Andrea Kirsh blogs about the exhibition Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) on view through October 30, 2011.

The exhibition centers around Rembrandt's refusal to paint Jesus according to convention.  Kirsch writes: "around 1648… [Rembrandt] broke with the convention, well-established in Western Europe… of portraying Christ as fair haired with aquiline features – more or less a visual descendent of a Greek god. Rembrandt looked to his Jewish neighbors in Amsterdam for a more likely model."

The show includes paintings, drawings and prints as well as works by Rembrandt's pupils.