Painting Scandalous Pictures of Jesus

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (Spanish, 1618-1682), The Holy Family with a Little Bird, c. 1645–1650

The great Spanish painter Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was the youngest of fourteen children of a Sevillian barber, Gaspar Esteban, and his wife, Maria Peres. In 1627, his father died, and a year later came the death of his mother. Because his elder sisters and brothers had already grown up and left home, the ten-year-old Bartolomé was adopted into the family of his aunt, who was married to a wealthy Sevillian doctor. There he encountered a strict religious household and was often in conflict with his pious Catholic adoptive father. In the sitting room of the doctor’s house, in pride of place, hung a large picture entitled Jesus the Shepherd Boy. Murillo said that the picture dominated the family, and its depiction of the young boy Jesus was in keeping with the devout tenor of the household. Murillo, himself later known for his religious paintings that emphasized the peaceful, joyous aspects of spiritual life, claimed that the picture haunted him for most of his years with the doctor’s family.

The shepherd boy in the gilt frame stood bolt upright, straight and tall, his shepherd’s crook like a sentinel’s bayonet. Around his head beamed an obligatory halo. His eyes were lifeless, averted. His cheeks were rosy, and his complexion was unsullied. To the young Bartolomé, nothing could be further from his vision of a young Judean shepherd boy. One day when his adoptive family was out of the house, he removed the picture from the wall and began to work on it with his paint set. The stern, unflinching face was given a lively grin. The eyes were enlivened with mischief. The halo was transformed into a battered straw hat, and the plastered-down hair was now tousled and unruly. Jesus’ crook was turned into a gnarled walking stick, and the somewhat limp lamb at his feet was altered into a troublesome dog. Though this painting is now lost forever, his efforts apparently were remarkable. His precocious talent and character were emerging even in childhood.

When the doctor and his wife returned home, they were so disturbed by the sacrilege committed by their young charge that they forced him to carry the offensive work through the streets of Seville to shame him for his blasphemy. But far from humiliating him, the experience provided him his escape from their guardianship. A local religious icon painter, Juan del Castillo, was so impressed by the playful impression of Jesus that he took the boy into his home and apprenticed him, preparing him for his vocation as one of Spain’s greatest religious artists.

It is tempting for us Christians to hold to unreal, highly symbolic images of Jesus. But it is critical that we reject these tame and insipid pictures and that, like Murillo, we “paint over” them, so as to bring out the real Jesus, the richer, more inspiring and even sometimes shocking Jesus presented to us in Scripture. Our mission is to know this Jesus and then to make this Jesus known, even if it sometimes scandalizes others. For Jesus was not above being a scandal himself!