Picturing the Passion

The twelfth century was a period of significant development and change in the religious and secular world of Western Europe. One area of transition occurred in depictions of Christ’s crucifixion. In both writing and art, the triumphant living Christ of the early Middle ages, was transformed into the dying, suffering, and yet majestic savior of the twelfth century. This essay examines images and written sources from the fourth to the twelfth centuries, and seeks to determine how the twelfth century renaissance and reformation—based on the discovery of the individual— influenced this evolution.

Cultural Studies Review, 2011

in R. Haensch (ed.) Recht haben und Recht bekommen in Imperium Romanum. Das Gerichtswesen der Römischen Kaiserzeit und seine dokumentarische Evidenz , 2016

Violence in Art: Essays in Aesthetics and Philosophy, 2022

The purpose of this essay is to detail precisely how (historically) and why (philosophically) crucifixion art became an aesthetically appropriate form of piety. The thesis of this chapter is that crucifixion art serves a didactic function both theologically (to inspire belief in and imitation of Christ’s self-sacrifice) and doxologically (to inspire cultic devotion to God). As a case of “moral beauty,” crucifixion art represents philosophical notions of the ultimate Good, which allows onlookers to personally witness and then appropriate that ultimate Good into their own being.

2015

2003

The Empty Cross and Images of Christ The cross or the cmcifix-which is older? Convinced that the representation and veneration of the cross itself is an older, more authentic and venerable tradition than that of the cmcifix, my goal was to trace the evolution of the image of the cross in the context of early Christian art: the first examples ofthe cross, the early images of Christ, and the first depictions of Christ on the cross, This essay considers the historical, social, and theological contexts for snch itnages, and several theories to explain why the cross was for so long represented without Christ upon it It begins with a consideration of early Christian communities and the terminus a quo or first manifestations of Christian iconography, and examines the three centuries before the reign of Constantine: the first two centuries of the post-Apostolic Church that leave barely an artistic trace, and the following centmy that reveals the first evidence of artistic development. The early history of the cross reflects the histmy of the Early Chw-ch. There prove to be many reasons for the absence of representations of Christ Cmcifled in the Early Church: cultural, political, social, artistic, and theological; and the subsequent histmy and development of the cmcifix represent major shifts in theology, religious sensibility, spirituality, and mystical language. It is the cross indeed, unadomed by his corpus, that is the more ancient symbol of Cluist This paper may be duplicated

The Empty Cross and Images of Christ The cross or the cmcifix-which is older? Convinced that the representation and veneration of the cross itself is an older, more authentic and venerable tradition than that of the cmcifix, my goal was to trace the evolution of the image of the cross in the context of early Christian art: the first examples ofthe cross, the early images of Christ, and the first depictions of Christ on the cross, This essay considers the historical, social, and theological contexts for snch itnages, and several theories to explain why the cross was for so long represented without Christ upon it It begins with a consideration of early Christian communities and the terminus a quo or first manifestations of Christian iconography, and examines the three centuries before the reign of Constantine: the first two centuries of the post-Apostolic Church that leave barely an artistic trace, and the following centmy that reveals the first evidence of artistic development. The early history of the cross reflects the histmy of the Early Chw-ch. There prove to be many reasons for the absence of representations of Christ Cmcifled in the Early Church: cultural, political, social, artistic, and theological; and the subsequent histmy and development of the cmcifix represent major shifts in theology, religious sensibility, spirituality, and mystical language. It is the cross indeed, unadomed by his corpus, that is the more ancient symbol of Cluist This paper may be duplicated

Aristotle University Medical Journal, 2011

The crucifixion of Jesus has been a favorite subject of research throughout the centuries for historians, the­ologysts, medical doctors and artists. The objective of this study is to present a rare case in international iconography of a representation of Jesus on the cross that is anatomically correct.