Warner Sallman, Head of Christ, 1940. Oil on canvas. The Warner Sallman Collection, Anderson University, Indiana.
In 1940, commercial artist Warner Sallman created the oil painting Head of Christ. This image has since been reproduced hundreds of millions of times, on prints, plaques, bookmarks, greeting cards, funeral announcements, church bulletins, buttons, calendars, clocks, lamps, coffee mugs, stickers, billboards, and key chains. Stephen Prothero, author of American Jesus, says that the wide dissemination of Sallman’s Head of Christ transformed Jesus from a celebrity into a national icon, making him now instantly recognizable by Americans of all races and religions. And, more than that, Prothero says, the picture became the most common religious image in the world (out-popularizing Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper and dozens of other works of religious import). Even today, Warner Press receives requests for the use of Sallman’s work on a weekly basis from national media outlets, gift companies, publishers, ministries, and individuals.
In a 1994 New York Times article entitled “The Man Who Rendered Jesus for the Age of Duplication,” writer William Grimes is so bold as to call Sallman the “best-known artist of the [twentieth] century,” outranking even Picasso and Warhol. Best known? I don’t know about that, but Sallman’s art was certainly the most widely reproduced and distributed of any other twentieth-century artist’s. His Head of Christ immediately became a staple of every American Protestant home, church building, and funeral parlor. Sallman’s publisher, Kriebel & Bates, apparently had an excellent marketing team.
(That would be a Finnish stamp you’re seeing at the bottom center, released in 2010 by the Aland Islands.)
Head of Christ is an object of both personal devotion and scholarly study. In the 1990s, the Lilly Endowment funded a major study of the impact of Sallman’s art on religion in America. To cap off the study, art historian David Morgan compiled a collection of essays and conference papers and published them in book form under the title Icons of American Protestantism: The Art of Warner Sallman.
During the course of the project, Morgan requested and received more than 500 personal responses to Sallman’s work. Respondents overwhelmingly stated that the picture appealed to them because it shows “just what Jesus looked like.” In other words, they believed it to be the most accurate pictorial depiction ever created—a rather odd claim, seeing as no one from the ’90s was around in the first century to have seen Jesus in the flesh. Morgan attributes these claims of authenticity (and general likeability) in part to the photo-like qualities of the portrait, which give it the appearance of realism and make it seem like a personal keepsake. The blurred contours and soft back lighting, he said, are reminiscent of the studio photographs of family members and loved ones that people so often carry around in their purses and wallets.
In fact, during WWII, the YMCA and Salvation Army distributed tens of thousands of wallet-sized copies of Head of Christ overseas to servicemen. Jason Knapp, one of the researchers for the Sallman project, said that ex-G.I.s would weep as they told him stories about carrying Head of Christ in their wallets, and how it kept them alive.
Another possible contributing factor to the public’s widespread fondness for Head of Christ is the fact that in it, Jesus is close-cropped and alone, shown only from the shoulders up. Because Sallman’s Jesus has been extracted from the context of time, place, and narrative, we can place him into our own context, and because he is not interacting with other figures inside the frame, we are free to interact with him more personally and intimately. The Jesus that gazes outward appears to be warm, gentle, and compassionate, the beautiful Savior so many people long for.
The image does have its detractors, though, many of whom consider it to be too soft and effeminate a portrayal of Christ. Robert Paul Roth, a Lutheran evangelical and New Testament scholar, wrote in a 1958 Christianity Today article entitled “Christ and the Muses” that Head of Christ is a “pretty picture of a woman with a curling beard who has just come from the beauty parlor with a Halo shampoo.” Another man compared Sallman’s Jesus to the Breck Girl.
Writer Alan Devoe’s criticism was much harsher. In the November 1948 issue of The American Mercury, Devoe wrote that the portrait inaccurately portrays Jesus as “actorishly barbered . . . a pale and posturing person with immoderately long, silky hair . . . who clutched a kind of diaphanous drapery gracefully about him with an expression of simpering vapidity.” He lamented that Sunday school teachers all over America were teaching little children to hold the “limp and clammy hand” of this sissified Jesus.
I’ve definitely seen more effeminate depictions of Jesus. But I do tend to sit on the side of the detractors on this one. I look at the portrait and see “Pretty Jesus.” A too pretty Jesus. The real Jesus walked through dusty streets and had no razor or hairdryer with which to groom himself. I mean, maybe this Jesus got all cleaned up for picture day, but somehow I think that he was never quite this neatly combed and sparkly clean. And, considering the words of the prophet Isaiah in chapter 53, verse 2 (“he had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him”), I also think that Jesus wasn’t as handsome or “pretty” as so many artists make him out to be. As if in blatant refusal of Isaiah 53:2, artists try to attract people to Jesus precisely by making him look beautiful and majestic. That’s because we like to stare at what is beautiful. Hollywood knows this and casts only beauties in leading roles. Because for some reason, we tend to invest ourselves more heavily in characters who look good.
“The Public and Art,” from motive magazine 19, no. 9 (May 1959)
. . . But all these criticisms are not to say that something valuable can’t be read in Christ’s gaze. As I will explore in later posts as I evaluate other Heads of Christ, an accurate optical-historical rendering shouldn’t be of primary concern to the viewer. It’s all about what the image can tell us about Christ. It’s about how we experience Christ more deeply through the viewing of it. I have to say, though, it’s hard for me to connect to Sallman’s Christ. The pretty-boy image gets too much in the way for me, because it seems to ignore certain realities, and the way his eyes are pointed upward (perhaps communing with the Father?) makes it hard to find an entry point into the painting.
