For over half a millennia Christian art has attempted to use empathy to help people understand the reality and significance of Christ’s suffering on the cross. We are offered paintings and sculptures showing nails piercing flesh, gaping wounds and seeping blood that aim to have us not only see what Christ endured, but also to physically feel his bodily pain. As the art historian Jill Bennett points out in her book Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma and Contemporary Art:
‘The images developed from the late medieval period with the express function of inspiring devotion were not simply the “Bible of the unlettered” in the sense of translating words into images. Rather, they conveyed the essence of Christ’s sacrifice, the meaning of suffering, by promoting and facilitating an empathetic imitation of Christ.’
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