Life of Christ - Choice of Scenes

Choice of Scenes

After the Early Christian period, the selection of scenes to illustrate was led by the occasions celebrated as Feasts of the Church, and those mentioned in the Nicene Creed, both of which were given prominence by the devotional writers on whose works many cycles appear to be based. Of these, the Vita Christi ("Life of Christ") by Ludolph of Saxony and the Meditations on the Life of Christ by the Pseudo-Bonaventura were two of the most popular from the 14th century onwards. Another influence, especially in smaller churches, was liturgical drama, and no doubt also those scenes which lent themselves to a readily identifiable image tended to be preferred. The miracles of Christ did not score well on any of these counts. In Byzantine art written names or titles were commonly included in the background of scenes in art; this was much less often done in the Early Medieval West, probably not least because few laymen would have been able to read them and understand the Latin. The difficulties this could cause are shown in the 12 small narrative scenes from the Gospel of Luke in the 6th century St. Augustine Gospels; about a century after the book was created captions were added to these images by a monk, which may already misidentify one scene. However, some miracles commonly used as paradigms for Christian doctrines were represented, especially the Wedding at Cana and Raising of Lazarus, which were both easy to recognise as images. Paintings in hospitals were more likely to show scenes of the miraculous cures. Devotional practices such as the Stations of the Cross also influenced selection.

The scenes originating in the apocryphal Gospels that remain a feature of the depiction of Life of the Virgin have fewer equivalents in the Life of Christ, although some minor details, like the boys climbing trees in the Entry to Jerusalem, are tolerated. The Harrowing of Hell was not an episode witnessed or mentioned by any of the Four Evangelists but was approved by the Church, and the Lamentation of Christ, though not specifically described in the Gospels, was thought to be implied by the accounts there of the episodes before and after. Vernacular art was less policed by the clergy, and works such as some medieval tiles from Tring can show fanciful apocryphal legends that either never appeared in church art, or were destroyed at some later date.

By the Gothic period the selection of scenes was at its most standardized. Emile Mâle's famous study of 13th century French cathedral art analyses many cycles, and discusses the lack of emphasis on the "public life is dismissed in four scenes, the Baptism, the Marriage at Cana, the Temptation and the Transfiguration, which moreover it is rare to find all together".