The French artist Georges Rouault began his career as an apprentice in a studio for stained-glass restoration, an experience that influenced his painting style—easily recognized by the use of color and the distinctive black outlines on his figures. At the age of thirty he underwent a deep conversion, informed by his discovery of Christ. Filled with disdain for the hypocrisy of bourgeois religion, he was determined to celebrate Christ’s presence among the poor, the suffering, and sinners.

Aside from explicitly religious themes, Rouault constantly returned to three settings: the brothel, the circus, and the courtroom. Each offered an opportunity to reflect on the themes of sin, hypocrisy, and judgment, and thus, in the pathos of the human condition, suggesting a symbolic link with the passion of Christ. “All of my work is religious,” he said, “for those who know how to look at it.”

Painting for Rouault was a form of personal prayer. Nevertheless, in 1948 he shared with the public his most personal work, the fruit of twenty years of labor. Entitled Miserere, it is a series of fifty-eight engravings based on the passion and death of Christ. It is one of the great christological statements of the century. Still, recognition of Rouault’s importance as a religious artist was slow in coming. In 1953 he was named a papal knight by Pope Pius XII. He died on February 13, 1958.

“My only ambition is to be able one day to paint Christ so movingly that those who see Him will be converted.”

—Georges Rouault