The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-08-10
CHRIST IN ART.
a Protest Against the Prevalent Pic
ture of the Master.

Brooklyn Eagle.
One of the clergymen in this city has
made his protest against the prevalent
type of Christ in art His protest is time
ly, for, instead of improving on the prece-
dents established by the old masters, the
painters of our time are only refining upon
the Christs of Germany and Italy, and
continue to believe that the man who wan
dered about the hot fields Of Palestine,
sleeping in the open air and living like a
peasant, was a man of peaches and cream
complexion, sleek. golden hair. immacu-
late in respect of dress and perpetualy
wearing an expression that If we were to
see it on a living face we should consider
it to be polite boredom. Nor is the objec-
ton to the pictured Christ confined to facial
expression and impossibilities in dress and
grooming; it is the type that is wrong
Nnety-nine in every hundred of the un-
counted pictures of the Lord are offensive
because they lack truth of environment
and because they show weak, lackadaisi-
cal man, instead of strong Individuality
Christ was a leader. Not only did He win
the apostles to Him, but He drew the
multitudes. One who does that sort of
thing is not a pretty man, not man nice
a
words and moves fesbly, but a man of
vitality and courage, who says what he
means, who has such faith in himself that
he cares nothing for opposition, whose
mission in life he is determined to fulfill
The man with whom the majority of paint
ers have familiarized US is a milksop.
This unfortunate type results from an
extreme of reverence in those who made
il. The painters feared 10 impart the
grOsser attributes of humanity 10 an ideal
They stained the spiritual with as little
OF the earthly as u was possible to con-
cede and continue the shape of man. The
result was a compromise in which there
was none Of the substance and vigor of the
man, and in which it was impossible to
represent the purity or tenuity OF spirit.
| Their Christ was girl, and one of chic
| rotic tendency. Is il possible they thought
| a Christ like this was most admired by
| women WOrshlpers? IL IS time for a
reaction, fof we have hints of il in other
arts as well as IN pictures the poetry OF
| the Christian religion preferring a man
| who lacks the obvious traits of manliness,
| while in oratorio the words OF Christ are
| almost invariably given to a high tenor, a
| custom that has been recently broken by
| assigning the part to baritone.
| He who scourged the money changers
out of the temple, who tramped the hills
| of Judea, who from His birth in q stable
| to HIS death at the hands of public exc
/ cutioners, knew none OF the SOftness OF
/ life, we may be sure was not the kind
] of teacher that was embodied from the
respect and timidity of the early painters
4
/ known as the butcher Christ" in which
| he tried 10 emphasize exactly those
| phases that the older painters had re-
! pressed. and more recently Munkacsy
| has painted a Christ Before Plate" and
| a crucifixion in which the central figure:
were modelled from Hungarian Jews with
| which the painter familiar. Tissot
| the Frenchman, who studied for some
| years I'm Holy Land came still nearer Il
| the possible type for he painted the Jew
| of Palestine, while the crowds that fig
| ure in the sacred pictures are not clear
| persons glowing in robes of crimson anC
| blue, but are like lOw-grade crowds every
| where, dirty, unkempt, half clothed anC
| low browed.
| If carried to extremes of realism the ar
! Of Munkacsy and TissOt would be NOR,
! offensive than the art OF Raphael. Tinto
| retto and other gOody-gOody men-fine col
| Orists, good composers, If you like. but in
| different OWNERS and creators of characte
yet there Is no reason why sacred ar
| should be any more realistic than land
| scape art. or the genre of the academic
| of the present day. The medium SHOULD
| be sought. There must be a veracity tina
| will assure US OF the painters knowl
| edge. and a refinement. a spirituality tina
| will win 10 his ideal-a higher ideal thar
! he can ever express, but which he can hin
! in form and color. And there must be
doing away with the maudlin. weak. eff
Terminate figure that has so long stood To-
one of the most purposeful and courageous
men in history.