-eyed and maybe even
blond-haired.

Calvin professor of art history Henry Luttikhuizen says such depictions need
to be questioned.

"It's pretty certain that as a baby born in the middle east Christ was not
fair-skinned," says Luttikhuizen. "It's far more likely that he was dark or
olive-skinned. As for his hair and eyes chances are they were not blue and
blond, but probably dark on both counts."

So where did the images of a white Christ come from?

One of the places, says Luttikhuizen, is the work of painter Warner Sallman.

In 1940, Sallman depicted Jesus in an oil-on-canvas work that established a
benchmark for portraits of Christ. Sallman depicted Christ in profile, gazing
into the distance - blue eyes cast slightly upward, lips pursed, long, sandy
hair flowing down his neck and shoulders.

Estimates are the painting has been reproduced anywhere from 500 million to 1
billion times in the last 60 years on everything from clocks to calendars to
cards (during World War II it was distributed in wallet size by the Salvation
Army and YMCA to millions of U.S. military men and women).

It has influenced numerous other artists and how they've depicted Christ,
including depictions of the infant Christ.

Last January Luttikhuizen curated a show at Calvin that brought Sallman's
"Head of Christ" to campus, along with other depictions of Christ that sought
to break that mold - including two original examples of African American
depictions of Christ.

He says there's nothing wrong with paintings, nativity scenes and other
Christmas trappings that seek to show Christ as white - just like there's
nothing wrong with an African American artist portraying Christ as an African
American.

"In recent years," he says, "cultures around the world have begun to be more
open to changing the ways they portray Christ's humanness - and we need to
remember that the Christ child was both fully divine and fully human - based on
the way people in their culture look. So Asian cultures might portray an Asian
Christ-child, African cultures might portray an African Christ-child and so
forth."

Contact Luttikhuizen at 616-526-6327 or lutt@calvin.edu

-end-
Received on Wed Dec 10 08:45:51 2003