I take your point. Perhaps Fr. K’s statement, since this was Good Friday, was to make a graphic, and somewhat iconoclastic, point about the crucifixion, and its reality as a cruel, degrading practice. If so, I must admit that, in my own case, he succeeded better than he (probably) knew.
There is in scripture, I think a brief description of Christ’s physical appearance. This description would naturally incline toward the appearance of people in the region of Galilee or Judea at the time, unless Christ’s visage was much removed from that of the locals. As regards artistic depictions of an “Aryan” or “Caucasian” Christ, it may be well to consider more than a single source. There is a plethora of religious art to investigate in this vein. Also, it’s to be expected, I think, that artists from different backgrounds would depict Christ with characteristics that they were familiar with. Thus, a Byzantine image of Christ would probably look different that of a Germanic or Italian one. Especially in an insular world where most people didn’t travel much, or far. Then there is also the fact that some of those depictions, thanks to the variable artistic customs of the time, would try to reflect a realist image instead of an idealistic or sanitized one.
Reminds me of a friend in college. He would take a whole roll of pre-fabbed cookie dough and fashion it into one big cookie, put it on the cookie sheet and bake it. There was a problem: when the installers set up the community kitchen in the dorm, they incorrectly wired up the oven, connecting it to 110 instead of the proper 220 source. (Yeah, I know, that 3 phase stuff is hard to understand — “why is it 120 or 208, not 240?” or “which is the neutral?” or “which of these 5 wires is right" or "that’s good enough, let’s go to lunch”). The result was that even after baking for half an hour, the “Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie” was still mostly half baked goo. We ate it anyway.
I take your point. Perhaps Fr. K’s statement, since this was Good Friday, was to make a graphic, and somewhat iconoclastic, point about the crucifixion, and its reality as a cruel, degrading practice. If so, I must admit that, in my own case, he succeeded better than he (probably) knew.
There is in scripture, I think a brief description of Christ’s physical appearance. This description would naturally incline toward the appearance of people in the region of Galilee or Judea at the time, unless Christ’s visage was much removed from that of the locals. As regards artistic depictions of an “Aryan” or “Caucasian” Christ, it may be well to consider more than a single source. There is a plethora of religious art to investigate in this vein. Also, it’s to be expected, I think, that artists from different backgrounds would depict Christ with characteristics that they were familiar with. Thus, a Byzantine image of Christ would probably look different that of a Germanic or Italian one. Especially in an insular world where most people didn’t travel much, or far. Then there is also the fact that some of those depictions, thanks to the variable artistic customs of the time, would try to reflect a realist image instead of an idealistic or sanitized one.