Portraying Jesus and Mary

This is the season when tourists flock to museums abroad in search of inspiration or edification. Most are satisfied with registering impressions. A few submit themselves to the tutorial provided by cassette and headphone. The art student dwells on form and technique. Only over time do we stumble across the puzzles, the stories and the inner meanings that elude both casual viewing and scholasticism.

The realization that something is there that needs explication crystallizes unpredictably. One such encounter occurred while strolling through the Renaissance galleries of the Uffizi. It suddenly struck me that Jesus is invariably portrayed with the same visage and expression. His face is placid, the expression disengaged, the look that of a mild -tempered man who feels for others. Stylization to this degree is understandable in Buddhist representations of Gautama. Still they convey an inner force, a commanding silence. And, the Buddha has achieved Nirvana. Jesus, though, was of this world - whatever his emanation and spiritual essence. He acted and reacted with others. Yet little if any emotion is evident, even when involved in acts of great drama. The Jesus casting the money changers out of the Temple, the Jesus walking on the waters of the Galilee, and the Jesus taking the Last Supper in awareness of what awaited him appear no different from Jesus the pacific soul in more prosaic settings that painters have drawn for us. Of course, the Calvary is a different story - but the puzzle of why such uniformity in other scenes remains.

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