Jesus is Presented to the People (Doré Exploration #1)
The first in our series of woodcuts, produced for Le Grande Bible de Tours by Gustave Doré, illustrates John 19:15— They cried out, “Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!” Pilate asked them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” Christ stands tall and straight, with the willowy build so characteristic of Western artistic depictions of spiritual people, clearly denoted by His halo. The notion that gods, heroes, and occasionally kings emit a divine light about their heads dates back at least to ancient Sumer, and is found throughout Greek and Persian literature. Egyptian art would typically place the pharaoh’s head within the sun disk, identifying the ruler with Ra. When Caesar Augustus conquered Egypt for his personal possession, his image took on the pharaonic halo. Christian art thus could be construed as presenting Jesus as the true and rival Emperor, whose Kingdom is not of this world. Equally striking in the woodcut is the clear...