As Catholics, Jesus is central to our identity and way of life. We look to him as a model for behaviour, morality, prayer, love of neighbour and love of God. What many people don’t know is that the image of Jesus that we as Australians generally subscribe to is a very Euro-centric view (similar to those below), as Christianity, developed mostly in Europe in the early and middle ages.

In reality however, Jesus was born, lived and died in West Asia, in an environment quite different to that of Western Europe. Based on facial reconstructions of men in their early 30’s in Israel, Palestine and surrounds in the year 0, and utilising evidence from the Shroud of Turin, Jesus is thought to have looked more like the men depicted below. 

This interesting discussion led year 4 on a journey of discovery around the various cultural interpretations of Jesus and how, based on where one might live, and how the image and art surrounding Jesus might change. Year 4 explored images of Jesus from Indigenous Australia, Africa, India, Japan, China.

Students were encouraged to meditate on how they visualised Jesus, and utilising newly taught sketching skills, had the opportunity to depict Jesus as they saw him.

A word from James and Grace: 

During our Religious Education and Visual Arts lessons we learned about Jesus’ roots in West-Asia and how he probably looked really different to how we see him in our art. People from different countries see Jesus and relate to him differently depending on where they are from. For example an Aboriginal image of Jesus shows him with Ochre paint on his face. We also learned that Jesus was treated absolutely brutally and tortured before he died.