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Analysis of artistic style (Wikipedia)
There are many similarities between traditional icons of Jesus and the image on the shroud. This image shows the mosaic "Christ Pantocrator" from the church of Daphne in Athens.Many viewers of the cloth are struck by the anatomically correct depiction of the Man of the Shroud, which is often described as having a three-dimensional appearance. Since the presentation of perspective in two dimensional artwork was a relatively late development, some conclude that it could not have been a medieval forgery. Skeptics cite the great improvement brought about in early Renaissance masters. Also, in the city of Pompeii, one can find murals with perfect perspective. Though the art may have been lost or unused for a long time, this proves knowledge about perspective did exist far before the Middle Ages.
The depiction of Jesus corresponds to that found throughout the history of Christian iconography. For instance, the Pantocrator icon at Daphne in Athens is strikingly similar. Skeptics attribute this to the icons being made while the Image of Edessa was available, with this appearance of Jesus being copied in later artwork, and in particular, in the Shroud. In opposition to this viewpoint, the locations of the piercing wounds in the wrists on the shroud do not correspond to artistic renditions of the crucifixion before close to the present time.
It has been claimed that in contemporary humans the ratio of the distance between the eyes and the top of the head and the distance between the eyes and the tip of the jaw (as seen from a frontal perspective) is roughly 1:1 - the eyes are roughly in the middle of the face. The Shroud of Turin, however, has a top/bottom of face ratio of roughly 0.75. Three possible explanations have been offered for this:
The imprinting process somehow skewed the perspective, making Jesus' jaw, nose and mouth area seem larger and diminishing his forehead. Jesus had a cranial deformity considerably outside the norm of modern humans and the fossil record.
The shroud of Turin is a fake created by someone with only cursory knowledge of human facial anatomy. It should be noted that enlarging the lower part of the face and diminishing the forehead is a common error of inexperienced artists, as well as a distinguishing feature of medieval and early renaissance art.
This claim, though, is disputable: It is not clear that the top/bottom face ratio on the Shroud is roughly 0.75 since the end points for the measurements are imprecise: the locations of the chin and the top of the head on the Shroud cannot be determined exactly. It can be shown, on a digital image of the Shroud, that some plausible measurements give a ratio of roughly 0.90. Moreover, the ratio 1:1 for human is also disputable: at the website Example Face (http://www2.evansville.edu/drawinglab/face.html) it is claimed that an artist should use a ratio of 1:1; but the example presented on that page has a ratio of 0.86 -- very similar to the Shroud. To be more accurate, statistical data from different human races would be required.
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© 2004 Daniel R. Porter, Bronxville, New York
