The face that lies, eyes closed in death but very present in its immediacy, facing us in the negative of the Shroud of Turin, was envisaged by a craftsman in the late 13th or early 14th century. If there was a definitive likeness to follow, then he should best have followed it, or people would have been disappointed that it wasn’t the Jesus they thought they knew, but if it there wasn’t, then his Jesus must nevertheless have fitted into the artistic trend of the time; beard or no beard, blood or no blood. One way of approaching this is to look at the works of Giotto di Bondini, who was among the most famous artists of the late Middle Ages, even in his own time, and who depicted Jesus, on and off the cross, dozens of times.
Although we cannot be sure of his early history, Giotto was certainly an acknowledged master of his craft by 1290, and died in 1337, dates which are exactly contemporaneous with the creation of the Shroud. That doesn’t, of course, imply that it was his work – there were plenty of other candidates, known and unknown – but it does suggest that by looking Giotto’s Jesus, we will at least be able to understand something of the mindset of the actual artist.
A search for ‘crucifixes’ by Giotto on the internet gives us several, similar paintings, and a search for ‘crucifixions’ several more. Many are disputed, or attributed to his studio or his pupils, but an exact attribution, or even an analytical examination of the artistic skill of each, is not important here. We are interested only in how they depicted Jesus.
We will actually start with Giunta Pisano, from the middle of the 13th century, who is chiefly celebrated for his crucifixes, which represent the tail end of the Byzantine rigidity of depiction. He was followed by Cimabue, who broke the mould, and then Giotto, said to have been Cimabue’s pupil, who established the new, less graphic, trecento style and influenced a generation.
Pisano’s Christs are all warped into an arc. Three are standing on two feet, with a nail in each foot; one has his feet crossed right over left. Their arms are more or less horizontal, three distinctly bent at the elbows. All have open hands and extended thumbs, and the fingers arranged distinctively, the middle two together and the outer two apart. All have graphically defined chests and abdomens, but in a variety of styles. All have almost identical heads and faces, slumped to the right, with long tresses drawn back behind the ears, a full beard (two divided, two undivided) and a drooping moustache above a downturned mouth. There is blood dribbling from the hands and feet, barely noticeably from the spear wound, and none from the head. There is no crown of thorns. All wear a fully modest loincloth. Even within the rigidity of Byzantine iconographic tradition, there was room for some individuality.
Although these two crucifixes are only a few years apart, and still look very similar, the second represents the beginning of the end of the Byzantine tradition in the west. Although the pose is Byzantine, the musculature of the body becomes much more realistically rendered, and the loincloth less modestly draped, although it is still opaque. The fingers have lost their symbolic configuration, and nipples and a navel appear for the first time, emphasising the humanity of Christ.
Giotto confirmed the transition. The Byzantine arc, pushing the pelvis forward, has been replaced by a vertical torso, and legs bent at the hips and knees. All have the feet together, fixed by a single nail. The body hangs below the line of the hands, which are no longer splayed out, but naturalistic, with the thumbs somewhat folded in. The anatomy of the body is much more realistic than stylised. The long tresses have shortened and are no longer drawn back, so the ears are hidden. The moustache is less droopy and the mouth less downturned. The blood from the hands dribbles down the arm to the elbow, and the spear-wound spurts dramatically. There is still no blood on the face, but one of these crucifixes wears a rather thornless twisted ‘crown.’ The loin cloth has become transparent, and Christ’s modesty is only preserved by judicious folds, shadows, or simple anatomical omission.
The two ends of the transition are distinctly different, but while it was happening different painters adopted different changes, at different times, snd in different orders. The two crucifixes of Deodato Orlandi, which are precisely dated 1288 and 1301, illustrate this well. Even the earlier one bears a transparent loincloth, and even the later one retains the drawn-back hair and visible ears.
Here are Giotto’s paintings of the Crucifixion, every one in the new tradition. However it is noticeable how the blood is more clearly expressed with time. The Louvre painting shows the crown of thorns, and almost uniquely for the time, the Assisi picture shows the marks of the scourging on the crucified body.
More or less contemporary with Giotto, but in Siena rather than Florence, was Simone Martini. Some historians think he was Giotto’s pupil, so he continues the development of the style. The body slumps lower, the blood flows more copiously, and the loincloth becomes a mere wisp.
This development in Christological representation is similar to what we see in the Shroud of Turin. Before, say, 1250, an artist depicting the dead Jesus would have shown him with his feet apart, his hair long and tied back behind his ears, little or no blood, and a modest loincloth. This is the image we see in the orthodox epitaphios, from its earliest manifestation until today. After 1350, Jesus has his feet crossed, his hair in front of his ears, blood at the wound sites, and little or no loincloth. This is the image on the Shroud.
But there is an anomaly. It is not until the 15th century that the crown of thorns really makes itself felt, and blood becomes a dominant, rather than an accessory, part of the visual impact of the painting, not only from the “five wounds” but also from the earlier scourging of Christ before the crucifixion.
There is an inevitable implication that the blood on the Shroud images, especially the streams trickling down the arms and hair, the mass covering the footprint and the scourge wounds stippling both the back and front, are later additions to the late 13th/early 14th century image, probably from a time after the Shroud had been entrusted to Humbert de Villersexel for safe keeping, and then appropriated for exhibition by Marguerite de Charny. Even so, the blood on the Shroud is not as extravagant as it might have been. It seems that the “lust for blood” which seems to have been a particular feature of Christian piety in the area of Europe centred on Alsace, was far from universally popular, and even late into the 16th century, much of the blood is omitted even from copies of the Shroud allegedly made from direct observation.
There is, unfortunately, an anomaly to the anomaly, which we may not ignore, namely the entwined double flow of blood across the back of the Shroud image, which both embodies the unrestrained sanguineous abandon of the later blood cults, and also appears, at least in some form, on the very earliest depiction we have, the little leaden pilgrim badge bearing the arms of both the de Charny and the de Vergy families. For the time being, this must remain a mystery.