Sunday, 13 August 2023

Sacred Heart

This is the most famous painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, done by Pompeo Batoni in 1767. It is for sure the most famous painting of the Sacred Heart in art, which was  actually painted only a few years after the apparition of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. Batoni was born 18 years after Alacoque died. In this artwork, he depicts Christ wearing a red tunic, which symbolises the colour of blood, martyrdom and humanity; and a blue mantle which symbolise the colour of heaven and Christ's divinity. Batoni represented Jesus with long hair and a short beard, holding in his left hand an inflamed heart with a crown of thorns and with a cross at the top. Batoni was motivated in painting the Sacred Heart of Jesus by the supposed apparition of Jesus to St Margaret Mary Alacoque under the title of the Sacred Heart. The apparition was said to have occurred when St Margaret prayed to Jesus before the Blessed Sacrament during the feast of St. John the Evangelist in 1673. The portrait is an altarpiece placed above the altar in the northern side chapel of the Church of the Gesu in Rome.

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