James Tissot: The Life of Christ, The Complete Set of 350 Watercolors [ハードカバー]

Years ago I began looking for powerful images that depict the life of faith for use in worship in our small Vermont Church. Frequently I found individual works by James Tissot, and curious to find more I began to explore books and the internet. To my disappointment there were very few books containing more than a few of Tissot's stunning paintings, and I discovered that his works had not been on display in any significant number for many years. So I was extremely excited to discover the exhibit of more than 100 of his illustrations at the Brooklyn Museum.

Saturday October 24th my wife and I went to view the exhibit of Tissot's Life of Christ organized by Judith Dolkart. Never have I witnessed a more moving and thoughtful portrayal of Jesus birth, ministry, passion and resurrection. The descriptions with each work were exceptional, briefly telling the story illustrated, exploring the paintings, reflecting on the artist's process as explained in his own commentaries. I would urge anyone interested in the life of Jesus to come and spend a couple of hours. Take your time and read the stories, look into the paintings,and search your heart. Mine was deeply moved. I can see why people at the original exhibitions of these works wept before them. My profound thanks to the Brooklyn Museum and to Judith Dolkart! Friend, do not miss this exceptional opportunity and touching exhibition! You may want to take a preview at [...]

Now for the exhibit catalog! This stunningly beautiful 302 page treasure is alive with with high quality full color reproductions of the paintings about half the size of the originals. The end papers of the book are huge and dramatic depictions of Jerusalem. Each section features a breathtaking full page detail of one of the paintings.

Exhibit Curator Judith Dolkart and David Morgan from Duke University provide intriguing articles about Tissot's life journey, his process for creating this series, the interesting role of this collection in the growth and development of the Brooklyn Museum, and the chapter in American Religious life created by Tissot's Bible. I expect to spend many hours savoring the prints and exploring the story told so richly by each painting.

Are there limitations to Tissot's effort to capture the Bible as it happened? Of course. Yet for anyone wanting to explore the life of Jesus imaginatively and emotionally in its beauty and courage, richness and depth, traveling the pilgrimage in this book will be a profound blessing! The quality images of Tissot's extensive New Testament works from cover to cover make this book a gem!

James Tissot (1833-1902) was a nineteenth-century French painter who for the first part of his career had a reputation as a "French society painter [whose subjects were] the costumes and manners, occupations and pleasures of the French capital's elegantes." This all changed in the early 1890s when Tissot renewed his ties to the Catholicism of his youth after experiencing a vision during a Mass when the priest raised the host. For the rest of his life, he devoted himself to the series of religious paintings numbering in the hundreds given here. Tissot's lasting reputation rests on this series The Life of Christ on all periods of Jesus Christ's life from the Annunciation to the Resurrection.

Books reproducing this series were published in France and the United States. In 1900 after a tour in the U.S., the complete series came into the possession of the Brooklyn Museum.

Tissot's paintings were popular not only for their religious subject coinciding with a rise in religious feelings and interests in late Victorian-era America and pre-World War I Europe, but also for their straightforward style. The paintings are in an illustration style; similar to ones seen in periodicals and illustrated books of the period. They reflect no inklings of impressionism or any of the other budding modern art styles of Tissot's day. One sees in them some harbingers of the art of N. C. Wyeth and other illustrators of the following decades. In Tissot's paintings though one occasionally sees symbols such as pale, ghostly hands reaching across a pool of water or dark wings for Satan; and occasionally an aura around Jesus's head. But the effects of the paintings are mostly in the coloration creating mood, poses (often dramatic) of the central figures, and the setting of the scene as if in a play.

An appreciative and enthusiastic public was attracted to Tissot's paintings by their details of "landscape, architecture, vegetation, costumes, and customs of the Holy Land." This gave the paintings an exotic appearance arousing curiosity and myriad points of interest with their evocation of spirituality.

Tissot's aim was to "revivify the imagination of modern Europeans and Americans by depicting the life of Jesus in scenes that departed from visual conventions, but not entirely." The sheer number of paintings picturing incidents from the life of Christ and also related Holy Land scenes and figures was a visual biography which was as educating as it was visually engaging. With the hundreds of paintings grouped into major parts of the life of Christ (e. g., The Ministry, The Passion) mostly two to a page, today's readers can have the same experience. Essays preceding the sections of paintings go into the social context making Tissot's project such a sensation in its day and also how it was eventually acquired despite some opposition on financial and religious grounds by the Brooklyn museum.

I liked the realistic detail in many of Tissot's watercolors, based on his travels to Palestine.
At the same time the watercolors remind me of the kind of stylized Sunday School art I knew as a
child. That is not to denigrate Tissot's work but for me to place it in a context, depicting the
life of Christ. I responded with curiosity to religious art as a child. As an adult I am drawn
to Tissot's work reflectively, with an eye for his art in its religious expression. The two are
not contradictory, art and relgious expresson considering the association from centuries
past. Only in our more secular age is it perhaps given short shrift. Or that may be to speak also
of style considering Tissot from late 19th century into the 20th. Regardless, these
watercolors both remind the viewer of an earlier form, and are in themselves a compelling current
expression of the relgious in artistic representation.