Jesus 

Vladimir Borovikovsky painted this portrait of Jesus in Russia sometime in the late 18th or early 19th century. It is oil on canvas. The image presents a vision of gentle authority. Jesus gestures toward his heart while blessing the world represented by the orb beneath his hand. But what does it mean to paint Jesus in Russia during this period? The Russian Orthodox Church was deeply intertwined with the Tsarist regime, and paintings like this one served to reinforce the divine right of the Romanovs to rule. Borovikovsky himself was a favorite portraitist of the Imperial family. Religious imagery always has political implications, and the historian’s job is to unpack them. We might look at Church records, the biographies of artists and patrons, and the writings of contemporary critics to better understand the social function of an image like this one. Because art always exists within a complex web of social and institutional relations.