In one sense, portraying the Holy Spirit in baptism icons is not a problem at all: the Spirit descended in the form of a dove. The iconographer does not need to try to get behind this simple assertion of the New Testament to ask "why a dove?" For the most part, painters just seem grateful to have been given a concrete, visible way of depicting this most mysterious and elusive...
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Christ in icons of the baptism is identifiable just as he is in any painting or icon: his traditional bearded face, and a halo (nimbus) with a cross inscribed in it. Of course there are exceptions: the Arian baptistery in Ravenna featured a beardless Christ, and in the post-Renaissance West, halos fell out of popularity from time to time. But identifying the Son of God is nev...
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In this leisurely exploration of the image of the baptism of Christ, we finally turn to a description of the three persons of the Trinity. They are linked in the center of the image by the vertical beam of light, running down from the Father through the Spirit to the Son.
The question of representating God the Father in an icon raises the entire problem of the justificati...
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The feast of Christ's baptism is called "the Feast of Light," linking baptism with illumination in a tradition too ancient to trace.
The apocryphal literature surrounding the New Testament is full of Jordan light imagery. The Gospel of the Ebionites reports that simultaneous with the voice of the Father, "a great light shone around about." Among the church fathers, Ephrem...
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Angels are not mentioned in the scriptural account of the baptism, but they are almost always presented in the iconography.
Perhaps they are included because the baptism is read together with the temptation in the wilderness, which followed it immediately, and after which the gospels report that "the devil left Jesus, and suddenly angels came and waited on him (Matthew 4:1...
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The landscape in which the baptism of Christ is ususally portrayed is a rocky wilderness, with craggy mountain peaks in the background and cliff-like stony river banks on either side of the Jordan. While Jesus stands in the middle of the river itself, John is always portrayed in the classic icons as standing up on one of the river banks, never in the water.
The challenge ...
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Pictures of the baptism of Christ are visually busy, filled with characters and details. Since it's a baptism, it makes sense to start with a close look at John the Baptist. John is an important New Testament character, and Christian artists have assigned him his own iconographic details. You can read all about it, and see examples, in Saint Jean Baptiste dans L'art (Arthaud, ...
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The baptism of Christ is among the earliest New Testament scenes selected for depiction in Christian art. Günter Ristow mentions this in Die Taufe Christi (Recklinghausen: Verlag Aurel Bongers, 1965, 12). It is found in the catacombs, on early christian sarcophagi, and in the very first christian monumental architecture. Given all the water imagery in the elaborate iconog...
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Last Thursday, October 8, 2009, the L.A. Philharmonic welcomed its new conductor: the young 28-year-old prodigy Gustavo Dudamel from Venezuela. He is the eleventh man to helm the orchestra in its 90-year history. He took over from Esa-Pekka Salonen from Finland, who was chief conductor of the L.A. Phil for the last seventeen years. This was a historic occasion, not only bec...
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Monet's "Nympheas"
Paris is often known as La Ville-Lumière, “The City of Lights.” But it may just as aptly be called the “City of Arts.” Last week, I just spent five days in Paris, although I’ve been there something like a dozen times before. However, having done all the typical tourist attractions (Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur & Montmartre, Arc de ...
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I sometimes promote myself as the "world's greatest systematic theologian cartoonist," because it's a pretty safe boast. If I ever meet another professional theologian who's also a published cartoonist, I'll have to adjust my bragging to something like "one of the two greatest." But while I might be the only theology prof to publish cartoons, I'm certainly not the only cartooni...
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The folks over at Theology Forum are hosting a blog exhibition this week on the work of Edward Knippers, an important American painter. On Monday they posted several pictures along with a statement by the artist. Not all artists are able to write about their own work in a helpful way --some of them should shut up and paint!-- but Edward Knippers is a thoughtful, well-read, a...
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