Narrative to icon: the inscriptive origins of Christ Ecce Homo

• Published in: Word & image (London. 1985) Vol. 40; no. 3; pp. 201 - 219
• Main Author: Lansdowne, John
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 02.07.2024; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: 15th century; Andachtsbild; Case studies; Early modern period; Ecce Homo; historia; Human figure; icon; Iconography; imago; Inscriptions; Jesus Christ; Latin language; Middle age; Modern art; narrative-image; Narratives; New Testament; nomina sacra; Panofsky, Erwin; Portraits; Ringbom, Sixten; Speeches; Visual arts
• ISSN: 0266-6286; 1943-2178
• DOI: 10.1080/02666286.2020.1758886

This article examines the shifting iconographical meaning and purpose of the Latin phrase ecce homo in visual art in the later Middle Ages. As told in John 19: 4-5, ecce homo was the terse two-line sentence exclaimed by Pontius Pilate as he presented Christ to the people of Jerusalem: "Behold, [the] man!" Beginning in the early fifteenth century, it became common for artists in Northern and Central Europe to integrate the phrase ecce homo directly into depictions of this presentation scene, first in narrative-images and eventually in stand-alone devotional icons. Initially, these brief inscriptions served to visualize Pilate's climactic two-word speech. In the latter half of the century, however, ecce homo became unmoored from its original scheme. What once had a precise narrative function had, by 1500, expanded to become a message directed at the viewer, an epithet for the specific aspect of Christ represented in the narrative, and a title for the narrative itself. This unmooring happened in conjunction with a shift in the function of the figure of Christ within these images and the adaptation of this type of figure into an en buste portrait. Research presented in this article, the first to address these inscriptions in any way, affords new insight into long-standing questions about the typological relationship linking narrative-images and icons. The article challenges the "genetic" model of typological development established by Erwin Panofsky and Sixten Ringbom, both of whom used the iconography of the Ecce Homo as a case study for how to explain the pictorial forms of devotional images in late medieval and early modern art.