Noli Me Tangere (Cell 1) - 1440-42 - Fresco
Convento di San Marco, Florence
John 20:11-18
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ’ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.Above is another beautiful fresco from San Marco by the holy Fra Angelico. The painting is lovely, but the blond Jesus is a bit of a distraction. I looked at other paintings of Jesus by the good brother, and in some his hair is reddish, in others blond, and in several crucifixion paintings Jesus has dark hair - all by the same artist.
I meant the post to be in a meditative vein, but I'm afraid it's not turning out as I intended. My musings on Jesus' blondness may be inspired by a link Ann V sent to me several days ago to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald in which the writer speaks of the tendency to portray Jesus as good-looking and mostly just like us in appearance. Justine Toh says:
Any representation of Jesus reveals the values of the times and places in which it was produced. When I think of Jesus, he's conventionally attractive. He has longish brown curly hair; he's tall, lily-skinned and dewy-eyed. For a carpenter, he's curiously light on muscle. He bears a striking resemblance to the late singer Jeff Buckley.All right, then. Toh goes on:
Christ is almost never portrayed in less than appealing terms due to the age-old assumption that looks equal worth. In this context, Jesus's beauty is more symbolic than physical, or his outward beauty is a sign of his inward goodness.The appearance of the Jesus of my imagination is somewhat vague, indistinct. He's definitely good-looking, with longish, dark brown, wavy hair. Over the years Jesus' complexion has darkened to appear more realistically like the person of the Middle-East that he is. Jeff Buckley wouldn't be far off the mark, but with browner skin.
Fra Angelico was born in Fiesole in Tuscany, but he traveled further south to Rome and other areas of Italy in his painting career. What did the people around him look like? Why the blond and red-haired portrayals of Jesus?
Below is "Christ the Saviour" (Pantokrator), a 6th-century encaustic icon from Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai from the Wikipedia article titled "Race of Jesus". Images of Jesus from as early as the 3rd century in the catacombs in Rome are shown in the article.
I've roamed and rambled away from the subject of the painting, Mary Magdalene as the first to see Jesus after the Resurrection, when Jesus tells her, "Don't cling to me, but go tell my brothers." Mary is often shown with red hair in paintings. A woman, not one of the male apostles, saw the risen Christ first. I expect there are those who would prefer that this story was left out of the Gospel, but there it is. Mary, who followed Jesus and ministered to him throughout his public life, Mary and the other women, including Mary the mother, who stayed with Jesus even after his male followers fled upon his arrest, who stayed with Jesus to his crucifixion and death. It is a right and good thing that Mary Magdalene was the first to see Jesus.
Almighty God, whose blessed Son restored Mary Magdalene to health of body and mind, and called her to be a witness of his resurrection: Mercifully grant that by your grace we may be healed of all our infirmities and know you in the power of his endless life; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.Image from the Web Gallery of Art.
