The Sudarium of Saint Veronica c. 1450

This moving image of the face of Christ, crowned with thorns, was created by an anonymous artist, using tempera on wood. The artist uses traditional art materials here, but with an extraordinary degree of naturalism. Note the careful modulation of light and shadow, the rivulets of blood running down Christ’s face, the clear evocation of the face as if pressed into cloth. All this would have been achieved through painstaking labor, mixing pigments, and applying them in thin, translucent layers. This was not just the application of paint. It was about the controlled accrual of meaning through a highly developed artisanal process. Consider too, the history of this image as a devotional object, a precursor to the photograph. How many hands might have held it, how many prayers offered? The devotional intensity is inseparable from the labor that went into the making, reminding us that the most profound images often have the simplest origins, blurring the lines between devotion, craft, and fine art.