[qwerty_mad]

I have not seen a picture of Mary, mother of Jesus, in a picture where her hair is showing. And in all the drawings of Jesus, he is wearing a long white gown and has a rather big beard.

Why is this?

[xXxiKillxXx]

Because that was God commandments, unfortunately, some Christians bent the rules

[placenta medicae talpae]

Do not trust any of these 'images' of Jesus.
He's often depicted as having long hair, which is described as a 'dishonour' to a man in 1 Corinthians.
He's often depicted as having pale skin, which is clearly wrong.
Plus, there's a reason for the second commandment!

They just want to give a false image of Jesus and Mary, and unfortunately they've succeeded.

[ConnorB]

...Who honestly cares?

If you want I'll draw you one on MS paint.

[Hylean]

The depiction of Jesus is down to the shroud of Turin and Mary due to ideas about women, I'd assume.

[Purple Giraffe]

(Original post by placenta medicae talpae)
Do not trust any of these 'images' of Jesus.
He's often depicted as having long hair, which is described as a 'dishonour' to a man in 1 Corinthians.
He's often depicted as having pale skin, which is clearly wrong.
Plus, there's a reason for the second commandment!

They just want to give a false image of Jesus and Mary, and unfortunately they've succeeded.

"Don't cut your hair nor shave. (Leviticus 19:27)"

Hm, funny.

[Historophilia]

Artistic license.

No-one knows exactly what they looked like or what they wore so images of them have been developed over centuries until there's a highly recognisable kind of trade mark image.

Having Mary with her hair covered is almost certainly fairly accurate for where and when she lived. The fact that she is often painted in blue is from the fact that before the development of artificial pigments blue was the most expensive colour. And Mary, as the mother of Jesus was painted in the most expensive colour to show how much she was venerated and how pious the painter or the commissoner of the image was.

And as to Jesus being in a long white robe, well white suggests purity and holiness and a simple shapeless robe emphasises his lack of concern with worldy finery etc.

As to the beard thing, in actual fact if you look more closely the beard is more often well kept and quite short, not big and bushy. After all no-one would paint a messy looking jesus.

Why he is always painted with a beard I don't know, but again it's probably fairly accurate for the time.

People also often question why Jesus and Mary are often depicted as white which is not accurate. And to answer that I refer again to the fact that the images we recognise as being them were developed over centuries of western art. This artwork would have been done by white people in white countries so they painted them to look like how they viewed them. After all they'd never seen anyone who wasn't white.

They are painted white for the same reason that statues of the buddha made in China have chinese eyes when he was in fact Indian. Because people often identify better with those who look like them and that extends to holy figures.

[Martyn*]

The icons of Mary which show her wearing a headscarf is a representation of the ideal wife and mother. The covering of the hair is seen as the covering of shame. I think the colour blue - the colour of her robes - was used because it was associated with royalty, and she was Theotokos, afterall. But I think because the first images of the blue robed mary come from the Byzantine era, I think that the blue was used in this depiction because of its association with sorrow.

[Skip_Snip]

She'd just washed her hair so wrapped it up, and he was ready for bed

[Indo-Chinese Food]

because these are ancient semetic clothing traditions adopted by early middle ages christians (and muslims)

[M'Ling]

Check his Facebook Timeline.

[FunkeyMunkey]

If you saw a man white a white long gown and a big beard and a woman with her hair covered you'd probably think they were a Muslim wouldn't you? lol

[jimcatinnes]

(Original post by qwerty_mad)
I have not seen a picture of Mary, mother of Jesus, in a picture where her hair is showing. And in all the drawings of Jesus, he is wearing a long white gown and has a rather big beard.

Why is this?

Mary was Jewish, I think married Jewish women need to cover their hair.

[bottled]

tbh, one thing is for sure.
Jesus ain't white, he'll be more asian as he live in the east

[big-bang-theory]

(Original post by qwerty_mad)
I have not seen a picture of Mary, mother of Jesus, in a picture where her hair is showing. And in all the drawings of Jesus, he is wearing a long white gown and has a rather big beard.

Why is this?

Just stylistic standards to indicate who they are in images through the history of art. Likewise the concept of a gold ring depicting a holy person, the various animals that accompany the gospel writers, john the baptists waist-coat etc. etc.

Nothing of religious significance it's just how artists particularly in the renaissance depicted characters to make them known without clearly naming them. Monsters and heroes had very similar standardising in the ancient world on pots and in statues before.

[cyfer]

(Original post by qwerty_mad)
I have not seen a picture of Mary, mother of Jesus, in a picture where her hair is showing. And in all the drawings of Jesus, he is wearing a long white gown and has a rather big beard.

Why is this?

Romanticised Renaissance artwork.

Modern studies have found that Jesus more probably had a bulgy-ish, wide-set heads like other skeletons from that period in that region have been.