Baby Jesus in religious pictures

Add to it that painters of that period often just used the religious theme as an excuse to paint. Up until the modern era The Church frowned on anything without a religious theme. During the renaissance they loosened up to allow for classical themes as well but you were safer keeping it to religion. It wasn’t just the baby Jesus that got that treatment either. Dunno who modeled for The David but he sure as heck wasn’t Jewish.

@Nurse_Phillips

This reminds me of something from the 6th grade. A gaggle of the girls were all looking at a book and enthusiastically commenting on the picture in it. I found out it was a picture of some naked man named David and it seemed to be OK for them to be looking at it. All I could think of was what would happen if a bunch of the boys were doing the same with a similar picture of a female, and how unfair that seemed. Actually Playboy was still several years away and boys getting hold of that kind of picture of a female was against the law in many towns yet perfectly OK for the girls to be swooning over. Maybe some teacher wouldn't like it but it was not illegal. That was a learning experience for most of us boys. Not only was it OK for girls to look at naked little boys at home, girls studying pictures of naked grown men was OK too, really unfair. The talk mostly focused on his penis and foreskin with very few saying "my brother's looks like that".

@roscoe An interesting question would be to know how many of these girls thought this was just a natural difference, such as brown hair vs blonde hair, and how many knew it was surgical.

I found out it was a picture of some naked man named David and it seemed to be OK for them to be looking at it.

Reading the news lately, it seems that in some states it is definitely not considered to be OK to be looked at. The hysteria and accusations leveled at this nude depiction shows that far too many people would completely destroy it, if only they could.

The hysteria and accusations leveled at this nude depiction shows that far too many people would completely destroy it, if only they could.

Outdated combat, as all artwork images are now available on the internet. Of course, we can wonder about the real motivations of artists who painted or sculpted nudes, especially children, but leave it to them the benefit of the doubt (in dubio pro reo).

Outdated combat, as all artwork images are now available on the internet. Of course, we can wonder about the real motivations of artists who painted or sculpted nudes, especially children, but leave it to them the benefit of the doubt (in dubio pro reo).

Porn is available on the Internet and many many people do not feel that eradicating it is an outdated combat. There are many groups willing to go to great lengths. And they trust that means will be found, which I don't doubt either.

As for religious artwork from the past, one should never project present-day manias and obsessions onto the motives of people/artists from the past. This in both charitable and uncharitable ways. Their intentions will probably have been totally different from what we now imagine, especially people with present-day narrow, religious-obsessed views on life and society.

I would say that modern-day people who see something perverted or objectionable in old depictions of the infant Jesus or cherubs or figures from Classical Antiquity, are the ones whose motives and world-view should be questioned. Do they see evil in everything?

Otherwise why not opt for a total ban on the depiction of humans? Or add animals while they are at it?

And something to think about .....

At what time in history did nudity become obscene or immoral?

And who decreed it so?

At what time in history did nudity become obscene or immoral?

And who decreed it so?

It would take volumes, each several hundred pages thick to describe all the historical variations and permutations that existed throughout the centuries regarding the depiction of nudity in all the thousands of different human cultures. There is no one single, easy to understand answer available. Notions of what is proper or not fluctuate over time. Imagery produced during the 1980s-90s now evoke extreme reactions for instance. What was considered proper and prim in a rural setting for instance, could differ greatly from that in a contemporary urban setting.

Or people from the higher and wealthier classes of society might be more tolerant than the poor, while at the same time the poorer classes of society might be forced to endure more instances of nudity. In the past centuries, depending on the climate, many children were not/hardly clothed until they reached a certain age.

And every now and then socio-religious movements of an extreme and fundamentalist nature come along and make a big fuss about morality and nudity and the like. In the history of Moorish Spain for instance, there were several invasions by North African/Moroccan tribes displacing previous Muslim rulers. These newcomers being very intolerant of previous customs and demanding strict and fundamentalist adhering to the least tolerant interpretations of Islam. This happened several times during Moorish rule in Spain.

