Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ

Introduction

His eyes calm and head tilted slightly to the right, a man stands straight, appearing to listen to something. His face is beautiful and blemish free, though he is not a young man. His forehead is smooth; the lack of wrinkles hides his age. A small smile is partially hidden by his mustache. A forked beard curls beneath his chin and accentuates his strong jaw line. The curls of his beard are matched in his shoulder length hair, parted in the middle. His textured hair and beard contrast to his smooth, unblemished skin. His nose is in proportion to the rest of his face, and at the bridge gracefully defines his brow. He looks calm and serene, quietly happy. His whole face suggests wisdom and attentiveness; he appears to be completely trustworthy. His slightly sunken, yet fleshy, cheeks reveal both a strong skeletal structure and the slenderness of his body. He is dressed in an unadorned, unassuming robe that falls in pleats around his shoulders. His beauty and strength are both ideal and reassuring. Despite his slender face, his shoulders and neck are solid and straight. His body is stable and looks as if it could support extra weight without straining.

His solidity comes from his bearing, but also from the fact that he is carved out of marble. This beautiful bust of a man sits atop a wooden plinth in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), calmly waiting to interact with whomever passes by. This idealized man was carved in the form of a typical Renaissance portrait bust, circa 1500, possibly by the Lombard sculptor Cristoforo Solari. The life-sized bust is truncated directly below the shoulders in a straight line, yet the drapery of his robe gives the sense that his body continues. The illusion of lifelikeness instilled in the bust is broken by the static nature of the white marble from which it was carved. He carries no markings, inscriptions or attributes to reveal his identity; but somehow his face alone gives away his identity. This idealized, serene face belongs to Jesus Christ.

Discussion

The son of God lived over 1,500 years before Solari carved this bust. Still, Solari was able to create a “portrait” of a man he had never seen, and whose image is unknowable. Not only was the sculptor able to carve an accurate likeness of someone who was not alive during Solari's lifetime, but he carved a bust that was immediately recognizable as Christ for Renaissance viewers. Art historians and museum-goers alike have taken the conventional depiction of Jesus for granted and forgotten to ask why he is so recognizable. There is an evident lack of scholarship on the sculpted busts of Christ produced in Italy during the sixteenth century. Many art historians acknowledge the production with an example in a catalogue, a brief note in a longer text, or a short discussion of a single bust amongst the works of a particular sculptor. The lack of both primary and secondary sources is ...