Tissot's massive project...
netted him immense financial reward and expressly positive reviews from the general public.
At the same time, however, The Life of Christ series has been harshly critiqued by Tissot's artistic peers, present day art critics, and even the journalists who announced Tissot's death in the papers.
Some of the intellectual artists among the Impressionists and Realists dismissed Tissot's series as 'revolting' and mediocrely supernatural. This criticism seems at least somewhat undeserved, as Tissot's approach to the genre of religious painting had consciously broken away from the limitations of past European representations.
Tissot saw the former works of the European masters as noble in their intent, but fundamentally limited. As they would always be half-blind depictions draped in the clothing and 'fancies' of their own homelands.
Furthermore, Tissot's style of conveying the supernatural has become one of the most identifiable and beloved characteristics of the series.
Even contemporary critics and academics still find fault with Tissot's project.
For one critic, Tissot's supernatural elements are mere 'spooky illustrations'. The first wave of Tissot historians almost entirely ignored this period of religious artwork, treating it as a trivial indulgence at the end of a great artist's life.
Furthermore, for many of the contributors to Shofar, a journal of Jewish Studies, Tissot's work remains intrinsically unapproachable or at least historically inaccurate for presuming that the appearance and dress of people in the Holy Land in the 1890s would look at all like the context of Jesus' time.
Little recognition seems to be given, however, to the the relative difference between Tissot's style and that of almost every western Christian artist before him. (see below for an example of the stylistic change seen in Tissot's treatment of the Nativity, contrasted with the scene painted by Correggio).
[bron]
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