Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus

Christ and the Virgin, c. 1430-35
When Rembrandt embarked on his re-thinking of Christ, artists attempting to depict Jesus commonly resorted to centuries-old conventions based upon a likeness of Christ that was purported to have been miraculously imprinted on cloths that had touched his face during his lifetime. As late as the 1430s, the Dutch painter Roger Campin could make an image of Christ (like the one above) that looked back to Byzantine icons that had transmitted those miraculously-obtained features into Western painting.

• J.M.W. Turner at the National Gallery in Washington