The recent publication of the Holy Week poster for Seville 2024, a work by artist Salustiano García, has raised controversy over a representation of Jesus of Nazareth after the resurrection.
The discussion revolves around the feminization of the figure, as well as the supposed sexualization of the work. The oil on canvas in a realistic style shows, centered, the figure of Jesus clean, naked with the purity cloth, or perizonium, and with the three powers (the three rays of light above his head) on a monochrome red background. The only visible marks of martyrdom are a small reminiscence on the side behind the spear and the wound on his left hand.
Two ways of representation
Representations of Jesus Christ throughout the history of art, both in fine arts and literature, are divided into two extremes and different aesthetic categories: one that distances itself from the idea of Platonic beauty (known as the Christ is weak, unworthy) and another that approaches her (known as Christ is beautiful, beautiful).
National Museum of Capodimonte
Those that follow the first option show a more earthly Christ devoid of riches, highlighting the suffering of his martyrdom during the Passion, which highlights his virility and masculinity. On the other hand, the representations that opt for an idealized Christ show a youthful and adolescent appearance, in line with the Greek ideal of beauty of the athlete and the ephebe, an Apollonian beauty that is characterized by aesthetic beauty, harmony and bodily proportion. .
This second current, which gives the figure a European appearance, is the most widespread globally for reasons of colonization through evangelization, since if one pays attention to the typical physiognomic features of the Middle East, it is likely that the appearance is far from of this canon.
In poems such as “The Dream of the Rood,” of unknown authorship, Jesus Christ is portrayed as a heroic warrior and the written word is sufficient to portray and project the values of the figure.
However, in visual art there arises a need to reflect bravery, goodness and divinity through physical features. Thus, he uses the body standard of Greco-Roman art to give the figure of Jesus an aura of heroism, bravery and goodness, in opposition to the figure of the devil. Both representations are the result of the need for classification based on a person’s physical appearance and the traditional relationship of goodness/beauty and evil/ugliness.
The fusion of genres
The artistic representation of Jesus has also implied the unification of the biological duality of the sexes. But from certain scientific disciplines, such as teratology, this is related to the monstrous, since in the same body two states that in principle are contradictory merge.
Louvre Abu Dhabi
The figure of Jesus is closely linked to the intermediate state and its corresponding fusion – earth/heaven, divinity/humanity, woman/man, Father/Son. This has been reflected in the history of art through various works. For example, the trifacial trinityof anonymous authorship, embodies the three figures of the Christian miracle –Father, Son and Holy Spirit–, while Savior of the world (1500), by Leonardo Da Vinci, presents a gender ambiguity in an androgynous Jesus, where the virile beard is combined with a suggestively feminine chest.
Similarly, Head of Christ (1940), by Warner Sallman, presents traditionally feminine features, with marked eyes and pink cheekbones. This process even reaches androgyny, since the integration of the sexes is represented in Jesus. As the French historian Alberto Malet states in Person and Love in the Trinitarian Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas (1956), “Christ had completely unified the sexes in his own nature, since when he was resurrected he was neither male nor female, although he had been born and died with the male sex.”
Jesus becomes flesh
The realism present in Salustiano’s work generates a series of effects in its reception.
Sallust
The tradition of Holy Week posters has focused mainly on works that, either in a pictorial way make it clear that it is a portrait, or present the sculpture photographed in the context of the street and enthroned, where the character is reinforced. inanimate of Jesus.
However, Salustiano eliminates the context and any trace of varnish that could show the inert nature of a sculpted or portrayed Jesus. With this he manages to overcome what is known as the “uncanny valley” – that feeling of strangeness and discomfort caused by dolls, mannequins or any hyper-realistic sculpture.
The vision of Jesus according to Salustian is that of the Christian God as a person of flesh and blood who even touches his chest. The hand of God, which is traditionally in an ascending position, as represented by Raphael in Christ blessing (1505-1506), now rests on his own torso and points to the wound to emphasize his carnality, his presence on earth.
Laura Blázquez Cruz, Researcher in the Department of English Philology, Jaen University
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original.
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