OK, even I'm starting to get bored of all this Italy stuff now. But, before I finish, I must explain my theory that Jesus was a carrot-top:
When you've traipsed through as many medieval art galleries and churches as I have in the last couple of weeks, you begin to notice certain themes developing.
For example, it is quite clear that Jesus was an extremely ugly baby. Out of the (literally) hundreds of Madonna and Childs and Nativities that I saw, there wasn't a single one in which Baby Jesus didn't look boss-eyed, deformed, or just not-quite-right-in-the-head. He had the sort of face that only a mother could love. And he's nearly always clutching some poor goldfinch in his mitts. What the hell is that about? Some sort of religious iconography I can't be bothered to look up, I'll bet. [Postscript: Actually, I've now looked it up, and very symbolic it is too.]
And very often, the Virgin Mary is shown with two kids. It turns out the second one is Jesus's cousin, John the Baptist. Presumably he was Jesus's cousin on his mother's side. I suspect Mrs The Baptist was a working mum. Either that, or she and the Virgin Mary took it in turns to look after the kids while the other popped down the shops.
The other thing you soon begin to notice in these old painting is that Jesus was extremely white, and unforgivably ginger. I don't mean in just one or two painting; I mean in practically all of them (with one notable exception: a Russian iconographic painting in which he looked decidedly swarthy).
I mean, even his poor mum looks ginger in some of the paintings. As if she didn't have enough to worry about, the poor woman!
I rest my case. Here endeth the lesson.
Could be something to do with the sun's effect on the pigments in the paint. Or conversely, he WAS a ginger tosser.
I'd though of the pigment corrosion idea as well, but why would it only affect his hair?
Nope, Our Saviour was a ginger nut all right.
Did you check under his loin cloth? That could have been the proof you needed one way or the other. A missed opportunity perhaps.
Phoenix
x
there will be a lurch from agnosticism to atheism, you mark my words.
"i'm just not sure..."
"Jesus was a ginger of course"
"OK, forget the whole thing"
Left handed too, I bet.
Yes. How sinister!
Well of course Jesus has ginger hair. He has to keep his vitamin D levels up when Satan casts his dark shadow over the Earth.
Such things are so obvious to the wise 😉
As a unrepentant Ginger, a former street kid, and a bit of a Franciscan, I think the goldfinch would be Yeshua's second in duels with meanies when he has to go all Jewish Gangster in the defense of Nessie, swans, manx kittens, and naysayers of the innocuous ginger minority.
Hardly innocuous. And is it possible to be both unrepentant and Franciscan?