February 25, 2004
Depicting the Inexpressible
How to show the unviewable (and unknowable) has been one of the obsession of man since the beginning. Early religions dealt with the notion of representing God by dividing him up into aspects and then creating earthly representations of those aspects. These could be made into statues, paintings, mosaics and worshipped as if it were the genuine article.
Most modern religions refrain from depicting God. Perhaps man has finally gotten clever enough to acknowledge when a concept is too immense to be dealt with in one image.
The exception to this, however, is the portrayal of Christ. Since Jesus was God-made-man, he should be able to be depicted (in theory, anyhow). For at least 1700 years, people have been doing just that. Prior to that, they were content to use the the fish symbol. Perhaps they should have just stuck with fishes, because every portrayal of Christ has to deal with some skeptic saying, "do you think he really looked like that?"
A recent New York Times article looks at the latest portrayal of divinity, Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ", which features Jesus-as-hunk. The article states: "archaeological evidence that the average man of Jesus' day was about 5 feet 3 inches tall and a bantamlike 110 pounds. Given the harsh conditions, especially for working stiffs like the members of Jesus' family, combined with Jesus' ascetic lifestyle, which included walking everywhere, scholars agree that he was most likely a rather sinewy peasant, as tough as a root and about as appealing." Hmmm. The article goes on to give a fascinating overview of how we have remade Christ's imagery to fit our moods for all these thousands of years. It offers some insight into our gods and our notions of what is god-like appearance, as well as some paintings based on archeological evidence. It would seem that the root of the issue though might not be "Did Jesus have blue eyes", but rather how does one capture the immensity of divinity in without being abstract?
The First Elegy by Rainier Maria Rilke
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies?
and even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:
I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying....