Right now in the West and especially the US, we're also experiencing a resurgence of fundamentalist urgency regarding socio-sexual norms and behavior, with a very loud, vocal and vehemently angry minority thinking it has the right to set and legislate (sexual) morals for everyone in society. And this is just a re-occurrence of what happened during the Reformation in the 16th century. Society turned prudish to a significant degree.

And so the pendulum will continue to swing between extremes. Few realized it at the time, but our most enlightened and free years are behind us now.

As for religious artwork from the past, one should never project present-day manias and obsessions onto the motives of people/artists from the past. This in both charitable and uncharitable ways. Their intentions will probably have been totally different from what we now imagine, especially people with present-day narrow, religious-obsessed views on life and society.

I would say that modern-day people who see something perverted or objectionable in old depictions of the infant Jesus or cherubs or figures from Classical Antiquity, are the ones whose motives and world-view should be questioned. Do they see evil in everything?

@agracier yes to apply modern beliefs and ideas to those works - art, books, sculptures, are not fair. Societal views change and adapt. To judge the past through todays "rose colored glasses" does not give them the actual credit they deserve. Which view is actually correct?

Which view is actually correct?

@MissStress Mine.

Michelangelo portrayed a lot of nudes including genitalia in the Sistene Chapel. After his death they hired artists to “cover them up” with fig leaves etc.

Michelangelo portrayed a lot of nudes including genitalia in the Sistene Chapel. After his death they hired artists to “cover them up” with fig leaves etc.

Chalk the prudery of fig leaves up to the Council of Trent (held between 1545 and 1563), which was a reaction of the Catholic Church to the ideas and beliefs of the Protestant Reformation. Protestants, especially the more radical ones, had been running amok with their iconoclastic destruction of imagery in churches, often with fervor akin to what is seen in other Abrahamic religions even today.

It wasn't all that successful a campaign though. Baroque and Rococo artists continued depicting nudes galore, though often with strategically concealed genitals. And less so in religious buildings or churches. The tendency also continued throughout the Victorian Age even though Orientalists and other late 19th century artists of renown from the Belle Epoque built successful careers in depicting nudes. Though not so much for religious purposes of course.

@Nurse_Phillips The early Church considered the Jews to be evil Christ deniers so why would they make Baby Jesus look like one (even though he was one). Good Christians didn't get their pencils trimmed, that was only for Jews and Muslims.

This is absolutely not true. The Coptic Orthodox Church (42 A.D.) and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (3 A.D.) do require males to be circumcised. In fact, all males in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church receive compulsory circumcisions. Perhaps both of these churches are not as old as Christianity itself, but they are not considered modern. Nowadays, there are about 50 million followers in these churches worldwide.

This is absolutely not true. The Coptic Orthodox Church (42 A.D.) and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (3 A.D.) do require males to be circumcised.

Coptic Christians, in order to avoid social awkwardness and potential problems with their Muslim neighbors, have also adopted other customs from their close differently religious neighbors. If covering women's heads or getting pricks circumcised is what is needed to avoid persecution, riots and other unpleasantness, then I suppose Coptic Christians have considered it price they have to pay to live in a semblance of peace.

Neither the Coptic nor Ethiopian churches had any meaningful influence on European late medieval or Renaissance artistic depictions of the Christ Child which is the point of the post. When I referenced the ‘early church’ I referred to the Roman Catholic flavor of Christianity.

Somebody (I think @Woyzeck) pointed out to me the sculpture "Boy with a frog", from sculptor Charles Ray. It seems the boy is loosely circumcised (his glans is visible despite not erect). It's interesting a contemporary sculptor would take the conscious action to show the delineation of the glans instead of the simpler alternative, to just show the general shape of the penis. One can only suppose that Charles Ray, an American, in this respect showed boys in the way they were in his generation and country.

@Pecan_nutjob I don't remember if I pointed out this sculpture, but I'm sure for another one: "Family Romance". The father is circumcised but not the son.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1077kgW9Utw-aNW3kkA33-ksZPone0-GB/view?usp=share_link

Something else that I discovered recently: the baby Jesus is never represented with a remnant of the umbilical cord, which would make sense if he has not yet been circumcised before the eighth day according to Jewish tradition.

