Christian Holy Day
Henry Ossawa Tanner depicts Jesus Christ in Savior, an artwork to ponder on Christmas day.Head bent, gaze intent, hands clasped, the Savior is absorbed in contemplation or prayer. The circumstances of the solitary vigil are ambiguous. Has Tanner chosen a particular moment on the mountain, in the Garden of Gethsemane, or just before the Crucifixion? Or has he treated instead the very act of prayer as a means to salvation? Whatever the context, Tanner presents Christ as a man of humble origin rather than as a transcendent, godlike figure. His carefully delineated features and bowed posture create the psychological penetration of a portrait.
Source: Lynda Roscoe Hartigan. African-American Art: 19th and 20th-Century Selections (brochure. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art).
Pictured: Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1859 USA–1937 France, The Savior, about 1900–05, oil on canvas mounted to plywood, 29 1/8 x 21 7/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Robbins.
Henry Ossawa Tanner depicts Jesus Christ in Savior, an artwork to ponder on Christmas day.Head bent, gaze intent, hands clasped, the Savior is absorbed in contemplation or prayer. The circumstances of the solitary vigil are ambiguous. Has Tanner chosen a particular moment on the mountain, in the Garden of Gethsemane, or just before the Crucifixion? Or has he treated instead the very act of prayer as a means to salvation? Whatever the context, Tanner presents Christ as a man of humble origin rather than as a transcendent, godlike figure. His carefully delineated features and bowed posture create the psychological penetration of a portrait.