How Rembrandt Changed the Face of Jesus

At Big Think, Bob Duggan looks at how the likeness of Jesus changed after Rembrandt :

Earlier this year a 2,000-year-old, credit-card-sized, lead booklet was found in a cave overlooking the Sea of Galilee bearing what looks to be the oldest portrait of Jesus Christ , perhaps made during the lifetime of those who knew what he looked like and, perhaps, the “true” face of Jesus. For millennia now, believers and nonbelievers have wondered what Jesus may have looked like and grasped at any and all evidence in their search. In the exhibition Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus , currently at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through October 11 ^th , a turning point in that search created by the artistic innovations of Rembrandt helps us see where that search has been and, perhaps, where that search will go. In learning how Rembrandt changed the face of Jesus from divine, inhuman perfection to human accessibility we can learn what the “true” face of Jesus might truly be.

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