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Tissot - The Ascension
Identifier
019327
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
The Artist as Believer – Art, April 5, 2010 Issue by Karen Sue Smith
To believers, Tissot’s images reveal something more [about him]: signs of a vibrant Christian imagination. He did more than represent the land where Jesus walked. Tissot saw himself as a spiritual pilgrim. He reflected on each image and seems to have placed himself in the scenes as the various characters, ….: as a prodigal son, a child of Jerusalem, a Roman soldier, a mother with a sick child, a condemned thief, a woman at the empty tomb and a convinced follower. Tissot’s visionary images can also help viewers to do the same.
After years of intense labor, Tissot exhibited his work in Paris, then in London and the United States. Viewers responded with reverence, awe and tears. Crowds were hushed. Most reviews were laudatory, though not all; one likened the realistic style of the work to a Baedeker guide. When the series was published, the Tissot “Bible” became an international best seller.
A description of the experience
