Biblical images through a different lens
The posters that I have chosen are all posters of bible stories. That is meant to make all of these posters fit together cohesively. The first poster in the upper left hand corner is a picture of baby Moses being rescued. To the right of that poster, is a picture of an angel speaking to the shepherds telling them of the good news that Jesus had been born. The bottom two posters: the one on the left is a poster of the birth of Jesus, Mary and Joseph are pictured in the Inn. The poster that is right next to the one of Mary and Joseph at the birth of Jesus is a poster of Jesus dying on the cross where Christ is crucified as it says on the poster description. Artistically, I found it interesting how all the people who are shown in these posters are shown to be Chinese. To my discretion, I believe the reason we see Mary and Joseph and Jesus depicted into different cultures and especially in these posters is because artists like to make images of the people that they are surrounded by and from what they see. These posters are so heavily intertwined because they are depictions of these stories that are from the bible that are told to children and all throughout our lives. When contextualizing these posters, I was intrigued at the use of color in the poster of Jesus on the cross, as it is in black and white, this was most likely used to portray just the overall tone and message used in the poster.
For instance, the painting that is the birth of Jesus is painted by Chen Yuandu. Most of the paintings that Yuandu has painted “stress their Christian elements.” Lukas Chen Yuandu was active as an artist in the city of Beijing during the earlier years of the Republic. An important part of Chen’s paintings is that “while most of Chen’s paintings are narrative and biblical in character, a small devotional work suggests more immediate Chinese connotations.” However, with the painting of the angel telling the shepherds of the good news, and many other of these paintings, is that it is important to take into consideration that “this Western approach has shaped the study of Chinese painting not only in the West itself but, with increasing influence, in modern China and Japan as well.” It is important to see these posters in a different culture and these stories shaped in a different way because it shapes and expands our worldview.
