Life of Our Savior Jesus Christ Images, Tissot

"The Life of our Savior Jesus Christ" Images

James Tissot

James Tissot (1836-1902) was a French painter and illustrator. He was a successful painter of fashionable, modern scenes and society life in Paris before moving to London in 1871.

After spending the greater part of his life catering to the wealthy, fashionable, and worldly people of Paris, at around 50 years old he had a conversion of sorts back to the basics of his Catholic faith and dedicated the rest of his life to the cause of Christ. Since he was a gifted artist, he was determined to direct his artistic passions to recreating the scenes of the Bible. He said, "This is why, attracted as I was by the divine figure of Jesus and the touching scenes recorded in the Gospels, I determined to go to Palestine on a pilgrimage of exploration, hoping to restore to those scenes as far as possible the actual aspect assumed by them when they occurred."

Tissot spent the next 10 years visiting Palestine and painting hundreds of images. He said,

"Every work, no matter what, has its own ideal; and the ideal of mine was truth, the truth of the life of Christ. To reproduce with fidelity the divine personality of Jesus, to make Him live again before the eyes of the spectators, to call up the very spirit which shone through His every act, and through all His noble teaching...I had to identify myself as much as possible with the Gospels; to read them over and over again a hundred times, and there is no doubt that it is in the Holy Land itself, on the very spots where all the sublime scenes described took place, that the mind is best attuned alike to receive and grasp the significance of every impression."

In this Bible Analyzer Image Bundle we have included most of Tissot's paintings from his massive four volume set, The Life of our Saviour Jesus Christ. It is a powerful collection detailing most of the key events in Christ's life. The images are clear, detailed, colorful, and in many cases mesmerizing. It is obvious Tissot put a lot of thought and effort in creating them.

After Tissot's death his "Life of Christ" original paintings were put away in storage for decades and hidden from the public. Many in the artistic world did not consider them "fashionable," but in recent years they have been brought back into the public display.

The images are also interactive. At the top left of each corner there is an invisible "hotspot" which when the cursor is placed over the relevant Bible verses about the image will display.

We also made a video demonstrating these features and show a few example images. Click the image below for the video.

Arguably Tissot's most famous "religious" painting is his piece titled "The View from the Cross." It is the first known image of what Christ saw from His vantage point. See the video where we discuss it a little.

Note: Some may be prejudiced against Tissot and his images because he was a Roman Catholic. But after hours and hours of going through all four volumes of his book, examining his words and images, Tissot is probably the most "unCatholic" Catholic I have read. He said he went through the gospels and New Testament over 100 times trying to get the sense, theme, and location of every image he painted. How many of us can say we have studied to that extent? The bulk of his book is Scripture. He has the Latin text on the left and the English on the right with his imaged mingled throughout. (That he used English is fascinating since he was a Frenchman.) He also made many notes and comments of each scene he represented explaining how he was trying to get the Scriptural sense.

Also, there was no endorsement by any Catholic Bishop "certifying" the text as is common among approved works. This is not an official Catholic work but instead the work of a very driven man who happened to be a Catholic. We don't know much about Tissot's personal relationship with Christ, but he often referred to Christ as his savior.

Nevertheless, these images are excellent. They are the most complete set of high quality gospel images available.

Dear Reader, contemplate these images. Consider the scenes and events they portray along with the Scripture they are built upon; look into the faces of the individuals; ponder the amazing Life of our Lord; the Savior of the world!

Get this Bible Analyzer Exclusive Image Bundle, containing over 100 high quality images, for your own today. (65MB)