3 thoughts on “Wordless Wednesday- Virgin of the Lilies”
My first reaction was…If that is supposed to be the Christ Child…then his coloring is all wrong. He’s a Jew and would not have blonde hair to begin with plus I doubt he would be so fair. But the figures are beautiful.
Unfortunately, nearly all historical era depictions of Christ make him look European, especially as a baby. This was done in 1899 by a French classical-realism painter. I had never seen this one before and was struck with the use of light and it’s real-life qualities. I’ll have to see if I can find any public domain images of artwork by non-Europeans of the 19th and 18th century (mostly what I feature on here). I’ll admit that I’ve not tried looking for it before. Sadly, the kind of art that ends up being preserved and made available for public consumption tends to only happen in more affluent areas and as we know from history most of the rest of the world was in various forms of colonization during those centuries. Another problem is that the names of countries have changed considerably and often times things are not cross-referenced. I could look up Syrian artists but they might be classified as artists of the Levant- now a very antiquated term. I’m not an art historian so my research skills lack in this field.
Rose I am not putting the burden on you to find a true representation of our Christ – the artist is at fault here. You have enough to do – don’t bother searching. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Rose Fairbanks 
My first reaction was…If that is supposed to be the Christ Child…then his coloring is all wrong. He’s a Jew and would not have blonde hair to begin with plus I doubt he would be so fair. But the figures are beautiful.
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Unfortunately, nearly all historical era depictions of Christ make him look European, especially as a baby. This was done in 1899 by a French classical-realism painter. I had never seen this one before and was struck with the use of light and it’s real-life qualities. I’ll have to see if I can find any public domain images of artwork by non-Europeans of the 19th and 18th century (mostly what I feature on here). I’ll admit that I’ve not tried looking for it before. Sadly, the kind of art that ends up being preserved and made available for public consumption tends to only happen in more affluent areas and as we know from history most of the rest of the world was in various forms of colonization during those centuries. Another problem is that the names of countries have changed considerably and often times things are not cross-referenced. I could look up Syrian artists but they might be classified as artists of the Levant- now a very antiquated term. I’m not an art historian so my research skills lack in this field.
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Rose I am not putting the burden on you to find a true representation of our Christ – the artist is at fault here. You have enough to do – don’t bother searching. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
LikeLike