An exception at the Grenoble Museum with a bandage:

https://www.museedegrenoble.fr/oeuvre/493/1922-l-adoration-des-bergers.htm

The museum has a circumcision by the same artist:

https://www.museedegrenoble.fr/oeuvre/495/1922-la-circoncision.htm

@Woyzeck Which may be a commentary on the decline in routine circumcision in the United States (father cut, son uncut).

It could be interesting to ask Charles Ray about this.

@Woyzeck I've seen several paintings of Jesus' circumcision, though I don't think this one (have I ever visited the museum in Grenoble, I now wonder). I think they were of the same model: bearded old men around a boy, a bearded man bends over Jesus' penis and uses some kind of instrument. Jesus is shown to be calm.

I suspect the painters had never seen a real circumcision. I haven't either, but I think I've heard the baby must be held in position (in fact, there exist special medical devices for that). Or maybe it's to indicate that Jesus, of divine essence, accepts his fate without crying or fighting?

I suspect the painters had never seen a real circumcision. I haven't either, but I think I've heard the baby must be held in position (in fact, there exist special medical devices for that).

yeah, duct tape

I suspect the painters had never seen a real circumcision.

I suspect that most religious painters have never seen a crucifixion either.

First off they are terrifying and painful and secondly no one cared about preserving a condemned man's modesty. You hang naked on a cross, for all the world to see and mock.

Paintings are usually about conventions and how scenes are supposed to look so they give the right impression to the faithful and tell the expected morality tale.

I suspect that most religious painters have never seen a crucifixion either.

First off they are terrifying and painful and secondly no one cared about preserving a condemned man's modesty. You hang naked on a cross, for all the world to see and mock.

Paintings are usually about conventions and how scenes are supposed to look so they give the right impression to the faithful and tell the expected morality tale.

I doubt that a nail thru a hand would hold a body up either

I doubt that a nail thru a hand would hold a body up either

There you go.

Religious paintings of crucifixions or circumcisions were painted in a representational style, but not necessarily and seldom in a realistic style. Viewers were supposed to recognize what was depicted (as opposed to the non-representational art so beloved of the 20th century) but not to expect a realistic depiction.

They were supposed to see the essence of a religious scene, not a reenactment on wood or canvas.

I doubt that a nail thru a hand would hold a body up either

From Wiki: "The Greek word "χείρ", usually translated as "hand", could refer to the entire portion of the arm below the elbow, and to denote the hand as distinct from the arm some other word could be added...... A possibility that does not require tying (the person to the cross) is that the nails were inserted just above the wrist, through the soft tissue, between the two bones of the forearm (the radius and the ulna)."

Its's also possible the nails were used to inflict pain - and the person was tied to the cross as well (don't want them falling down and then having hang them up again!!). More likely - the depiction of nails trojugh the hand is artistic liscense for dramatization.

Except as a baby, the representations of naked Christ are very rare. I discovered three. First, a statue where Christ is a child, it was intended for a convent of women who venerated the Jesus child, perhaps too much, a substitution of the children they could not have.

Two others in the form of Crucifix, one of which was attributed to Michelangelo. This artist knew the anatomy very well, so he could not ignore what circumcision was, yet he represented Christ with a foreskin, just like the other two. There was therefore a refusal to show circumcised Christ, ideological more than anatomical.

I did not find these representations by chance, they are presented in an exhibition entitled "Verdammte Lust", which could be translated as "Damn Pleasure", which is currently being held in Freising (near Munich, Germany) and which is devoted to eroticism in religious art.

@roscoe: I doubt that a nail thru a hand would hold a body up either.

That is correct. A priest who investigated the Shroud of Turin experimentally with a cadaver found that a nail through the hand would not support the body alone. Only nailing the cadaver through/above the wrist would support the body. A small platform for the feet would help support the body as long as the person was conscious. If nailed though the feet, that would help, too. Awful information, really. Let us never return to this.

I doubt that a nail thru a hand would hold a body up either.

Rope tied around the wrist or arm was often the way to go. That way the condemned didn't weaken/die too soon from loss of blood, even if it was slight.