Why does the corpus on a crucifix sometimes look emaciated?

[EmilyAlexandra]

It’s sad to know in real life He would have looked a lot worse, than person in a concentration camp.

That sounds like an impossible and pointless comparison to make. People who survived concentration/labour/extermination camps suffered from months or even years of malnutrition, lack of medical treatment, forced labour, medical experiments, beatings, torture, and so on. They would therefore look very different to a healthy young man who had undergone scourging and crucifixion over a period of a few hours.

 

[GEddie]

I doubt that our LORD was emaciated during the life. He was a solid physical specimen, one who worked with His hands/shoulders, and walked the length of Israel several times a year. You need sarx on your soma to make those things happen.

No doubt he fasted regularly, but the fact He completed a forty-days fast – which, if total, would land many or most modern-day average sinners in the hospital or morgue – suggests that He was not emaciated as a normal condition.

The events of His Passion were not prolonged enough to lead to emaciation. Most likely, crucifix makers prefer this appearance as symbolic of the intensity of His suffering.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I’ve read that at certain times in Church history, there was a lot of controversy over showing Jesus’ crucifixion in a more realistic manner. Some clerics thought it was disrespectful, or grotesque, or sensational, or that people would focus on the goriness of the figure rather than on the spiritual aspects of Christ’s sacrifice. At one point, a very realistic crucifix in Germany was destroyed because of this. Apparently it was drawing crowds, and the bishop thought the crowds were coming for all the wrong reasons.

In more recent years I’ve read criticism of the Papal crucifix with the skinny emaciated Christ on it as being ugly, disrespectful, grotesque, and/or symbolic of the way Vatican II has warped or ruined the Church or whatever.

And of course, a naked Jesus would never be acceptable in today’s society, as someone else said.