Vox Populi:

In 1915, Norwegian artist Emanuel Vigeland, one of the most respected Scandinavian artists of his time, created an image of Christ with golden hair and fair skin.

Vigeland was well aware of a widely popular Bible illustrated by French artist James Tissot showing Christ as Middle Eastern with dark hair and brown skin. Tissot had spent many years in the Holy Land in the late 19th century, researching the “historical Jesus” as part of a new group of artists looking for historical accuracy.

Vigeland, however, was seeking a different tradition, one that saw a picture of Christ not as a photographic truth but as an image that communicated to the Norwegian community that Jesus was a brother.

Vigeland shows a handsome youth in front of a landscape of the New Jerusalem as described in the Bible. He used the elegant style of the day, art nouveau, to appeal to his modern community, helping the Norwegian onlooker bond with the image.

In my work as a religious history scholar, I’ve learned that throughout history artists created images of Christ that would speak to different communities. 

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