Touched by ‘hand of God,’ painting reveals Jesus’ face
Artwork on display at special mass
Giancarlo Cesari, a retired Kirkland businessman, has enjoyed some success since he took up painting about 10 years ago as a hobby and began exhibiting his work locally at community art shows.
But none of the success has come close to the fanfare that now surrounds one of his paintings, an abstract done in oil. Late last month, the painting was put on display at the front of the altar at Montreal’s St. Joseph’s Oratory for a special thanksgiving mass attended by close to 500 people, among them Cesari’s family and friends.
Called The Face of Jesus, the painting appears to be a random mishmash of bold strokes in vibrant colours, until a closer examination reveals an image in the lower centre-right, an image that some believe to be the face of Jesus.
What’s even more remarkable, Cesari said, is he never intended to paint the Christian saviour.
To be sure, this is not the first time that celebrated images of Jesus have appeared in various places and on various materials — ranging from the Shroud of Turin, to more innocuous mediums, such as a piece of burnt toast in 2006. The Internet is littered with images of Christ found in cloud patterns, ice on window panes and trees.
But when it happens to you, Cesari said, it’s something altogether different.
“Everyone said, ‘Giancarlo, you made the face of Jesus,’ ” he recounted. “Some called it a miracle.
“I can’t take credit,” he said, in an interview last week. “This is not an artist’s work. It is the hand of God.”
The 62-year-old said the painting was done late one night when he was simply trying to use up some excess paint. With spatula in hand, he wiped up what paint was left on his palette and randomly did some bold strokes on a piece of board.
He only spotted the Jesus image three months later, after his photographer friend, Gilbert Laurin, had taken pictures of close to 50 of his paintings, including what became The Face of Jesus, for a YouTube video, to publicize a solo exhibition he was having at the Kirkland Public Library.
“I thought I had drank too much cognac,” Cesari said of noticing the Jesus image.
He said only after several of his friends saw Jesus in the painting as well, including Matthew Pathyil, did he start to feel there was something special in the artwork, and allowed the experience to transform him.
“It has made him a whole new person,” said Pathyil, a lay minister at St. Edmund of Canterbury, a Catholic Church in Beaconsfield, and at St. Joseph’s once a month for a special mass for South Indian worshippers.
Pathyil said he has witnessed an amazing transformation in his friend, a renewed faith in God and interest in serving others, including at a soup kitchen in Montreal East.
A passion for painting was one of the things Cesari’s wife and children least expected of him. He is a former Hyundai car dealership owner and had never painted in his life. Mark Anthony Cesari said his father only enrolled in a painting course because “he was left with plenty of time on his hands” after retiring in his early 50s for health reasons.
“This course turned into a passion, a passion that has taken my father from never painting before to being honoured by having a painting permanently placed in St. Joseph’s Oratory,” his son said.
Cesari gave a copy of the painting to Jomon Kalladanthyil, the priest who presided over the thanksgiving mass held at the Oratory on March 23. In an email to The Gazette, Kalladanthyil said he has since donated the painting to the museum at the oratory.
“I believe that Jesus Christ reveals himself to all people who open their hearts and eyes to faith,” Kalladanthyil wrote. “For Giancarlo, it was a unique occasion to express his faith experience in Christ, through his art.”