When you close your eyes and think about God, is there an image that you see?

 

When you close your eyes and think of God, does He have a face? What is the expression on his face as he thinks about you?

 

Throughout history mankind has struggled with this question, almost as much as it has struggled with the question of God’s existence. If there is a God, what is he like, and what does he look like? Many of our ideas about God and what he looks like have probably been influenced by art. Art is one of the most enduring forms of expression that has tried to answer this ubiquitous question.

 

Is it possible for us to separate these two questions: What is God like, what does God look like?

 

After the Incarnation, depictions of Jesus became commonplace. These depictions are by no means uniform throughout history, in fact, they are radically different in different eras of history. Early on his image was based on commonplace images of Apollo. Later on in history that shifted to a likeness of Jupiter. In the Renaissance Jesus looks like a Renaissance man. And all of these depictions have made their way into our “picture” of Jesus and influence how we understand the real Jesus.

 

Some have been critical of these “developments” of the image of Christ. But one thing is certain, we are always trying to figure out who this Jesus character is and that is invariably tied into what he looked like. Obviously, this has to move beyond simple physical characteristics. And that is what artists are really trying to do with their paintings: draw a provocative image of Jesus. This is similar to preaching a good sermon about Jesus. It teaches us how to imitate him.

 

Here is an example. One of the most famous sermons is Charles Spurgeon’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” It framed our picture of God for centuries. I would venture to say that the picture most of us conjure of God when he looks at us is a variation of this God (if it isn’t, you have had to work at changing it). Spurgeon’s sermon became a picture of God for us.

 

Two of the paintings we looked at in our recent Art History Class at Emmanuel entitled “Finding the Image of God in Art through History” demonstrate how art helps us to imagine God.

 

One is this Pantokrator from the ceiling of a church in Ravenna and the other is a sculpture of Jesus holding a sheep around his neck on his shoulders.

 

You can see how these pictures paint different but equally accurate pictures of Jesus.

 

 

One of the paintings could be a sermon on Philippians 2:10: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, (Phil. 2:10 NAS) the other a sermon on John 10:11

 

“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. (Jn. 10:11 NAS).

 

 

We had 40 people attend over the two-week course and here are some of the responses:

 

“Great review for me, plus I learned a great deal more. Thank you for teaching this class. Blessings”

 

“Kelly was very informative and such a great overview of in depth observations of these works of art. I’d love to continue this type of art appreciation. Having a few works of art depicting a similar theme was very beneficial.”

 

“Thank you for sharing your vast knowledge on this very interesting subject!”

 

“Thank you so much Kelly! I learned a great deal from your class. I wish I had taken the class before going to Italy and France. I would have appreciated the art so much more. Your class made me want to further my knowledge of art history. Thank you!”

 

“Super job. Humor and smarts. Congrats!”  

 

“Kelly you made it interactive and informative. Enjoyed every minute!”

 

You can read about some of the works we covered on Kelly’s blog,

Fra Angelico’s The Annunciation in the Cortona Altarpiece

The Portinari Altarpiece by Hugo Van Der Goes

 

or just visit her website: kellybagdanov.com
or YouTube channel: youtube/kbagdanov

One Response

  1. oops, I mistakenly attributed the sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God to Charles Spurgeon, but it was Jonathan Edwards who preached that sermon in 1741. Maybe they were the same person??? Oh, well. You knew, didn’t you?