In what settings or forms have you encountered Sallman’s Head of Christ? What’s your reaction to it? What do you read in Christ’s gaze? Do you think there are any dangers in depicting Jesus as “pretty,” or, on the contrary, do you think it’s necessary?
The Jesus Question 
This picture of Christ reminds me of the one in Catholic churches – and looks similar to the Christ hanging on the cross that is hung above most Catholic alters. Now that I think about it, I really don’t see many pictures of Christ in Protestant churches, like you do in Catholic churches. I wonder why that is?
IN MY OPINION, THE MOST ACCURATE DEPICTION OF CHRIST WAS DONE BY THOMAS KINKADE IN HIS PRINT “PRINCE OF PEACE.” I THINK IT SHOWS THE SUFFERING OF CHRIST. I THINK IT SHOULD BE TITLED “MAN OF SORROWS.”
IT IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE PAINTINGS.
Had to look that one up – it suffers from the same flaws as Sallman’s – it’s a *white* man. We may not know what Jesus looked like, but we can make a pretty good guess about his race, and it would have been a very dark skinned Jew.
To be truthful, I’ve never understood why people want to hang a portrait of Christ in their home since we do not know what He looks like (and certainly doesn’t have the features/look that is depicted in most pictures). I could hang a picture of any man and it would be the same.
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I think it looks a lot like like “Supply Side Jesus” from Al Franken’s book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. (I’m sure that the resemblance is no accident…)
I’d suggest that another reason the Sallman painting has been so widely reproduced is that it’s designed to be. Look at the exaggerated highlights, the extremely clear, sharp lines of delineation. You can shrink that picture down or blow it up, and it’ll still be recognizable. It’s like a well-designed logo that way. It’s very similar, in a visual design sense, to what Shepard Fairey did in creating the famous “Hope” image of Barack Obama.
Okay, it’s an idealized image…so what? But it IS masterfully rendered by Sallman, to be sure. Responses to art are always subjective, so it’s no surprise there will be those, like Alan Devoe – whose own “limp and clammy” hands no doubt raced over his Remington Rand typewriter keys with glee – will be eager to denigrate this particular image with mocking and vituperative scorn. It’s conceded there is no description of Jesus in the New Testament, but citing the descriptive passages of Isaiah is an extremely weak argument, since it requires a belief that there is a messianic expectation (i.e. that this scripture specifically refers to Jesus) in Old Testament scripture in the first place.
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I received a copy of this image of Jesus in 1st grade Sunday School in 1959. I grew up a Christian and this image is what I think of when I think Jesus. As stated above he does have kind eyes, the image is comforting to look at….approachable. This image hangs behind the pulpit where I go to church and I look at Jesus each week and feel warm, welcomed and comforted. No, not one of us has seen Jesus, but we believe. I have not met Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, but I read their words in the New Testament and believe that they are true and meaningful. Christianity is about Believing and about Faith, this comes from something greater than an image it comes from grace. In my life, this is Jesus…kind, gentle, loving, forgiving but strong. Nothing that I see in this image is frightening or intimidating I see that as positive. Jesus led a hard life but he was a teacher and his acts of kindness and miracles are all through the Bible. Art is full of interpretation…..I am just fine with “Head of Christ”.
Ginny
The scriptures forbids making and image of God Since Jesus is God, this is a grave sin. The scriptures forbids making an image of anything in Heaven. Jesus was resurrected and now resides in heaven, so again, another sin. This false image of a false Christ is the work of Satan. This fits into the plan of Satan for the world. Jesus says in Matthew 24:23-24, ” 23 “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. 24 For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you beforehand.”. In 2 Thessalonians 2:8-10 it reads, “And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, 10 and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.”
“Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God.” Romans 10:17. Things that one sees are the way to be deceived. It is the way the world and the church has been deceived. Notice in Genesis how Eve was decieved, “6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye,…” It was the visual. Notice what Satan tries to do to Jesus. Matthew 4:8 reads, Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”
10 Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you,Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” 11 Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.”
Again, the visual deceives and this image is part of that deception.
Also, this is the origin of the Jews in Genesis 11:27, “This is the genealogy of Terah: Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran begot Lot. 28 And Haran died before his father Terah in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans. 29 Then Abram and Nahor took wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and the father of Iscah. 30 But Sarai was barren; she had no child.
31 And Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran and dwelt there. 32 So the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.”
The land of Ur is Mesopotamia which we now call Iraq.
Read the word to discover the truth.
Thanks for sharing this insight regarding the image of Jesus and idol worship. Many believers are more in love with a false image of Jesus than they are with the Jesus portrayed in the Word of God.
Haven’t read the book, but the title alone is compelling enough to SPEAK VOLUMES
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I’ve always preferred the clearly Semitic Jesus in Rembrandt’s “Head of a Young Jew as Christ.”
(Sorry, can’t easily link from this LG fone, so no image link. Perhaps if I remember, I can supply one next time I’m at a desktop. But it’s readily googleable.)
Then again, as both a Jew and a history concentrator, I would, wouldn’t I?
Thank you for this perceptive analysis, & for this excellent thread.
I find this white, pretty boy Jesus off putting. The Jesus of my Ignation meditations wears blue jeans, a white shirt with sleeves rolled one quarter up, shaggy dark hair, dark eyes, the olive skim of a Sabra, short cropped beard, athletic shoes and a yarmulke. Relatable, not ridiculous looking.
My gran has a slightly faded framed version of this in her house.
Did anyone notice the chalice and host on his forehead and the bowing priest on
his facing right shoulder ?